Interest Groups, Congressional Reform, and Party Government in the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 217 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Wright
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Shubha Kamala Prasad ◽  
Filip Savatic

Why do some immigrant diasporas in the United States (U.S.) establish foreign policy interest groups while others do not? While scholars have demonstrated that diasporic interest groups often successfully influence U.S. foreign policy, we take a step back to ask why only certain diasporas attempt to do so in the first place. We argue that two factors increase the likelihood of diaspora mobilization: a community’s experience with democratic governance and conflict in its country of origin. We posit that these conditions make it more likely that political entrepreneurs emerge to serve as catalysts for top-down mobilization. To test our hypotheses, we collect and analyze novel data on diasporic interest groups as well as the characteristics of their respective countries of origin. In turn, we conduct the first in-depth case studies of the historical and contemporary Indian-American lobbies, using original archival and interview evidence.


1984 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-129
Author(s):  
Petri Ollila

This literature review summarizes research on member influence in cooperatives conducted in Scandinavia and some of the research conducted in West Germany. The review divides the contents of member influence into three components; individual factors, the cooperative organization’s internal factors and the organization’s external factors. As individual factors, participation, representation and representativeness are considered. Conflicts in cooperative organizations, the effect of the growth of the organization and the rules of decision making are discussed as organizations internal factors. The major interest groups in addition to members (the market, personnel and the society) are presented as external factors. The external factors are increasingly challenging the nature of cooperatives as member interest organizations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Smith ◽  
Jessica Terman

Scholars and practitioners have come to understand the important role of local governments in the causes and effects of climate change. The literature has examined both the substantive and symbolic determinants of urban sustainability policies in addition to the implementation issues associated with those policies. At the heart of these policies is the idea that local governments have the desire and ability to engage in socially and environmentally responsible practices to mitigate climate change. While important, these studies are missing a key component in the investigation of local government involvement in sustainability policies: government purchasing power. This study examines the effect of administrative professionalism and interest group presence on the determinants of green procurement in the understudied context of counties in the United States.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRADLEY A. HANSEN ◽  
MARY ESCHELBACH HANSEN

Abstract:We illustrate mechanisms that can give rise to path dependence in legislation. Specifically, we show how debtor-friendly bankruptcy law arose in the United States as a result of a path dependent process. The 1898 Bankruptcy Act was not regarded as debtor-friendly at the time of its enactment, but the enactment of the law gave rise to changes in interest groups, changes in beliefs about the purpose of bankruptcy law, and changes in the Democratic Party's position on bankruptcy that set the United States on a path to debtor-friendly bankruptcy law. An analysis of the path dependence of bankruptcy law produces an interpretation that is more consistent with the evidence than the conventional interpretation that debtor-friendliness in bankruptcy law began with political compromises to obtain the 1898 Bankruptcy Act.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melina Juárez ◽  
Bárbara Gómez-Aguiñaga ◽  
Sonia P. Bettez

This paper studies the dynamics of detention, deportation, and the criminalization of immigrants. We ground our analyses and discussion around the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996's (IIRIRA's) detention mandate, the role of special interest groups and federal policies. We argue that these special interest groups and major federal policies have come together to fuel the expansion of immigrant detention to unprecedented levels. Moreover, we aim to incite discussion on what this rapid growth in detention means for human rights, legislative representation and democracy in the United States. This study analyzes two main questions: What is the role of special interests in the criminalization of immigrants? And does the rapid increase in detention pose challenges or risks to democracy in the United States? Our study is grounded within the limited, yet growing literature on immigrant detention, government data, and “gray” literature produced by nonprofits and organizations working on immigration-related issues. We construct a unique dataset using this literature and congressional reports to assess what factors are associated with the rise of immigrant detention. A series of correlations and a time series regression analysis reveal that major restrictive federal immigration policies such as IIRIRA, along with the increasing federal immigration enforcement budget, have had a significant impact on immigrant detention rates. Based on these findings, we recommend three central policy actions. First, the paper recommends increased transparency and accountability on behalf of the Department of omeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and on lobbying expenditures from for-profit detention corporations. Second, it argues for the repeal of mandatory detention laws. These mandatory laws have led to the further criminalization and marginalization of undocumented immigrants. And lastly, it argues that repeal of the Congressional bed mandate would allow for the number of detainees to mirror actual detention needs, rather than providing an incentive to detain. However, we anticipate that the demand for beds will increase even more given the current administration's push for the criminalization and increased arrests of undocumented individuals. The rhetoric used by the present administration further criminalizes immigrants. 1


1987 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-223
Author(s):  
Michael Moran

Writers on Corporatism Agree about Little but are nevertheless strikingly united in one belief, that America has failed to develop strong corporatist institutions. The two most important collections published in recent years, for instance, both contain papers explaining this supposed American uniqueness. Yet the notion that corporatism is conspicious by its absence is odd. It is indeed true that the United States has failed to develop one particularly ambitious form of corporatism — the organization of capital and labour into central institutions designed to achieve agreed national aims. The essence of corporatism consists, however, of something less than this grand social scheme. It resides in what Offe calls ‘the attribution of public status to interest groups’. Endowing private bodies with public duties and public powers involves crossing a constitutional Rubicon. Behind lie the landscapes of liberal polities, with their open political struggle and comparatively clear separation of government from civil society. Beyond the Rubicon lie the features in Schmitter’s famous description of corporatism — compulsion, hierarchy, monopoly. But these are contingent, not necessary, features. The quintessence of corporatism consists in the effort to endow private interests with sovereign authority. In so doing it challenges the great aim of a liberal polity — the separation of economic from political power — imposing in its place the ‘devolution of public policymaking and enforcement on organised private interests’.


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