Assistant Professor Rachel Augustine Potter has been selected to serve as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States. Alongside Bridget C.E. Dooling, Research Professor at the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, Potter will study the use of contractors in the rulemaking process.

ACUS is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government charged with convening expert representatives from the public and private sectors to recommend improvements to administrative process and procedure.

“The private sector is increasingly providing services to government.  Our study will be the first to evaluate the ways that federal agencies employ private sector contractors in rulemaking, a critically important policymaking process,” said Professor Potter.  “I am grateful that ACUS has given us this opportunity and I am thrilled to be partnering with Bridget Dooling, a leading expert in this area.” Professors Potter and Dooling have both served in government and now study rulemaking procedures and institutions, giving them practical and scholarly expertise to draw upon as they study this topic.

Professor Potter’s research focuses on the politics of the executive branch, with a particular focus on the bureaucracy and regulation. Her book Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy (University of Chicago Press, 2019) received the Louis Brownlow Book Award, the Theodore J. Lowi Book Award, and the Richard Neustadt Book Award.  Her other research has appeared in the Journal of Politics, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Journal of Public Policy, among other outlets.  She has testified before Congress and is a regular contributor to the Brookings Institution’s Series on Regulatory Process and Perspective.