Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
9-2026
Abstract
In public debate, the federal bureaucracy is not typically praised for its democratic credentials. Consisting of a wide array of agencies staffed by a permanent civil service and governed by detailed regulations, the administrative state is more likely to be portrayed as a bastion of red tape and unelected power. To hear members of the Supreme Court tell it, for example, the administrative state’s “unaccountable bureaucrats” and “vast power[s]” pose a dire threat to constitutional democracy that only expanded presidential control can solve. President Trump has offered an even darker view, attacking a “deep state” of entrenched government officials as seeking to undermine his agenda and the popular will.
Disciplines
Administrative Law | Constitutional Law | Law | President/Executive Department
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Gillian E. Metzger,
Democracy Needs the Administrative State,
Democracy's Challenges: 100 Ideas, Bob Bauer, Richard Pildes, Rosa Po & Samuel Issacharoff (Eds.), NYU Press
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4883
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, President/Executive Department Commons
Comments
File includes extracted endnotes (p. 444-445).