Special Interests and the Interstate Commerce Commission, II

1933 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 899-917 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Pendleton Herring
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Interstate Commerce Commission ◽  
Administrative Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Influences ◽  
Interstate Commerce

In the juristic sphere, the Interstate Commerce Commission is charged with enforcing and interpreting certain statutes, hearing and weighing evidence, and rendering formal judgment when the facts have been ascertained. But the recognized judicial character of this work does not render the Commission immune from efforts to influence its judgments. The struggles of contending economic groups and political influences give rise to actions intolerable in a court of law and to repeated efforts to obtain favorable decisions through the use of propaganda. The Commission performs its duties in surroundings far from neutral, and must cope with pressures too powerful to be exorcised by simple exhortation or condemnation. The problem is one of canalizing influences which cannot be eliminated, to the end that they may increase rather than decrease the efficiency of the administrative process and that the public interest may not be submerged in the undertow of sectional and political cross-currents.

Special Interests and the Interstate Commerce Commission

1933 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 738-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Pendleton Herring
Keyword(s):  
Legal Framework ◽  
Regulatory Body ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Interstate Commerce Commission ◽  
Governmental Agency ◽  
Conflict Of Interests ◽  
Political Influences ◽  
Interstate Commerce ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
Regulatory Capacity

A conflict of interests is implicit in most administrative problems, and the successful adjustment of these forces within a predicated legal framework means that the purpose of the governmental agency has been achieved. This consummation is beset with difficulties. The interplay of economic and political influences must be examined in connection with the statutory and formalistic competence of a given governmental bureau if any understanding of the process of administration is to be obtained. Only if the problem is first narrowed to one field, and then focussed upon a single agency, can the component factors be brought to direct and concrete analysis. An effort will be made here to examine the Interstate Commerce Commission in terms of the group pressures that are exerted upon it in its regulatory capacity. The purpose is to discuss the nature of the relations that arise between a regulatory body and the interests touched by its authority and to call attention to the possibilities and problems inherent in such a contact. In short, What political and economic forces make up the environment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and how does it adapt itself to this environment?

scholarly journals The growing nostalgia for past regulatory misadventures and the risk of repeating these mistakes with Big Tech

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine S Wilson ◽  
Keith Klovers
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Interstate Commerce Commission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interstate Commerce ◽  
Economic Regulations ◽  
Better Than

Abstract Digital markets are increasingly described as the ‘railroads’ of the 21st century. Extending that metaphor, some commentators argue we should revive stale railroad-era economic regulations and adapt them to the digital age. This enthusiasm appears to be buoyed by both a sudden nostalgia for railroad and airline regulations once administered by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and an equally sudden amnesia of the enormous harm those regulations caused to consumers. ICC and CAB regulations are indeed an apt metaphor, as they illustrate perfectly how sectoral regulations sold to the public as simple, clear, and cheap can go awry. Ultimately, a bipartisan consensus emerged to disband those agencies and deregulate those industries. After deregulation, prices fell, output expanded, and firms innovated. Proposals to regulate Big Tech today in a similar fashion forget these important lessons. We should know better than to do the same thing again today and expect a different result.

scholarly journals Special Interests versus the Public Interest in Policy Determination

10.1596/28251 ◽  
2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon C. Rausser ◽  
Gérard Roland
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
The Public

Reflections on Congress

Congress ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 290-300
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ginsberg ◽  
Kathryn Wagner Hill
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
American People ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
The Public

This chapter looks at several common complaints about Congress. When Americans are asked why they have a negative image of the Congress, three factors appear to stand out. First, Congress is seen as having slow and cumbersome procedures that interfere with “getting the job done.” Second, Congress is seen as polarized, with members unwilling to develop the compromises needed to serve the public interest. Third, Congress is seen as corrupt, serving lobbyists, special interests, and campaign contributors rather than the American people. The chapter thus considers whether these charges amount to a serious indictment of Congress, its members, and its procedures.

scholarly journals State capture and collective action

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-150
Author(s):  
Andrea Capussela
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Collective Action Problem ◽  
Fine Line ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
State Capture ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Social Orders

A promising approach to analyse the phenomena usually described as 'state capture' may be drawn from the literature on 'institutions', 'social orders', and the 'collective action problem'. These studies seem broader and more theoretically persuasive than the literature that confines itself to the notion of 'state capture', and this is especially true in respect of the Balkans, in whose societies it is often hard to draw a fine line between the 'captured' state and its 'captors'. Seen through the lens of those strands of literature, the phenomena usually described as state capture appear to be more widespread than is currently assumed, as they also surface in advanced democracies, and behind them typically lie collective action problems, which prevent the public interest from imposing itself over special interests.

scholarly journals Special Interests versus the Public Interest in Policy Determination

2011 ◽  
pp. 105-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon C. Rausser ◽  
Gérard Roland
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
The Public

scholarly journals Framing “the Public Interest”: Comparing Public Lobbying Campaigns in Four European States

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oyvind Ihlen ◽  
Ketil Raknes ◽  
Ian Somerville ◽  
Chiara Valentini ◽  
Charlotte Stachel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Potential Problem ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Private Interest ◽  
The Public

How do lobbyists get their way and what is the consequence for democracy of their strategies? It is frequently asserted that lobbyists appeal to the public interest to strengthen their proposals. This paper empirically corroborates this claim through four case studies cutting across different European cultural clusters and political systems. The paper unpacks how businesses communicatively construct a link between their private interest and the public interest. The findings illustrate the flexibility of the public interest argument and hence also the potential problem. If everything can be made out to be in the public interest, the concept becomes empty and easy to capture for special interests. At the same time, unpacking the communicative construction helps in critically evaluating lobbyists’ claims of working in the public interest.

Central Utilities Commissions and Home Rule: A Paper before the Madison Literary Society, May 9, 1910

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-393
Author(s):  
Balthasar H. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Public Utilities ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Heat Power ◽  
Interstate Commerce Commission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interstate Commerce ◽  
Central Commission ◽  
Local Use ◽  
Country Today

The term “public utilities” embraces all properties devoted to a use in which the public has an interest. As currently employed in this country today, it includes water, light, heat, power, and telephone plants; urban, suburban and interurban electric railways; steam railways; the telegraph, express companies and several minor organizations connected with transportation. In a narrower and more local use of the term, its scope is restricted to water, light, heat, power and local telephone utilities, and urban and suburban electric railways.Central utilities commissions are administrative bodies appointed or elected for the purpose of carrying out legislative acts with reference to public utilities. In the widest sense of the term a central commission is a federal or national commission, of which the Interstate Commerce Commission is the best-known representative. Central Commissions, in the narrower sense of the term, are illustrated by state utilities and railroad commissions. Like many other terms central and local have relative meanings with shifting and overlapping circumferences.

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