The Pragmatic-administrative approach - tends to see both markets and governments as the best of all possible options. Instead of dealing with the normative and philosophical questions that are involved in regulation, the proponents of this approach are concentrating on the study of the empirical, day-to-day problems of regulation as a system of governance.

One example of this approach may be demonstrated by Marver Bernstein's analysis of the Life Cycle of Regulatory Commissions. I'll use Barry Mitnick's discussion in order to present this approach.

Marver H. Bernstein (1955) has argued that although there are "unique elements" in the experience of each agency, "the history of commissions reveals a general pattern of evolution more or less characteristic of all" with "roughly similar periods of growth, maturity, and decline". The length of periods may vary across commissions, and periods may sometimes be skipped, but there is yet a "rhythm of regulation" that suggests a "natural life style" (Bernstein 1955:74). Of note is Bernstein's argument that the cycle can repeat in the same agency. Four periods are identified: gestation, youth, maturity, and old age (see figure below).

Gestation may require twenty or more years, in which a rising distress leads to the formation or activation of groups who demand legislative remedy to protect their interests. After a struggle, a statute containing "vague language" and reflecting "unsettled national economic policy" is passed. It is a compromise, which largely succeeds in passage only because of crisis or near-crisis conditions. Groups desiring the regulation want immediate relief from abuses of business, and do not consider longer-range goals or policy in the area. The statute will often be out-of-date because of the length of the struggle (Bernstein 1955:74-79).

During the second phase, Youth, the agency is crusading and aggressive, and operates in a conflictual environment. Lacking administrative experience, possessing vague objectives and untested legal powers, the commission faces well-organized experienced opposition from the regulated groups. The agency quickly gets into litigation in order to determine the scope of its powers, but the legal proceedings are "highly specialized, technical, and frequently obscure" to the public. The regulated industry tries to determine appointments to the commission and tries to reward and punish regulators who are, respectively, for and against them. Loss of public support and political leadership for the regulation occurs as the groups that backed the regulation tire and retire from the field, believing "they have earned a rest from political turmoil;" as those who supported the legislation assume that administration of the statute will take care of itself; as defenses in the courts are technical and remain incomprehensible to the public; as the regulated industry begins to have success in changing public attitudes and in affecting the commissioners' attitudes as well by ways such as holding out the implicit promise of a future lucrative position in the regulated industry; as legislative champions find no advantage in continued advocacy and intra-party differences are smoothed over; and as the "inchoate, relatively unorganized (and frequently disorganized) public" is no match for cohesive industry groups; leaving the commission in "splendid isolation." The zeal of the commission in its youth itself arises to a large degree from "the general political setting," including the prevailing ideology of the proper role of government. This of course may be different for agencies created at different times. (Bernstein 1955:79-86)

In Maturity, the third phase, the agency undergoes a "process of devitalization." Lacking external Congressional and public support, the commission adjusts itself to the conflict it faces. It becomes more like a manager than a policeman, and more like the business managements it supposedly regulates, in viewpoint. It relies increasingly on precedent and routine; "precedent, rather than prospect, guides the

commission" Without external pressure, conflicts are avoided; the agency seeks to maintain good relations with the industry and to escape unpleasant interpersonal relations. In order to avoid trouble from charges of unfairness that may be substantiated during judicial review, the agency allows private parties easy challenge to its actions and spends most of its time in adjudication. Professionalism grows in the staff, but is parochial, and tends to encourage the emphasis on precedent. As a result of these factors, the agency develops a large backlog of cases. Congress and the Budget Office will not approve larger appropriations to hire staff to reduce the backlog because they believe the agency is not well-managed. Thus "the commission finally becomes a captive of the regulated groups." (Bernstein 1955:86-91).

Finally, in phase four, Old Age, the passivity and apathy of phase three "deepens into debility." The agency's procedures undergo sanctification. It develops a fixed "working agreement" with the regulated parties that leads to maintenance of the status quo and establishment of the agency as "recognized protector of the industry".

Congress and the Budget Office notice the debility of the commission and refuse additional aid, fearing that increased adherence to old procedures and policies rather than efficiency would result. The staff declines in quality, and the agency becomes more than ever dependent on the regulated industry for staff. The agency is poorly man aged and exhibits doubt about the objectives of regulation. The commissioners as a group develop "certain understandings among them which act as powerful deterrents to efforts to improve their managerial quality. The agency fails to keep up with changes in technology and economic organization, and is insensitive to its "wider political and social setting." Scandal or emergency, i.e., a crisis, can, however, by dramatically highlighting the failures of the regulation, trigger a new drive for regulation. The cycle repeats. (Bernstein 1955:91-95)

Although Bernstein's model is probably the classic statement of the regulatory cycle in the literature, it can be subject to a number of criticisms (see ,e.g., Sabatier 1975 for a discussion of some of these). Bernstein mixes description and explanation, sometimes requiring the reader to interpret reasons for the importance or relevance of a given factor or to reconstruct them from considerations of the rest of his argument and the examples. He is literary at the expense of logical, and tends to use metaphors and dramaturgical language that brighten the reading but add imprecision to the analysis. To some degree, this is a reflection of an older style of writing, but it does seem to interfere with specification of the model.

For example, Bernstein, after referring to the "trial by legal combat" that occurs during initial litigation of the regulatory statute, writes: "The arena in which the legitimacy of regulation is attacked and defended is highly specialized, technical, and frequently obscure Few non-lawyers are able to follow the legal proceedings, which appear pear incredulous or mysterious to the uninitiated" (Bernstein 1955:81-82).

One can infer that the significance of the obscurity of the legal process is that the general public is unable to follow the course of the litigation and offer support in the agency's fight against skilled utility lawyers. But Bernstein does not actually say this. Moreover, he does not state who the "uninitiated" are who are important to his model, nor does he specify what courts and/or what parts of the legal process are the subject of his comments. In addition, one can ask if Bernstein means that it is the legal process alone that is technical and obscure, or whether it is the subject of the litigation and the legal issues debated that are of this character? Or is it both? The difference is important to building one aspect of an explanation for the evolution of the agency.

Sometimes the difference between stages is unclear. In both phases three and four, for example, Congress and the Budget Office refuse additional appropriations, in Maturity because they believe the agency is not well-managed, and in Old Age because they fear increased adherence to old procedures and policies rather than efficiency will result (Bernstein 1955:90-93). It Is "not immediately apparent that Bernstein has made any real distinction here.

Interestingly, Bernstein's "working agreement" seems somewhat like "social contract". But Bernstein ignores tpossibility that the regulation was sought by the regulated party from the outset, for its own protection, an assumption that is central to the public-interest/social-contract perspective. Perhaps what appears with respect to consumer or "public interest" goals as debilitation is really only evidence of effective service and protection. As a number of writers on regulation have observed, regulation is often explicitly supposed to promote and protect the industry (e.g., Sabatier 1975:303)

In the end, any life cycle model requires empirical support. Bernstein offers anecdotal support using the federal agencies, but the generality of his model requires systematic support from the experience of agencies at other levels, as well as more careful and complete analysis of the careers of the federal agencies. Because Bernstein does not specify the length of any period subsequent to Gestation, however, it is hard to do this (Sabatier 1975:304). Would we really want to argue that an agency that, say, was apparently "vigorous" and "youthful," in Bernstein's language, for fifty years and then passed through Maturity and Old Age in five years, to be reborn in crisis as a youth agency, followed Bernstein's life cycle? Maybe it would be more accurate to describe such an agency as normally "youthful," and look for reasons other than an inherent life cycle for its occasional periods of debility. Similarly, an agency that seems perpetually in Maturity or Old Age may not be in a cycle. It may have essentially started out that way.

But Bernstein's life cycle model is intuitively appealing. The occurrence of initial activism, which soon fades, is a sufficiently remarked-upon phenomenon throughout regulation to suggest the existence of underlying pattern and explanation. Bernstein colors such a portrait well, if occasionally vague about the logic or the details.

(On the basis of Mitnick, 1980, p. 45-50, but with several changes).