Privatization and the Freedom of Information Act: An Analysis of Public Access to Private Entities Under Federal Law

Congress drafted the Freedom of Information Act to ensure that the public would always be able to keep track of the events happening behind governmental agency doors. In an age of privatization of governmental services in the name of efficiency, the Act needs to be adapted to ensure that its original purpose remains sound. Thus far, courts have not kept pace with this purpose by interpreting agency and agency record under the Act too narrowly. This may very well result in government secrecy as services are farmed out to entities not covered under the Act. This Article analyzes the various approaches under the Freedom of Information Act and suggests that a test focusing on the public function of the entity or the nature of the information in its records, rather than their technical location or the attributes of the entity holding them will preserve congressional intent and comport with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act

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Governance Delegation Agreements: Shared Sovereignty as a Substitute for Limited Statehood

Governance delegation agreements-international treaties allowing external actors legal authority within host states for fixed terms-succeed in simple and, under certain conditions, complex state-building tasks. These deals are well institutionalized and have input legitimacy because ratification requires sufficient domestic support from a ruling coalition. In order to obtain that input legitimacy, however, host states constrain external actors commensurate with their level of statehood: Stronger states delegate less legal authority. This article argues that these constraints, which produce joint rather than complete authority, require external actors to work within state structures rather than substituting for them, and thus make coordination of complex tasks more difficult. A quantitative overview of data on consent-based peacekeeping missions complements a qualitative analysis focused on comparative case studies in Melanesia and Central America to test the theory. The results support the theory and suggest that these deals hold promise particularly for accomplishing complex tasks in especially weak states