Strategic Lobbying and the Pressure to Compromise Member Interests

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110617
Author(s):  
Thomas T. Holyoke
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Making Choices ◽  
Using Data

Do lobbyists always advocate for the interests of the members or clients employing them, or, under competing pressures, do they sometimes take positions on bills reflecting the interests of lawmakers or other lobbyists? Do they, in fact, lobby strategically by making choices that balance competing pressures in pursuit of goals like furthering their careers? Most lobbying research assumes that interest groups and lobbyists are the same, but I argue that the interests of lobbyists may be different from those they represent, which I test with a model of strategic lobbying using data on positions lobbyists took on bills in Congress from 2006 to 2017 made available by MapLight. I find that lobbyists sometimes do take positions at odds with member interests under pressure from legislators, other lobbyists, and the president, though some groups can constrain their lobbyists. I conclude by speculating on what this means for lobbying as a form of representation.

Legislative Decision-Making

2021 ◽  
pp. 83-108
Author(s):  
Neilan S. Chaturvedi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Logic Model ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
Legislative Decision

Chapter 4 examines the logic used by moderates in determining how to vote on legislation. Using interview data from six retired senators, Chapter 4 examines the pressures they face, both within the chamber with party leadership and outside the chamber with constituents and interest groups. While conventional wisdom would dictate that moderates vote only for legislation that they find palatable, and vote against all else, using data collected by Project Vote Smart capturing the issue positions of many senators, we see that all too often this is not the case—centrists get “railroaded” by leaders and vote with the majority, even when the legislation goes against their stated position. Using voting decisions on key votes and publicly stated positions by senators, the chapter then creates a logic model that illustrates how moderates decide how to vote on legislation.

New Empirical Evidence of the Role of Interest Groups in Influencing the Growth of Government

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Gary A. Wagner ◽  
Russell S. Sobel
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Action Committees ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Evidence

Abstract We provide new evidence regarding the role of interest groups in influencing the size and growth of government spending. Using data on the change in individual legislators’ total voted and sponsored spending from the status quo, we explore this relationship in a manner closer to the public choice tradition. Examining the impact diat interest groups have on individual legislators’ preferences for new spending, we find that interest groups within a legislator’s district exhibit more influence on the short-run growth of the budget than do Political Action Committees.

Structure and Activities of Rape Crisis Centers in the Early 1980s

1985 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Gornick ◽  
Martha R. Burt ◽  
Karen J. Pittman
Keyword(s):  
Human Services ◽  
Community Education ◽  
Financial Security ◽  
Human Services Agencies ◽  
Making Choices ◽  
Rape Crisis Center ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Many ◽  
Rape Crisis

Using data from a nationally representative sample of 50 rape crisis centers, this article investigates the range of center types, services offered, staffing, involvement in community networks, funding and affiliation with criminal justice, counseling, and human services agencies. The evolution of the rape crisis center from the few prototype centers opened in 1972 to the many different models existing today is traced. The most important finding is that rape crisis centers today do not fall neatly into types. Rather, they have developed to fit their communities, making choices about whom to serve, where to locate a service, how to work with other agencies in the community, how, when, and where to do community education, and how to establish financial security. A decision about one such dimension does not necessarily predict what the decision will be about the other dimensions.

scholarly journals Bureaucratic Minimal Squawk Behavior: Theory and Evidence from Regulatory Agencies

2009 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 572-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Leaver
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Public Utility ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Behavior Theory ◽  
The Public ◽  
Using Data

This paper develops a model in which a desire to avoid criticism prompts otherwise public-spirited bureaucrats to behave inefficiently. Decisions are taken to keep interest groups quiet and to keep mistakes out of the public eye. The policy implications of this “minimal squawk” behavior are at odds with the view that agencies should be structured to minimize the threat of “capture.” An empirical test using data from US State Public Utility Commissions rejects the capture hypothesis and is consistent with the squawk hypothesis: longer PUC terms of office are associated with a higher incidence of rate reviews and lower household electricity bills. (JEL D73, L51, L97, L98)

scholarly journals Disease Politics and Medical Research Funding

2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 780-803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Kahn Best
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Medical Research ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Research Priority ◽  
Direct Benefits ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Disease Advocacy ◽  
Aggregate Effects ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Policy Arenas

In the 1980s and 1990s, single-disease interest groups emerged as an influential force in U.S. politics. This article explores their effects on federal medical research priority-setting. Previous studies of advocacy organizations’ political effects focused narrowly on direct benefits for constituents. Using data on 53 diseases over 19 years, I find that in addition to securing direct benefits, advocacy organizations have aggregate effects and can systemically change the culture of policy arenas. Disease advocacy reshaped funding distributions, changed the perceived beneficiaries of policies, promoted metrics for commensuration, and made cultural categories of worth increasingly relevant to policymaking.

scholarly journals By Invitation Only: Controlling Interest Group Access to the Oval Office

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 221-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Holyoke
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
White House ◽  
The Public ◽  
Senior Administration ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Ideological Congruence ◽  
Face Time ◽  
Interest Group Influence

Does the exchange model used to explain interest group influence with Congress and the bureaucracy hold leverage over patterns of lobbyist contact with the president? In this paper I argue that there is good reason to believe that it does not. Rather, I argue that the president and his immediate staff often keep interest groups at arm’s length. Instead of being able to acquire face time with senior administration staff to press their own cases, lobbyists are largely granted access only when they are needed to build support for the president’s policy agenda in Congress or with the public. Using data drawn in part from the 1996 filings of interest groups under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, I analyze lobbyists’ contact with the White House to learn what types of circumstances appear to drive contact between interest groups and the president. The evidence suggests that the president-interest group connection is largely determined by the White House based on ideological congruence rather than a two-way flow of communication and influence.

scholarly journals THE ELECTORAL CLOUT OF UNIONS IN JAPAN: VOTE MOBILIZATION IN COMPANY TOWNS

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87
Author(s):  
Fumi Ikeda
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Voter Mobilization ◽  
Company Towns ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Industrial Unions

AbstractInterest groups and other organizations are crucial vehicles for voter mobilization, but variations in their capacities are not well understood. To clarify the ways in which vote mobilization capacities vary, I analyze vote mobilization in two private-sector industrial unions supporting the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The Japanese Federation of Textile, Chemical, Food, Commercial Service and General Workers’ Union (UA Zensen), has a very large membership but mobilizes few votes. The Confederation of Japan Automobile Worker's Unions (JAW), on the other hand, has fewer members but mobilizes more votes. In this article, I argue that unions whose constituent units operate company towns are most successful in mobilizing votes. Organizational capacity –independent of membership size – matters in the electoral arena. Using data from House of Councillors elections, I show that those industrial unions that include many enterprises with company towns have advantage in voter mobilization.

Sampling Social Movement Organizations*

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth T. Andrews ◽  
Bob Edwards ◽  
Akram Al-Turk ◽  
Anne Kristen Hunter
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Organizational Characteristics ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Peak List ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Movement Organizations

Scholars of nonprofits, interest groups, civic associations, and social movement organizations employ samples of organizations derived from directories or other available listings. In most cases, we are unable to evaluate the representativeness of these samples. Using data on the population of environmental organizations in North Carolina, we assess the methodological strengths and weaknesses of widely used strategies. We find that reliance on any single source yields bias on theoretically important characteristics of organizations. We show that scholars can reduce bias significantly by combining sources, creating what we call a “peak list” compiled from different types of sources. Compared to any single source, our peak list differed less from the population on the thirty-one organizational characteristics including geographical coverage, issues, discursive frames, targets, and organizational demographics such as age, organizational form, and resources. From these analyses, we offer methodological recommendations for making better-informed decisions for constructing representative organizational samples.

Dr Marsh on Olson: A Comment

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Shackleton
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
British Industry ◽  
Mancur Olson ◽  
Using Data

In a recent article (‘On Joining Interest Groups: An Empirical Consideration of the Works of Mancur Olson Jr.’, this Journal, VI (1976), 257–72), David Marsh has attempted to test Mancur Olson's hypotheses concerning the rationale for individual or corporate membership of interest groups by using data from a study of the Confederation of British Industry. It is the purpose of this Note to defend Professor Olson's broad theoretical approach from some of Dr Marsh's criticisms. Olson applies the insights of established economic analysis to political theory; it is not his methodology which represents an innovation, but rather the use to which it is put. A defence of Olson's approach is, then, of necessity to some extent a more general defence of economic analysis.

Diversity and Minority Interest Group Advocacy in Congress

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 208-220
Author(s):  
Michael D. Minta
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Civil Rights Organizations ◽  
Colored People ◽  
Congressional Committees ◽  
Public Charities ◽  
Committee Membership ◽  
Using Data

This paper examines the role that racial and ethnic diversity plays in improving the legislative success of minority interest groups. Relying on campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures to explain minority interest groups’ influence on legislators’ behavior is not sufficient, because most minority organizations are public charities, or 501(c)(3) organizations, and as such are both banned by federal law from making candidate contributions and limited in how much they can spend on federal lobbying. I argue, however, that the inclusion of more blacks and Latinos on congressional committees enhances the lobbying influence—and thus the legislative success—of civil rights organizations in Congress. Using data from lobbying disclosure reports on bills supported by black American and Latino civil rights groups in the 110th Congress (2007–2008) and 111th Congress (2009–2010), as well as House markup data, I find that National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCR), and UnidosUS-supported bills referred to House committees with greater proportions of racial and ethnic minorities received more markups than did bills referred to House committees with less diversity. Diversity is significant in predicting committee attention even when accounting for possible confounding factors, including committee jurisdiction and the ideological composition of committee membership.

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