The (Sometimes Surprising) Consequences of Societally Unrepresentative Contributors on Legislative Responsiveness

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Computational Methods ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Multiple Interest ◽  
Issue Dimensions

The conventional view of private campaign contributions is that they distort policy to the detriment of society. Formal models consistent with such views, however, are based on restrictive assumptions about the nature of campaigns, interest groups and policy dimensionality. This paper relaxes those assumptions and allows for informative campaigns, multiple interest groups and multiple issue dimensions. It uses analytical and computational methods to demonstrate that private campaign contributions from societally unrepresentative contributors can, under reasonable conditions, improve social welfare. Multidimensionality is important because politicians need to be responsive on salient issues to prevent opponents from raising money based on less salient issues and using the money to publicize positions on salient issues.

A Method for Evaluating the Ethics of Fear Appeals

1993 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Duke ◽  
Gregory M. Pickett ◽  
Les Carlson ◽  
Stephen J. Grove
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Fear Appeals ◽  
Marketing Literature ◽  
Multiple Interest ◽  
Ethical Perspectives

The key issue of ethical applications of fear appeals, which has been generally avoided in marketing literature, is reviewed. The authors develop an evaluation framework, the ethical effects-reasoning matrix (ERM), using multiple interest groups (stakeholders) and multiple ethical reasoning perspectives. The framework is intended to aid in isolating and identifying conflicts that may arise when fear appeals are considered from a variety of ethical perspectives involving many interested publics. An example is provided to indicate application of the framework as well as conflict resolution techniques.

scholarly journals DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SERVICES IN SMALLER ORGANISATIONS: THEY DO JUST HAPPEN

2012 ◽  
Vol 01 (07) ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Patrik Gottfridsson
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Small Companies ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Market Launch ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Conventional Models ◽  
Planning Development

The aim of this study is to investigate how new services are actually developed in real life in small companies. Although conventional models of service development emphasise the importance of formal and structured processes, it is unclear whether most service development really is conducted in this way, and whether these formal models might merely represent theoretical structures that have been retrospectively imposed on the actual process. In particular, it is unclear whether the conventional view of formal and structured processes is applicable to smaller organisations with fewer employees. The present study therefore presents the findings from in-depth case studies of service development in eleven small Swedish companies. The study concludes that that it is difficult to identify any clear intention to pursue formal development processes in the companies studied here. Rather, service development could generally be described as ‘unstructured’ in all phases (planning, development, and market launch). Moreover, these phases overlap and impinge on one another in a flexible, unstructured, and informal manner. The study examines and explains the reasons for this generally unstructured approach to service development in smaller firms.

Law, Judicial Review, and Formal Models of the Regulation Game: A Comment on de Figueiredo & de Figueiredo

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-185
Author(s):  
Jason Scott Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Allocation Of Resources ◽  
Administrative Regulation ◽  
Regulatory Incentives

In “The Allocation of Resources by Interest Groups: Lobbying, Litigation and Administrative Regulation,” (hereafter referred to as LLAR), John and Rui de Figueiredo make an important contribution to our understanding of how interest groups choose between lobbying and litigation strategies in the regulation game. Their work demonstrates the value of formally modeling the regulation game by distinguishing between lobbying and litigation. Drawing upon my own related work, in this brief comment I will focus upon some of the implications of formal models of lobbying and litigation for our understanding of how regulatory incentives are affected by judicial review and alternative statutory regimes. I hope to atleast suggest that in addition to illuminating many crucial issues in political science—such as the theory of lobbying and theories of political disadvantage—the sort of approach taken by the de Figueiredos has great significance for the analysis of some fundamental issues in administrative law and public law more generally.

Interest Groups and Get Out the Vote Drives

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Cadigan
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Candidate Model ◽  
Voter Mobilization ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Multiple Interest ◽  
Get Out The Vote

Abstract This article analyzes voter mobilization and interest group activity within a citizen-candidate model. Interest groups influence the decisions of 'high cost’ voters by running a 'get out the vote’ campaign. Membership fees paid by citizens joining an interest group finance the vote drives. Because citizens choose whether to join an interest group, size is an endogenous feature of equilibrium outcomes. In contrast to the existing literature, it is shown that smaller groups may have greater influence. Importantly, this result does not depend on the ability of smaller groups to overcome the free rider problem. Intuitively, because smaller groups may have a less diverse membership, they can advocate more extreme policy outcomes. An interest group’s influence is shown to depend on voting costs and the separation between candidate positions. The presence of multiple interest groups mitigates an interest’s influence, resulting in inefficiency.

Wahlkampffinanzierung und Demokratie in den USA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Hebenstreit
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political System ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Campaign Financing ◽  
Overall Functioning

US election campaigns have always attracted enormous amounts of money. But when the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that bans on donations from corporations, interest groups and individuals were unconstitutional, it marked nothing less than a watershed moment in US campaign financing. But what are the consequences of unlimited campaign contributions: Can elections, as is often claimed, in fact be bought so that the candidate with the most money always wins? What effects do election campaigns worth billions of dollars have on citizens’ trust and participation, but also on the overall functioning of the political system? This book deals with these and other questions, in particular with the help of quantitative empirical methods. It appears that although money is a precondition for electoral success, it is not automatically a deciding factor. Nevertheless, campaign money can also undermine the proper functioning of US democracy in other places.

scholarly journals The Effects of Voting Costs on the Democratic Process and Public Finances

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Hodler ◽  
Simon Luechinger ◽  
Alois Stutzer
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Special Interest Groups ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Probabilistic Voting ◽  
Average Education ◽  
Swiss Cantons ◽  
Welfare Expenditures

Increasing the attractiveness of voting is often seen as a remedy for unequal participation and the influence of special-interest groups on public policy. However, lower voting costs may also bring less informed citizens to the poll, thereby inviting efforts to sway these voters. We substantiate this argument in a probabilistic voting model with campaign contributions. In an empirical analysis for the 26 Swiss cantons, we find that lower voting costs due to postal voting are related to higher turnout, lower average education and political knowledge of participants as well as lower government welfare expenditures and lower business taxation. (JEL D72, H25, H75, I20, I38)

scholarly journals How Much Can the U.S. Congress Resist Political Money? A Quantitative Assessment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ferguson ◽  
Paul Jorgensen ◽  
Jie Chen
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Quantitative Assessment ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Panel Analysis ◽  
Organized Interest ◽  
Push Out ◽  
The U.S

The extent to which governments can resist pressures from organized interest groups, and especially from finance, is a perennial source of controversy. This paper tackles this classic question by analyzing votes in the U.S. House of Representatives on measures to weaken the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill in the years following its passage. To control as many factors as possible that could influence floor voting by individual legislators, the analysis focuses on representatives who originally cast votes in favor of the bill but then subsequently voted to dismantle key provisions of it. This design rules out from the start most factors normally advanced by skeptics to explain vote shifts, since these are the same representatives, belonging to the same political party, representing substantially the same districts. Our panel analysis, which also controls for spatial influences, highlights the importance of time-varying factors, especially political money, in moving representatives to shift their positions on amendments such as the “swaps push out” provision. Our results suggest that the links between campaign contributions from the financial sector and switches to a pro-bank vote were direct and substantial: For every $100,000 that Democratic representatives received from finance, the odds they would break with their party’s majority support for the Dodd-Frank legislation increased by 13.9 percent. Democratic representatives who voted in favor of finance often received $200,000–$300,000 from that sector, which raised the odds of switching by 25–40 percent.

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