Shifting Alliances in the Accreditation of Higher Education: On the ...

One useful element of the life cycle theory of regulatory agencies is that it
acknowledges the possibility that an agency‘s goals and/or methods may change over
time. Failure to recognize this possibility can easily lead to the fallacy of intention, which
is the common mistake of attempting to infer the intentions of regulators solely by the
effects of the regulation. 24
Finally, another variation of private interest theory is interest-group politics,
which occurs when two or more small groups compete to influence the creation of
regulation. James Q. Wilson suggests that interest-group politics are most likely to occur
when a subsidy or regulation is likely to ―benefit a relatively small group at the expense
of another comparably small group.‖ 25 In such cases, the general public seldom involves
itself one way or the other because there is a perception, which may or may not be correct,
that they are not going to be strongly affected either way. In the accreditation case study,
the higher education community has been accused of using the accreditation system to
discriminate against proprietary schools and to raise barriers of entry against new
colleges and universities. If true, this would be a clear example of interest-group politics.
The proprietary schools, too, have also been accused of interest-group politics because of
their recent lobbying of the federal government to create regulation that would directly
benefit them but would disadvantage the rest of the postsecondary education community.
24 Barry M. Mitnick, ―Review: Myths of Creation and Fables of Administration: Explanation and the
Strategic Use of Regulation,‖ Public Administration Review 40, No. 3 (May-June, 1980): 275-286.
Reviewed Works: The Smoking Paradox: Public Regulation in the Cigarette Industry by Gideon Doron;
The Regulation Game: Strategic Use of the Administrative Process by Bruce M. Owen and Ronald
Braeutigam; Social Movements and the Legal System: A Theory of Law Reform and Social Change by Joel
F. Handler; The Environmental Protection Hustle by Bernard J. Frieden.
25 James Q. Wilson. ―The Politics of Regulation.‖ In The Politics of Regulation, edited by James Q. Wilson.
Basic Books: New York (1980): 368.
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