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 law's 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 law's demand for reasoned administration structures administrative decision-making, empowers actors within and outside the government, and supports a complex vision of democratic self-rule.

1. Why reasons; 2. The rise of reason giving; 3. Reasons, reasonableness and accountability in American administrative law: the basic legal framework; 4. Reasonableness, accountability and the control of administrative policy; 5. Reasons, reasonableness and judicial review; 6. Reasons, administration and politics; 7. Reasoned administration and democratic legitimacy; 8. Reason and regret.

Jerry L. Mashaw is Sterling Professor of Law Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer at Yale Law School. He is the author of many award-winning books including Creating the Administrative Constitution: The Lost One Hundred Years of American Administrative Law (2012), Bureaucratic Justice: Managing Social Security Disability Claims (1983), and Greed, Chaos, and Governance: Using Public Choice to Improve Public Law (1997). Professor Mashaw has lectured at numerous foreign universities and served as a consultant for US and foreign government agencies and foundations.