The E-rulemaking In American Administrative Law

In the context of information revolution and expansion of executive power, the traditional methods of rulemaking have declined. In order to satisfy the public’s growing demand for an efficient and transparent government, effective public participation and rulemaking legitimacy, governments of many countries around the world have begun the exploration and practice of e-rulemaking system. Undoubtedly, the United States is the most experienced among them.American e-rulemaking was launched at the end of the twentieth century and after Clinton, Bush and the Obama administration, the first generation of federal e-rulemaking system has evolved into the e-Rulemaking 2.0 pattern. The e-rulemaking system is assisted by many laws and executive orders etc. and it can increase public participation, strengthen rulemaking legitimacy and reduce government administrative cost.American e-rulemaking process is based on government portal websites and newfangled social media. The construction and improvement of these two platforms have become the main tasks of U.S. federal government, which involves a lot of useful exploration into the promotion of interactivity, the protection of confidential information and the friendly interface design of websites and so on. The newfangled social media-assisted and more interactive e-Rulemaking 2.0 pattern is now favored by the political and academic circles. Although American academia differ in their attitudes towards e-rulemaking and the voices of question and support co-exist, this is unobstructive in continuously proceeding the e-rulemaking process.China and the United States find great difference in such aspects as history, politics, economy and culture etc., but now our country is faced with the same test of information era, namely how to better apply information technology to promote the rulemaking. Although our government has begun the process of e-rulemaking at this stage, there are still many deficiencies. Thus, we can learn from the United States’ gain and loss in this aspect. I advise to systematically improve the level of our country’s e-rulemaking from five aspects –institutional safeguard, website construction, new media application, public participation improvement and the perfection of law, and then help to achieve the “Chinese Dream”.