Temporary Accidents?
Regulation and Public Interests: The Possibility of Good Regulatory Government. By Steven P. Croley. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2007. Pp. xii, 379. Cloth, $65; paper, $27.95.
There is no hidden agenda in Steven Croley’s new book. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words appear in the book’s concluding pages. Administrative tribunals, Roosevelt claimed in 1940, leveled the playing field between “a powerful and concentrated interest” and “a diversified mass of individuals” (p. 304). Croley’s book likewise defends regulatory agencies from their modern-day public choice critics. And it does so for the reason Roosevelt identified: agencies are able to resist the demands of special interests and regulate on behalf of the public. Croley’s book is careful and scholarly, but it is also a spirited defense of regulatory government.