Reasoned Administration and Democratic Legitimacy: How Administrative Law Supports Democratic Government

Reasoned Administration and Democratic Legitimacy: How Administrative Law Supports Democratic Government explores the fundamental bases for the legitimacy of the modern administrative state. While some have argued that modern administrative states are a threat to liberty and at war with democratic governance Jerry L. Mashaw demonstrates that in fact reasoned administration is more respectful of rights and equal citizenship and truer to democratic values than lawmaking by either courts or legislatures. His account features the laws demand for reason giving and reasonableness as the crucial criterion for the legality of administrative action. In an argument combining history sociology political theory and law this book demonstrates how administrative laws demand for reasoned administration structures administrative decision-making empowers actors within and outside the government and supports a complex vision of democratic self-rule.