Adam Smith and Sympathetic Cosmopolitanism

The author deals with the problem of European (global) democratization and not with its goals. The author defines the first group of problems as internal contradictions of modern democratic states. In addition to the existing historical-political criticisms of democratic rule, the author refers to critical analysis of democracy in John Keane’s works. According to Keane, modern democratic state gets involved in several ways in the field of free circulation of public opinion. Based on this and other analyses (Bobio, Dahl), the author concludes that in contemporary European democratic societies there also exist profound contradictions that are transferred to globalization of democracy, too. The author identifies the second problem concerning European democratization in its anthropological assumptions. With reference to Tocqueville’s book Democracy in America, the author states that American democracy man develops personality characteristics oriented to the acquisition of material goods (enrichment). The expansion of Euro-American picture of man to other democracies creates the tension between universal institutions and national cultural anthropology. The third problem concerning democracy is defined from the viewpoint of political relativism. The history of the world is the history of cultural differences. The short-term experience in European democratization proves that political relativism is not respected and that tendency to imposing Euro-American model is gaining in strength. This process endangers political identity of a nation, which becomes the source of confrontation and conflicts inside and between the states. In summary, the author suggests the solution of the problem in the spirit of political liberalism. States (or groups of states) do not have the right to prescribe for other states how to define their public good, except in case they endanger other states (or in case they conduct massive killing of their own citizens).

An increasing number of scholars argue that income inequality is related to institutional and cultural factors, as well as economic ones. I rely on Mancur Olson (1965)’s theories on the effect of group activities on economic performance to explore the possible link between the number of special- interest groups (SIGs) and the level of income inequality in a country, including SIGs among the long-run determinants of income inequality. Thus, assuming incomplete group formation, the paper investigates whether the number of SIGs in a country is related with the value of income inequality as expressed by the Gini index. The analysis is carried on through panel fixed-effects regressions on a sample of observations on 48 countries in the period 1985-2005. The results identify a non-linear relationship between the number of SIGs and income inequality, suggesting that SIGs tend to lower inequality at lower levels of income, but increase it in high income countries.

Legacies begun, legacies continued

Driving change and elevating the level of practice

Editor's SummaryThe special interest groups (SIGs) of ASIS&T provide a focal point for members with common interests to interact, share information, develop and sponsor programs, promote matters of concern and represent the organization. Since their inception in 1966, the topic areas that SIGs represent have evolved – expanding, shrinking and remixing as subfields in information science and technology have emerged and morphed. In 2011 the 15 traditional SIGs were joined by 4 virtual SIGs, and several SIGs invite ongoing exchange through Facebook and Twitter. While SIG topics have changed through the years, the groups remain a vibrant source of communication, collaboration and sharing. Members are encouraged to become active in one or more SIGs and even propose new interest groups.

This paper presents a model of campaign contributions where a special interest group can condition its contributions not only on the receiving candidate's support but also on that of her opponent. This allows the interest group to obtain support both from contributions as well as from the implicit threat of contributing to the opponent. These out-of-equilibrium contributions can help explain the missing puzzle in the empirical literature. Our framework contradicts standard models in predicting that interest groups do not give to both sides of a same race. It also predicts that stronger candidates get more money from special interest groups primarily because more contributors give to lop-sided winners, not because more money is given per contribution. Both of these predictions are strongly supported in FEC data for U.S. House Elections from 1984-2004. Our theory also predicts that special interest groups will mainly target lop-sided winners whereas general (partisan) interest groups will contribute mainly to candidates in close races. This is also verified empirically. Finally, our framework implies that stricter campaign finance rules will always lower special interest influence but may lead to an increase in equilibrium contributions, making the latter a poor measure of effectiveness.

This landmark theoretical book is about the mechanisms by which special interest groups affect policy in modern democracies. Defining a special interest group as any organization that takes action on behalf of an identifiable group of voters, Gene Grossman and Elhanan Helpman ask: How do special interest groups derive their power and influence? What determines the extent to which they are able to affect policy outcomes? What happens when groups with differing objectives compete for influence? The authors develop important theoretical tools for studying the interactions among voters, interest groups, and politicians. They assume that individuals, groups, and parties act in their own self-interest and that political outcomes can be identified with the game-theoretic concept of an equilibrium. Throughout, they progress from the simple to the more complex. When analyzing campaign giving, for example, they begin with a model of a single interest group and a single, incumbent policy maker. They proceed to add additional interest groups, a legislature with several independent politicians, and electoral competition between rival political parties. The book is organized in three parts. Part I focuses on voting and elections. Part II examines the use of information as a tool for political influence. Part III deals with campaign contributions, which interest groups may use either to influence policy makers' positions and actions or to help preferred candidates to win election.

Spotlight on the Youth and Early Career Special Interest Group

Book Reviews 669 Reading Public Opinion: How Political Actors View the Democratic Process. By Susan Herbst. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998; pp. χ + 256. $16.00. Following her much acclaimed 1993 book, Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling has Shaped American Politics, Susan Herbst seeks to broaden our conceptions of public opinion and its role in democratic governance. She goes beyond simple public opinion polling to consider the many ways in which political professionals and activists assess and understand citizens' preferences. Through depth interviews and surveys, she analyzes the "lay theories" of the politically active and reveals how polled opinions play only a minor role in democratic policy making. Herbst draws from a wide range of past scholarship, including early studies of public opinion and group formation, postmodern theories, cultural studies, political science, and communications in order to lay the foundation for her argument that public opinion is socially constructed and affected by institutions, technology, and political culture. In contrast to much of the experimentally based literature on political cognition which fails to take account of culture, language, and experience, Reading Public Opinion employs a rhetorical psychological approach and depth interviews which clearly demonstrate the pragmatic ways political actors evaluate public opinion. Herbst's data come from a case study of Illinois state government. She conducted depth interviews with 44 working political professionals and party activists: legislative staff members, reporters who covered the Illinois capitol, and Illinois delegates to the 1996 Democratic and Republican party conventions. These rich qualitative data were supplemented with a survey of 528 convention delegates from across the United States. Using interpretive methods for querying her informants and analyzing their discourse , Herbst convincingly demonstrates the sharply contrasting views of public opinion held by these three differently situated groups of participants in the policymaking process. For the staff members interviewed in this study, two indicators of public opinion were particularly relevant: interest group communications and the content of the mass media. The journalists, on the other hand, talked about public opinion in terms of interpersonal dialogue and conversations with citizens. The party activists relied on yet another conception of public opinion and were more comfortable with public opinions expressed through polls and through conversations with friends and acquaintances. Drawing on the language of her informants, Herbst adeptly demonstrates how one's location in the social and political world constrains the ways in which public opinion is constructed. Her informants view public opinion in very pragmatic, instrumental terms that are shaped by their professional roles. For example, staffers discuss public opinion in terms of "which segments of the public will react to a legislative maneuver and how such reactions will become manifest" (153). Public opinion , as measured by polls, is not particularly useful. Polls are not conducted 670 Rhetoric & Public Affairs regularly on statewide issues. Moreover, polls capture only a fleeting snapshot of the public mood and fail to communicate the intensity, directional dynamic, and organization of opinion which are necessary to formulate politically successful policy. Interest groups and journalists are far better situated to articulate public sentiments for staff members because they are informed, accessible, and perceived as able to persuade an otherwise amorphous and indifferent public. Interestingly, staff members rely on interest groups and media to convey public opinion despite their acknowledged biases. Staffers think of themselves as knowledgeable enough to "'see through' media bias and still glean some useful data about public opinion" (72). The political roles of journalists and party activists are quite different from those of legislative staff members, as are their conceptions of public opinion. Herbst argues, however, that understanding each actor's position in the democratic process explains the observed variations in definitions of public opinion. Journalists' views of public opinion as conversation with citizens/readers fit in with their anti-authority bias in political coverage. Party activists see public opinion as aggregations of individual opinions either through conversations or polling. The activists' disregard for interest group and media related expressions of public opinion is completely consistent with their roles as delegates representing citizens' opinions to the political leadership of their respective parties. Although convention delegates' views on public opinion are interesting to examine and help to broaden the inquiry beyond the...

Cultivating leadership: Be the change

To whom do bureaucrats need to respond? Two faces of civil society in health policy

Applying critical realism to the COVID-19 pandemic to improve management of future public health crises.

Using a direct measure of special interest group (SIG) strength from Thomas and Hrebenar, I analyze the effects of SIGs on economic growth across 48 contiguous US states. Thomas and Hrebenar categorize the strength of SIGs in each state into five categories: dominant, dominant/complementary, complementary, complementary/subordinate, and subordinate. I find a negative relationship between the SIG strength and economic growth supporting Olson. Holding everything else constant, the growth rate of median income over a decade is almost 12 percentage points lower in states in which SIGs are dominant than it is in states in which interest groups are complementary/subordinate. The results are robust to endogeneity between economic growth and SIG strength.

A growing number of studies focus on the two-way channels connecting public opinion and interest groups, highlighting how public support affects interest groups’ mobilization, strategies, and influence, while also showing how interest groups manage to shape public opinion. We contribute to this debate, assuming that interest groups are fundamentally survival-maximizing organizations. First, we investigate whether public opinion bears on advocacy groups’ assessment of their own survival prospects. Second, we assess whether public opinion-driven mortality anxiety affects advocacy groups’ choices regarding different lobbying strategies. Empirically, we rely on data from the Comparative Interest Group Survey, including over 2500 interest group respondents across six European Union (EU) countries as well as groups working at the EU level. Our analysis shows that (1) public opinion crucially influences how advocacy groups estimate their chances of survival, particularly for citizen groups and (2) public opinion-related survival concerns stimulate greater relative use of outside lobbying by citizen groups.

Chapter 15 - Organizations