Interest Groups (American Politics) Research Papers (original) (raw)

Encyclopedia article for Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Organizations that Shaped America. Citizens for Health is an American advocacy group that lobbies the government on behalf of dietary, nutritional, and holistic health... more

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- Interest Groups (American Politics)

Planung und Evaluation im Public-Affairs-Management (PA) erfordern eine strategische Vorstellung von Ziel-Mittel-Relationen sowie Verlaufs- und Ergebnisinformationen über Veränderungen. Der Beitrag gibt in drei Teilen einen Überblick über Probleme und Lösungsideen dieser Aufgabe, die weniger der schematischen Kontrolle als der Strategiekompetenz und Lernkultur dienen sollte. Der erste Abschnitt umreißt die Ambivalenzen und Grenzen der PA-Metrie und legt dar, wie Werttreiber und Wirkungsmodelle einen Planungs- und Evaluationsrahmen für einzelne Messkonzepte bilden. Die zwei folgenden Abschnitte erläutern praktische Anwendungen: Bewertungstechniken für dauerhafte Verbandsmitgliedschaften von Unternehmen und stärker projektbezogen für das Lobbying bei Einzelvorhaben.

- by David Kimball
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- Interest Groups (American Politics), Lobbying

Since the early 1990s, the federal role in education—exemplified by the controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)—has expanded dramatically. Yet states and localities have retained a central role in education policy, leading to a growing struggle for control over the direction of the nation's schools. In An Education in Politics, Jesse H. Rhodes explains the uneven development of federal involvement in education. While supporters of expanded federal involvement enjoyed some success in bringing new ideas to the federal policy agenda, Rhodes argues, they also encountered stiff resistance from proponents of local control. Built atop existing decentralized policies, new federal reforms raised difficult questions about which level of government bore ultimate responsibility for improving schools.
Rhodes's argument focuses on the role played by civil rights activists, business leaders, and education experts in promoting the reforms that would be enacted with federal policies such as NCLB. It also underscores the constraints on federal involvement imposed by existing education policies, hostile interest groups, and, above all, the nation’s federal system. Indeed, the federal system, which left specific policy formation and implementation to the states and localities, repeatedly frustrated efforts to effect changes: national reforms lost their force as policies passed through iterations at the state, county, and municipal levels. Ironically, state and local resistance only encouraged civil rights activists, business leaders, and their political allies to advocate even more stringent reforms that imposed heavier burdens on state and local governments. Through it all, the nation’s education system made only incremental steps toward the goal of providing a quality education for every child.

En mis escritos y publicaciones, me refiero frecuentemente a la estructura real que permite al poder plutocrático operar su férreo dominio sobre los habitantes del planeta tierra. Pero... ¿Quienes la componen? ¿Como funciona? En otras palabras (importando conceptos de la ciencia de la física y usándolos en el terreno de la sociología política) ¿cuál es la estática y la dinámica de esta estructura del pode?
Para responder a estas interrogantes, durante 2012-2013 coordiné un estudio exploratorio, de ciencia aplicada a describir e interpretar el funcionamiento de la estructura mundial del poder oligárquico. La respuesta a la primera de las señaladas interrogantes, la he puesto a puesto a acceso libre y gratuito, en la presente publicación.
Son de mencionar, cuatro consideraciones:
1)Los resultados que se exponen, están libres de polvo y paja; de ahí que su forma sea la de un paradigma.
2) Es un documento organizado según nivel jerárquico ocupado en la estructura de poder plutocrático-mundial.
3)Toda la información aquí contenida se identificó, accesó y recopiló en fuentes PUBLICAS, de internet abierto.
4)Los nombres de organizaciones y personas se refieren al 2013; ojalá que quienes se animen a aplicar el mismo método de abordaje, puedan actualizarlas, por ejemplo, para 2018 o el año en que resulte que esté recopilándose la información empírica.

This dissertation examines the role of external experts in local agenda setting. The study conducts on archival research on three components of Oklahoma City’s Metropolitan Area Projects programs, specifically education, indoor arenas, and convention centers. The decline in local leadership (especially regimes), an increased demand for complex amenities, and the emergence of a trans-urban policy network provide outside actors with agenda setting power. Evidence suggests that agenda setting for urban revitalization has shifted from “inside-out” to an “outside-in” model since the 1980s. Formerly urban leaders would request assistance for specific tactics aimed at urban revitalization; contemporary urban leaders articulate larger objectives to consultants but rely on advice to determine specific programs. A constellation of advocacy coalitions fill niches within the city building policy network, but no central actor organizes their activity. Although urban leaders may rely on outside actors for agenda items, local leaders retain the ability to determine the physical distribution and interaction of infrastructure, which impacts the efficacy of urban revitalization projects.

Interests play an important role in all modern political systems. But the forms in which interests are articulated very much depend on the context of the particular case. Accordingly, this chapter reviews at the outset various definitions of interest associations that have been used by comparativists across the globe. Comparative studies of interest associations have also been inspired by different theories of interest politics. Therefore, the chapter also includes a review of the origins and legacies of competing theoretical traditions in the field, namely republicanism, pluralism, and neo-corporatism. At last, the final sections of the chapter discuss the role of interest associations in practice, distinguishing different types of action that are available to different interest associations, namely direct lobbying, political exchange, contentious politics, and private interest government.

Current developments in the world geopolitical arena indicate that U.S. foreign policy substantially impacts the global and regional scene. At the same time, interest representation or lobbying is legally based and professionally legitimized under the regulatory observation of authorities and the general public. In this paper, the author discusses organizational forms of political interest representation and the models of lobbying in U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, the results of the organized influence on the U.S. foreign policy decisions through the participation of Albanian interest groups in support of the implementation of the so-called "Republic of Kosovo" project are presented in the paper. The methodology of content analysis and synthesis of conclusions induced the resultant indicators of the effective implementation of the interest representation strategy. Conclusions point to the potentials of organized and strategically planned lobbying activities toward the U.S. institutions to achieve national interest in foreign policy.

- by Miroslav Mitrovic
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- Interest Groups (American Politics), Kosovo, Serbia, Advocacy and Lobbying

Why are US labor unions so weak? Union decline has had important consequences for politics, inequality, and social policy. Common explanations cite employment shifts, public opinion, labor laws, and differences in working class culture and organization. But comparing the United States with Canada challenges those explanations. After following US unionization rates for decades, Canadian rates diverged in the 1960s, and are now nearly three times higher. This divergence was due to different processes of working class political incorporation. In the United States, labor was incorporated as an interest group into a labor regime governed by a pluralist idea. In Canada, labor was incorporated as a class representative into a labor regime governed by a class idea. This led to a relatively stronger Canadian labor regime that better held employers in check and protected workers’ collective bargaining rights. As a result, union density stabilized in Canada while plummeting in the United States.

Contemporaneously, the study of EU lobbying appears somewhat disconnected from other sub-areas within the study of EU-politics. Research tends to be focused on single issues – either particularistic or directional – and concentrates on communicative interaction modes that emphasize network governance, ignoring the electoral side of politics. This essay’s main objective is to make the politics component of interest group politics more intelligible. The core argument is that interest groups strategies, as well as potential influence, are not adequately explained by resources only. In response to this, a framework is built that links different interaction modes (arguing, bargaining and voting) with political strategies (inside and outside), organizational formats and the nature of political issues.

- by Jan Beyers
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- Communication, Technology, Interest Groups (American Politics), Environmental policy

The whole matter of compensation for unjust convictions for felonies and lesser crimes is well worth further study, to the end that within measurable time remedial legislation may cure this defect in our social institutions. (1) I. INTRODUCTION One of the fascinating findings from interviews with the wrongly convicted is that they harbor little or no anger--or more accurately, that "joy overrides the anger"--towards the State following their release from imprisonment. (2) At the same time, they imagine and wish for compensation for their wrongful convictions, especially when it resulted in their incarceration and particularly when they faced the death penalty. (3) Too often, however, recompense remains a mirage. In an age when state governments willingly spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to try to positively reintegrate the justly convicted back into society, the unjustly convicted must scrape, toil, and fight for arguably paltry portions of state dollars to p...

- by Michael Leo Owens
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- Sociology, Law, Criminal Justice, State Politics (American Politics)

Previously published research suggested that the typical manager may be expected to harm others in his role as a manager. Further support for this was drawn from the Panalba role-playing case. None of the 57 control groups in this case were willing to remove a dangerous drug from the market. In fact, 79% of these groups took active steps to prevent its removal. This decision was classified as irresponsible by 97% of the respondents to a questionnaire. Because the role exerts such powerful effects, an attempt was made to modify subject’s perceptions of their role so that managers would feel responsible to all of the firm’s interest groups. Some subjects were told that board members should represent all interest groups; other subjects were placed on boards of directors where the different groups were represented. Subjects in both groups also received information on the impact of the decisions upon stockholders, employees, and customers. The percentage of irresponsible decisions was reduced under these conditions as only 22% of the 116 groups selected the highly irresponsible decision.

- by Scott Armstrong
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- Management, Interest Groups (American Politics), Business Strategies

This final paper discusses the role of a private corporation in the United States which runs the private prison industry, Correction Corporation of America (CCA), against the passage of an SB1070 policy on illegal immigrants in Arizona in 2010. This research refers to Theodore Lowi's theory, interest-group liberalism in the United States. The results of this study shows that through American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an interest group thence, allowing the CCA to acquire unprecedented access to legislators in Arizona and furthermore to lobby. The CCA as a company with high profits is proven to have contributed to campaigns for legislators whom sponsored SB1070 six months after it was passed. This research shows one of a form of Theodore Lowi’s theory about interest-group liberalism.

This paper departs from the observation that a systematic review of the available theories, concepts, and methods and techniques for researching lobbying is lacking. Lobbying is a relational geography of power. And although economic and political geographers study a range of practices that could be considered constitutive to lobbying, they have hitherto largely ignored the spaces of lobbying. We conceptualize lobbying as a practice of three flows between spaces of lobbying: the flows of people between organizations, the flows of ideas between these people and the flows of resources between organizations. Lobbying is fundamental to understanding the execution of power by firms towards a range of state actors, and understood as the directed actions of individuals and groups to alter, influence or hamper the decision-making process of governments; these actions consist of the mobilization of resources that activate power and enable access to spaces of lobbying. Access to different spaces of lobbying will influence the effectiveness of lobbying practices. Geographers are in a unique position to look at the mobilization of power through access to spaces of lobbying and its resources. We discuss how lobbying is supported by material and immaterial resources for the re/production of spaces of lobbying. Finally, we present different methods and techniques to research lobbying.
Keywords: firms, state, power, space, lobbying, economic geography, political geography

- by Annelore Hofman and +1
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- Discourse Analysis, Economic Sociology, Economic Geography, Game Theory

This dissertation advances the state of knowledge on interest group influence in congressional committees. Portions of this work have been delivered at the American Political Science Association Annual Meetings. In 2015, this dissertation... more

This is Chapter 8 of my dissertation. It examines why unionization rates in the U.S. and Canada diverged sharply in the mid-1960s, after tracking each other closely for several decades, to the point where Canadian unionization rates are now nearly three times higher than in the U.S. In previous chapters, I show that the proximate cause of the divergence was the combination of an eroding labor regime in the U.S. and a more resilient labor regime in Canada. However, I also demonstrate that labor regime strength is largely a function of working class organizational power, and the ability to embed that power within state institutions. The key challenge for this chapter then is to explain why the Canadian working class was better able to exert its organizational power and institutionalize it over time. I argue that this was the outcome of political battles in the 1930s and 40s, which left Canadian labor better able to act as—and be recognized as—a class representative. By contrast, those political battles in the U.S. undermined labor’s ability to identify itself and act in class terms. Rather, U.S. labor identified as an interest group, and was recognized as such within the political and administrative spheres. While Canadian labor’s role as a class representative fit into a "class idea" that broadened and legitimated its scope of action, U.S. labor’s role as an interest group fit into a "market idea" that narrowed and delegitimized its scope of action.

- by Jan Beyers
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- Communication, Technology, Interest Groups (American Politics), Regulation

This course is the introductory course to American Politics at the undergraduate level, and is often considered the introductory course in Political Science for students Majoring or Minoring in the Discipline, and for some, a General Social Science course. The goal here is to provide a basic understanding of the foundations of American government including the U.S. Constitution, the history behind it, different branches of the national government, the political process, and aspects of American Politics such as political parties, elections & voting, public opinion, media, etc. However, an important course objective for me is that some of what you learn will help in any career or Advanced Degree level you pursue, and also daily life in society. The course will be split up into three sections, but they are overlapping in nature, and are the following: Section 1) Foundations of American Government, 2) American Political Behavior, and 3) American Political Institutions.

- by Anand Shastri
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- American Politics, Political Philosophy, Teaching and Learning, Political Behavior

Revolving door lobbyists sit at the intersection of two communications networks, one connected to Capitol Hill actors, the other to fellow lobbyists. A growing body of research has investigated revolvers’ success in gaining access to legislators, but we know less about whether congressional experience improves lobbyists’ position in interest group networks. We provide an informational rationale for why revolvers will be better connected in communications among lobbyists, arguing that this comparative advantage will be structured by prior partisan alignments. Using a new dataset on the self-reported communications among lobbyists active on the Affordable Care Act, we test our hypotheses recently developed techniques of inferential network analysis. We find that revolvers do enjoy an advantage in lobbyist communications, and that the advantage is particularly strong among copartisan lobbyists.

- by Robin Kolodny and +1
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- Political Behavior, Interest Groups (American Politics), Public Opinion (Political Science)

The Cuban-American lobby successfully influenced Congress and various presidential administrations from the early 1980s until nearly the end of the century on U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba. Although two major events, the passage of the Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, and the Elián González affair of the same year, dramatically reduced the power of this conservative ethnic interest group, its influence continued during the George W. Bush presidency. Despite the lobby’s active role, since 2008 the opposition of several political actors towards the sanctions regime, such as the agribusiness lobby, the administration of Barack Obama, and a significant number of Congressmen from both major parties, created an environment of major competition between two camps with distinct policy agendas. With the focus on the parallelism between the economic reforms on the island, and the changing American interest group politics, this paper seeks to study the determinants of the embargoes continuity in the 21st century, and the conditions that shape the new policy announced by the Obama administration in late 2014.

Um 1920 war Lobbying in den USA allzu aufdringlich geworden. Der Ruf nach Regulierung wurde unüberhörbar. / In the 1920s, lobbying in the USA had become overly obtrusive. The call for regulation became too loud to ignore.
KEYWORDS • Schlagwörter: Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act, Georgia, Interessenvertretung, Lobby, Lobbying, Lobbyist, Lobbyregister, Lobbyregulierung, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio Gang, Progressivismus, Skandal, Teapot Dome, USA, Wisconsin
• Organisationen: Congress, Kongress, Weißes Haus
• Personen: Ulysses S. Grant, Robert M. La Follette Sr., Warren Harding, James Pollock, Woodrow Wilson

This paper argues that an interest group’s networking skills in micro-states may be as important, if not more important than other variables discussed in the interest group influence literature. This argument is based on the recent literature on democratisation in micro-states which shows that politics in these states is personalistic in nature. The argument is supported by expert interviews undertaken in the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Der moderne Medienwahlkampf und die permanente Kampagne in der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Regierung, Opposition und Lobbies haben einen neuen Typ von Politprofi hervorgebracht: den Political Consultant. Er bringt die politische Maschine auf Hochtouren, manchmal baut er sie erst auf. Er ist ein politischer Unternehmer, der zwischen Parlamenten, Parteien, dem Wahlgeschehen und auch dem Lobbying agiert und damit seine Firma unterhält. Seine Autorität beruht nicht nur auf Kommunikations-Know-how wie bei Werbeleuten, sondern auch auf Fachwissen über Wahlverhalten, über Macht und die teils harten, teils sensiblen Spielregeln der staatlich-öffentlichen Bühne.

The federal Constitution of the United States has repeatedly been praised for its brevity and clarity. It is the first federal Constitution and has been a model for the constitutions of several other federal countries, “the noblest fabric of government, ever devised by man”. Nonetheless, when it comes to the distribution of powers between states and federal government its wording is still subject to polarising interpretations and therefore the battleground of political struggle. The recent debate over President Obama’s Health Care reform is an outstanding example of this conflict. Specifically, the intervention of the federal government in reform of the private insurance market has been criticised as beyond Congress’ powers (the argument is that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to enact the individual mandate) and has been challenged before the Supreme Court. Despite the Sebelius ruling upholding the reform as constitutional, the debate over the constitutionality of the ...

- by Ilaria Di Gioia
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- American History, American Studies, Law, Comparative Law

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) is an interest group that lobbies officeholders as well as the general public for the promotion of enforcing the separation of church and state within the United States.... more

CAP is an American liberal think tank that promotes research and policies which advance the ideas of the modern progressive movement within and outside of the Democratic Party. Encyclopedia article for Political Parties, Interest Groups,... more