Minimalism, Experimentalism and the Regulation of Risk: A Reply to Sabel and Simon

Abstract

Experimentalism is an increasingly important trend in the study and practice of administrative law. Over the course of the past decade, exponents of Experimentalism have presented a comprehensive critique of the centralized administrative state. Alongside this critique, they have advanced their own agenda for sweeping regulatory reform. This agenda calls for the devolution of decisionmaking to local units, which then adopt “rolling rules” (or “rolling best practices”) that evolve as new information on policy outcomes emerges. These elements of Experimentalist regimes stand in contradistinction to two features that characterized public administration through much of the twentieth century: the centralization of authority and the reliance on proceduralized rulemaking.