Prerequisites: None

Exam Type: In-Class

This course will examine the legal controls on government regulation, in areas as diverse as environmental law, national security, communications, foreign affairs, taxation, labor-management relations, and much more. Pervasive questions will involve the constitutional legitimacy of “the regulatory state”; the procedures that are supposed to improve and discipline agency decisions; the right to a hearing; the role of cost-benefit analysis; and the allocation of power between regulators and judges. A distinctive feature of the course will be frequent focus on democratic theory, on regulatory policy, and on how administrative law can actually make society work better or worse.