scholarly journals Lobbying and Legislative Organization: The Effect of the Vote of Confidence Procedure

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Bennedsen ◽  
Sven E. Feldmann
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Time Horizon ◽  
Legislative Organization ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Willingness To Change ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
The U.S

This paper analyzes how the structure of the legislature affects interest groups' incentives to lobby. Lobbying is modelled as the strategic provision of information by an interest group to a multi-member legislature, and the effectiveness of lobbying lies in the ability of information to change the winning policy coalitions. We show that with a long enough time horizon for policymakers, the distinguishing feature between the U.S. Congress and European parliamentary systems—the vote of confidence procedure—reduces an agenda setter's willingness to change policy coalitions, and thus significantly lowers the incentives for interest group lobbying.

Public Policy Making and Interest Groups Politics in the U.S: An Analysis of IRCA

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang-Soo Choe
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Traditional Group ◽  
American Society ◽  
The U.S

Several theories have been introduced to explain American politics along the historical development of American society. It has been told that any one theory tends to prevail in explaining American politics at any given period. Is it possible then to describe the structure of American politics by any one theory? Which theory or theoretical perspective is valid to understand the U.S. policy making system in 1980s? The purpose of this paper is to show that American politics in any given period cannot be explained by any one prevalent theoretical framework. Despite the arguments between interest group stasis and “countervailing forces,” (McFarland 1992) some policy area can still be explained only by the traditional group theory framework. The Imigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 is a case in point. In the following, theoretical frameworks concerning policy formation will be presented first. Second, the process of IRCA formation will be briefly reviewed with special reference to the role of interest groups. Finally, by summarizing the gain and loss of each interest group, the characteristics of IRCA formation will be suggested.

scholarly journals Deriving Interest Group Ideology from Participation on Amicus Curiae Briefs

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 259-278
Author(s):  
Richard A. Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Amicus Curiae ◽  
Group Participation ◽  
The U.S

Many interest groups are known to be ideological actors. Some interest groups self-identify as liberal, progressive, or conservative, while others arguably possess ideologies which can be inferred from their policy platforms, rhetoric, or allies. To date, few attempts have been made to identify and quantify interest group ideology. This paper attempts to demonstrate interest group ideology by recovering one- and two-dimensional ideological mappings from group participation as amici curiae in cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999-2003. The results demonstrate that groups’ patterns of cooperation and disagreement across cases and years generate a valid and reliable ideological mapping and provides some initial evidence of ideological structuring of lobbying coalitions in amicus briefs.

Interest Groups and the Judiciary

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Collins
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Amicus Curiae ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Current State ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
The U.S

Interest groups play an important role in the legal system, participating in a wide array of cases as litigants, sponsors, amici curiae, and intervenors. This chapter provides a critical analysis of academic scholarship on interest group litigation, devoting particular attention to establishing the limitations of the current state of knowledge and providing suggestions for future research. This chapter demonstrates that, while there has been a great deal of research on some facets of social movement litigation, such as amicus curiae participation in the U.S. Supreme Court, others have been relatively unexplored, including investigations of coalition formation, venue selection, and extrajudicial lobbying. Thus, there are ample opportunities for future scholars to contribute to our understanding of planned litigation by organized interests.

Influence and the Administrative Process: Lobbying the U.S. President's Office of Management and Budget

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON F. HAEDER ◽  
SUSAN WEBB YACKEE
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Government Regulations ◽  
Administrative Process ◽  
Rule Change ◽  
Public Interest Groups ◽  
The U.S

All administrative processes contain points of entry for politics, and the U.S. president's use of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review government regulations is no exception. Specifically, OMB review can open up a pathway for interest groups to lobby for policy change. We theorize that interest group lobbying can be influential during OMB review, especially when there is consensus across groups. We use a selection model to test our argument with more than 1,500 regulations written by federal agencies that were subjected to OMB review. We find that lobbying is associated with change during OMB review. We also demonstrate that, when only business groups lobby, we are more likely to see rule change; however, the same is not true for public interest groups. We supplement these results with illustrative examples suggesting that interest groups can, at times, use OMB review to influence the content of legally binding government regulations.

Agricultural policy debates: Examining the alternative and conventional perspectives

1993 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 98-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis E. Beus ◽  
Riley E. Dunlap
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Agricultural Policy ◽  
Alternative Agriculture ◽  
Conventional Agriculture ◽  
Considerable Similarity ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Wide Range

AbstractControl of agricultural policymaking by the “agricultural establishment” has been challenged by a wide range of interests concerned with the externalities of modern industrialized agriculture. An “externalities/alternatives” or “ex/al” coalition appears to be an emerging force in agricultural policy debates. We surveyed three alternative agriculture groups, three conventional agriculture groups, and a statewide sample of farmers to learn whether each category forms a distinct, unified interest group whose perspectives on agricultural policy diverge substantially from the others'. There is considerable similarity among the alternative agriculture groups and among the conventional agriculture groups, the differences between them being much greater than the differences within each category. The statewide farmer sample is generally intermediate between the two sets of interest groups, but is closer to the conventional perspective on most issues.

Crisis Politics in Deficit Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-149
Author(s):  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Ari Ray ◽  
Nils Redeker
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
Labor Market Reform ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Group Position ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
External Actors ◽  
Crisis Responses

How did the preferences of interest groups shape the design and contentiousness of crisis policies in deficit countries? And how did external actors influence their crisis responses? This chapter investigates these questions by drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources including newspaper coverage, voter public opinion data, interest group position papers, sovereign bailout documentation, and original qualitative evidence from seventeen in-depth interviews with national interest group representatives in Ireland, Spain, and Greece. There was a large consensus among both interest groups and voters across all three countries that external adjustment—that is, unilateral euro exit—should be avoided at all cost. This left financing and internal adjustment as the only options, and significant conflicts flared up in all three countries about how the costs associated with internal adjustment (and to a lesser extent financing) should be distributed. Within the confines set by the Troika, which effectively narrowed down the range of options available to deficit countries, interest groups pushed for reforms to which they were least vulnerable. Business interests, for example, generally supported adopting comprehensive spending-based consolidation measures and labor market reform. Conversely, labor unions and social policy groups actively supported policies that would entail stronger burden-sharing between firms and workers. Overall, internal adjustment policies adopted across all three cases generally reflected the preferences of employer associations more than those of workers, but especially in Spain and Greece, this was associated with considerable political upheaval.

Distributive Conflict and Interest Group Preferences in Deficit Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 66-107
Author(s):  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Ari Ray ◽  
Nils Redeker
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Opportunity Costs ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Structural Reforms ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Group Preferences ◽  
Distributive Conflict ◽  
Original Survey

The politics of adjustment in deficit countries were characterized by strong domestic discontent, leading to significant political upheaval. Why did policymakers in these countries nonetheless implement unprecedented austerity and painful structural reforms? Zooming in on the domestic drivers of this adjustment choice, this chapter highlights mechanisms by which internal adjustment grew more politically feasible in deficit countries. The chapter draws on original survey data on the policy preferences of 359 economic interest groups in Ireland, Spain and Greece. It finds that while groups were consistently negative to a full range of scenarios by which external adjustment could be achieved in deficit countries, their preferences toward austerity measures and structural reforms varied much more widely. This variation, it is argued, facilitated the formation of pro-internal adjustment coalitions in deficit country contexts. Moreover, the chapter shows that opportunity costs mattered. While opposed to internal adjustment in absolute terms, a large majority of interest groups in deficit countries grew pliable to the prospect of it when faced with a choice between this and the alternative of abandoning the euro; even if internal adjustment programs were comprised of policies that groups themselves distinctly opposed.

14. Interest Groups and the European Union

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-218
Author(s):  
Rainer Eising
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Group System ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Group Structures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the role of interest groups in European Union (EU) politics. It also considers the way in which the EU institutions influence interest group structures and activities. The chapter begins with an overview of the relationship between the EU institutions and interest groups and examines the steps taken thus far to regulate that relationship. It then looks at the evolution and the structure of the interest group system, focusing in particular on two salient aspects: the difference between national and EU organizations; and the difference between specific and diffuse interests.

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