When an agency’s mission narrows, oversight can lapse without being reassigned

Evidence

Over time, however, TVA increasingly became a regional agency with private business-like interests. This shift from national to regional mission was not matched by a shift in mechanisms of accountability (Hargrove, 1994, pp. 299–300). Whereas Congress and the Office of Management and Budget lost their grip on the TVA, democratic institutions at the state level did not gain control: the TVA operated in a political vacuum. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 271

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: accountability vacuums form at jurisdictional seams — nobody inherits oversight when an institution stops being national.