Decision-making in the hidden judiciary: A study of state and federal administrative law judges

This dissertation examines the behavioral motivations of state and federal administrative law judges, a seldom studied but important set of governmental actors. It tests two alternative theoretical models developed from literature on judicial decision-making. The first, the "strategic action" model, reflects the premise that judicial actors are primarily strategic actors and their attitudes about decisional independence are largely a function of the types and degrees of protections they receive from external influence. The second perspective, the "selection articulation" model, reflects the view that judicial actors' attitudes about their own decisional independence are in major part a product of the selection and recruitment processes which brought them to their position.; To test the explanatory power of each of these two models attitudinal data were collected through a fax survey of 526 ALJs serving in both central panel agencies and independent agencies in the states of Washington and Oregon, and in the federal government. Analysis reveals only marginal support for the strategic action model. The selection articulation model performs much better, accounting for roughly twice the variance accounted for by the strategic action multivariate model. Identifying who was instrumental in prompting the ALJs to seek their positions and specifying the degree of competition involved in an ALJ's selection enables prediction of the judicial role orientation ALJs are inclined to adopt.; Additional insight was gained through in-depth interviews with a cross-section of 18 ALJs. An important insight gained from the interviews was the observation that nearly all ALJs believed strongly in their own decisional independence (as a key feature of service to the public interest) and ALJs resented any perceived "encroachments" by outside parties. It is concluded that while the selection process of ALJs affects the role orientation of ALJs, such an effect only comes into play as a complement to a more fundamental grounding in legal training through which one learns the norms of the judicial officer.