It would be helpful if Congress took a larger role in the regulatory process (I know … just a fantasy). They should formally review the regulations promulgated by each agency, preferably annually, and accept, reject or modify them. That acceptance would make the regs an official legislative act and take SCOTUS and POTUS out of the loop. After all, Congress is delegating its authority to the agency experts to create regulations implementing Congressional legislative intent. Therefore Congress needs to have a robust feedback loop to declare “yes, this was our intent”.
I think that has been part of the genius of Pete Buttigieg, and the Department of Transportation. Their campaign on Instagram and TikTok has been amazing at showing the breadth of what the department does. I wish the EPA had such an amazing spokesperson
Thank you for bringing this paper to my attention. It is a fine discussion, for which I'm glad the authors brought up the publicity rider that's in nearly every appropriation and many authorizations (the 1951 Smith Amendment, which isn't completely unrelated to the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, which may confuse some, but not the authors, thanksfully). From my experience over the past about two decades, the authors really hit the nail on the head with their assessment that agencies are challenged in their ability "to publicize their own accomplishments and successes due to a range of legal, political, and resource constraints". If I had been a reader of a draft, I would have linked an accurate point made in the paragraph before this line to this statement: the failure to communicate limits the public's awareness of the very purpose of some agencies, not just of what they've done and any successes. The point here is relevance to the taxpayer. As a listener of old time radio programs from the 1940s and 1950s, the number of "commercials" (or perhaps PSAs, or likely more accurately paid-for PSAs) that explain the purpose of some government agency is no longer surprising to my ears. And it wasn't just these PSAs, but, for example, NBC's University of the Air is another example of a broadcast forum to discuss government agencies and their policies in a public space. On the flipside, the authors' discussion around "propaganda" miss what I call the propaganda of propaganda. The link to Cornell's LII discussion of "publicity or propaganda" is a typical example of the propaganda of (the word) propaganda. The highly contextualized GAO definition is really supremely limiting and reveals the problematic nature of the word. Without getting into a long discussion here, the point of "Self-aggrandizement" being an "agency intentionally overstating its own importance" is highly subjective and political. Regardless of this common problem, thank you again for highlighting this paper which I am sure I'll be referencing.
It would be helpful if Congress took a larger role in the regulatory process (I know … just a fantasy). They should formally review the regulations promulgated by each agency, preferably annually, and accept, reject or modify them. That acceptance would make the regs an official legislative act and take SCOTUS and POTUS out of the loop. After all, Congress is delegating its authority to the agency experts to create regulations implementing Congressional legislative intent. Therefore Congress needs to have a robust feedback loop to declare “yes, this was our intent”.
Good post, although I will push back on the claim that executive branch agenices are much constrained by the statutory provisions re: publicity and propaganda. I just do not find evidence that agencies are holding back on touting their policy successes or their policy wants: https://kevinrkosar.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Hamilton-Kosar-white-paper-on-propaganda-2016.pdf Mordecai Lee of UWM has a great book on this topic: https://amzn.to/3MuXmQC
I think that has been part of the genius of Pete Buttigieg, and the Department of Transportation. Their campaign on Instagram and TikTok has been amazing at showing the breadth of what the department does. I wish the EPA had such an amazing spokesperson
Thank you for bringing this paper to my attention. It is a fine discussion, for which I'm glad the authors brought up the publicity rider that's in nearly every appropriation and many authorizations (the 1951 Smith Amendment, which isn't completely unrelated to the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, which may confuse some, but not the authors, thanksfully). From my experience over the past about two decades, the authors really hit the nail on the head with their assessment that agencies are challenged in their ability "to publicize their own accomplishments and successes due to a range of legal, political, and resource constraints". If I had been a reader of a draft, I would have linked an accurate point made in the paragraph before this line to this statement: the failure to communicate limits the public's awareness of the very purpose of some agencies, not just of what they've done and any successes. The point here is relevance to the taxpayer. As a listener of old time radio programs from the 1940s and 1950s, the number of "commercials" (or perhaps PSAs, or likely more accurately paid-for PSAs) that explain the purpose of some government agency is no longer surprising to my ears. And it wasn't just these PSAs, but, for example, NBC's University of the Air is another example of a broadcast forum to discuss government agencies and their policies in a public space. On the flipside, the authors' discussion around "propaganda" miss what I call the propaganda of propaganda. The link to Cornell's LII discussion of "publicity or propaganda" is a typical example of the propaganda of (the word) propaganda. The highly contextualized GAO definition is really supremely limiting and reveals the problematic nature of the word. Without getting into a long discussion here, the point of "Self-aggrandizement" being an "agency intentionally overstating its own importance" is highly subjective and political. Regardless of this common problem, thank you again for highlighting this paper which I am sure I'll be referencing.