Private Delegation: Agencies and the Outsourcing of Policy Implementation

• In Event: Making Use of the Market: Government Contracts and Outsourcing

Abstract

Increasingly, private contractors implement policy while executive agencies are responsible for managing outsourcing. Yet, little empirical work systematically considers the conditions under which agency authority is delegated to the private sector. We argue that political conditions as well as economic factors affect the decision to privatize. Our theory differentiates the incentive to privatize research, services, and products. More specifically, the paper contends that budgetary and political uncertainty affect the privatization of services while ideological conflict affects privatization of research. To test our theory, we built a novel dataset of agency outlays to the private sector through contracts by type between 1998 and 2017. With privatization, agency budgets reflect the division between resources for agency implementation and those directed to the private actors. From these data, we analyze the conditions under which privatization of services and research is more likely. Privatization has implications for the governing capacity and policy control.

Authors

• Kathleen Doherty, University of Southern California

• Pamela Clouser McCann, University of Southern California