Disputing And Regulatory Policy: The Example Of A State Public Utility Agency

The literature on policy making has largely ignored the formulation and implementation of policy when governmental agencies process citizen disputes. In this essay we provide an initial exploration of the dimensions of agency policy making and policy implementation during dispute processing. Using a case study of dispute processing by a state public utilities regulatory agency, it appears that dispute processing contributes to evolutionary policy formulation and implementation by providing a context for the incremental adjustment and legitimation of continuing policies, by sponsoring negotiations leading to the serial adaption of existing policies to new circumstances, and by screening disputes and sharpening the issues in disputes so they are amenable to policy development through agency adjudicatory procedures. The findings of the case study suggest that processing of citizen complaints flowing into the “bottom” of an agency is potentially as important as the politics of the rule making and licensing procedural contexts in the conduct of regulatory policy.