Replication Data for: "Participatory Unilateralism: Understanding Congress's Role in Presidential Unilateral Policymaking"

Recent scholarship highlights that executive orders issued by the president are not truly ‘unilateral,’ but require cooperation from administrative agencies for implementation. I argue that, because of this role for agencies, congressional committees can use oversight to shape executive order implementation. I demonstrate this dynamic using two datasets: a sample of executive orders that have been coded using measures of executive-branch delegation and discretion, and a collection of congressional hearings focusing on an executive order or its implementation. I find that Congress engages in more oversight activity when an order delegates more authority and a wider discretionary window to agencies. This finding reveals a previously overlooked form of interbranch conflict, and broadens our understanding of the politics of unilateralism.