Rachel Augustine Potter
Associate Professor of Politics, University of Virginia
Chapter Member: Virginia SSN
Areas of Expertise:
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About Rachel
Augustine Potter studies American politics with a focus on political institutions (especially the federal bureaucracy); regulation; and public policy. Her recent work examines how the separation of powers system affects bureaucratic policymaking.
Contributions
How Political Calculations Delay Important Regulations
Key Findings Brief,
In the News
Opinion: "The Trump Administration’s Regulatory Corner-Cutting isn’t Just Bad for Democracy—It’s a Bad Strategy," Rachel Augustine Potter, Brookings, November 20, 2018.
Quoted by Tony Wagner in "Counting Pages of Regulations is a Waste of Time (and Paper)," Marketplace, January 19, 2018.
Publications
"Organizational Capacity, Regulatory Review, and the Limits of Political Control" (with ). Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (forthcoming).
Argues that political and organizational factors, as well as the interaction between the two, are necessary for explaining executive policymaking.
"The Limits of Foreign Aid Diplomacy: How Bureaucratic Design Shapes Aid Distribution" (with ). International Studies Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2015): 544-556.
Highlights limits on the diplomatic use of foreign aid and emphasizes the importance of domestic institutional design. Yields insight into a broad range of policy domains - including international finance, immigration, and the application of economic sanctions - where multiple government agencies are in charge of implementing foreign policy.