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power and institutional issues
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power and political science
The principal-agent model represents situations in which a supervisor (principal) delegates a task to a supervisee (agent) who has specialized knowledge about the task but also has objectives that are different from those of the principal. This is what occurs, for example, between an employer and an employee, between legislators and bureaucrats, between regulators and regulated firms, between voters and public officials in a representative democracy, and between managers and stockholders. [Source: Encyclopedia of Power; Principal-Agent Relationship]
principal-agent relationship