Policy Commitment as Voter Mobilization Strategy: Clientelist Parties, Interest Groups, and Abortion Policy in Subnational Mexico

The challenge of sustainable forest management is to integrate diverse and sometimes conflicting management objectives. In order to achieve this goal, we need a better understanding of the aspects influencing the preferences of diverse groups and how these groups make trade-offs between different attributes of SFM. We compare the SFM preferences of interest groups in regions with different forest use histories based on the reasoning that the condition of the forest reflects the forest use history of the area. The condition of the forest also shapes an individual's forest values and attitudes. These held values and attitudes are thought to influence SFM preferences. We tested whether the SFM preferences vary amongst the different interest groups within and across regions. We collected data from 252 persons using a choice experiment approach, where participants chose multiple times among different options described by a combination of attributes that are assigned different levels. The novelty of our approach was the use of choice experiments in the assessment of regional preference differences. Given the complexity of inter-regional comparison and the small sample size, this was an exploratory study based on a purposive rather than random sample. Nevertheless, our results suggest that the aggregation of preferences of all individuals within a region does not reveal all information necessary for forest management planning since opposing viewpoints could cancel each other out and lead to an interpretation that does not reflect possibly polarised views. Although based on a small sample size, the preferences of interest groups within a region are generally statistically significantly different from each other; however preferences of interest groups across regions are also significantly different. This illustrates the potential importance of assessing heterogeneity by region and by group.

Why do countries keep their exchange rates weak and undervalued? This article argues that domestic politics is more important than systemic factors, but existing domestic political explanations do not fully explain how interest group preferences and political institutions influence exchange rate policy. The authors argue that tradable industries do not always demand an undervalued exchange rate, but do so only when they are unable to receive other compensatory policies. In addition, interest groups have a larger impact on exchange rate policy in nondemocratic regimes than is often recognized: Autocrats select exchange rate policies that correspond to the preferences of the most powerful interest groups because lobby groups have access to the political process and leaders are sensitive to their preferences. A case study of exchange rate policy in China supports these arguments. The major decisions to maintain an undervalued exchange rate in China were taken in response to demands for undervaluation from tradable industries. Second, the case study shows that exporters’ preferences for undervaluation ebb and flow with the policy mix: Tradable firms lobbied for an undervalued exchange rate when no other compensatory policies were implemented, but they did not insist on undervaluation in periods when they benefited from other state policies. The authors conclude that China keeps its exchange rate undervalued because the interest groups that support undervaluation are more powerful than those that oppose undervaluation. These findings indicate that interest groups influence exchange rate policy in authoritarian regimes, but their preferences for undervalued exchange rates are quite malleable.

Interest groups play an important role in public policy-making and decision-making in public sector governance. While abroad, interest groups have been extensively analysed by scholars, but the assessment of the influence of interest group activities on public policymaking in Lithuania is insufficient.The problem of the research is that this field has not been thoroughly analysed until now. There is no universally agreed and defined definition about kind of activity of interest group and its influence in Lithuania. Thus, in the context of existing research, there is a need for a deeper insight into the activities of interest groups with a focus on assessing their impact on public governance. The object of this article is interest groups and their activities in the Lithuanian renewable energy (RE) sector.The aim of the research described in this article is to investigate the interest groups acting in the RE sector and the influence of the activities on public policy-making in 2008–2018.Authors, based on the functions of interest groups, distinguish the main principles of their activities: to properly analyse the situation, to express themselves publicly and to communicate with society, to form a positive attitude, which would be accepted by both the interest group and the society. In addition, interest groups communicate directly with government officials, attend public hearings, report on current political issues, and appear in the media.Involvement of interest groups can be defined as the process by which interest groups or their representatives, together with officials, are involved in raising issues of major importance to society, formulating policy, discussing and deciding on issues relevant to the management of the RE sector.It can be argued that although the public policy is formulated and implemented by public authorities during the public governance process, there are various interest parties involved at different stages of the process. They can formally become influential interest groups according to the value of their influence and the relevance of the issue. All interested parties have an opportunity to participate in the process of developing the legal framework, but the proposals of all of them are not considered due to the aspect of renewable energy.There is no unified database in Lithuania, which contains all interest groups acting in Lithuania. Therefore, it is necessary to typologize them. The typology is based on Kaunas University of Technology scientists’ group project 2015–2017: Interaction between parties and interest groups: nature, causes, consequences, according to the specifics of the Lithuanian RE sector.In order to investigate the activities of the interest groups, the methods of document analysis and descriptive statistics were applied. Comprehensive data collection and systematisation was carried out on the basis of the Seimas committees’ meeting documents, and on the basis of the received analysis data, typology of interest groups and their impact assessment was performed.In order to find out the involvement of interest groups in the public-governance of the ER sector, the analysis of meetings of the Seimas committees and commissions in 2008–2019 was carried out. During the period 2007–2010, issues relevant to the RE sector were discussed. In the documents of meetings invited persons and those who actively made proposals have been highlighted, thus identifying interest groups.In the second stage of research, based on the typology presented in the article earlier, interest groups were categorized by adapting the table accordingly to the interest groups involved in public governance in the RE sector.The third stage identifies the most influential interest groups acting in the public sector of the RE, according to the number (activity) of proposals submitted to the draft laws and accordingly the number of submitted proposals. This is how the percentage of influence was derived.As the results of the research have shown, that interest groups have the greatest influence in the public government process of the RE sector at the stage of public policy making. However, the balancing of interests does not produce the desired results due to insufficient influence of the interest group.By researching the activities of interest groups in the RE sector policy making stage, types of interest groups can be established according to their members’ goals, activities, aspirations, and relationships.After research of the Seimas activities in 2008–2018 related to activities in RE policy-making, it can be stated that the public administration organizations and their associations are most active interest groups in submitting amendments to the law. They have submitted 867 proposals during the analysed period. Members of the Seimas have submitted 414 proposals. During the period which was under review, 250 business proposals were submitted by business interest groups and only 28 by public interest groups.

The early 1970s was a tumultuous time for abortion law and policy in North Dakota where the defeat of an abortion liberalization initiative in 1972 was quickly followed by Roe v. Wade in 1973. The resulting political and cultural circumstances strongly favored the North Dakota Right to Life Association, which saw much of its agenda passed by the legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support. This study uses a political culture perspective to examine the development of North Dakota abortion law and policy in the years after Roe. It illustrates how the state legislature, interest groups, the bureaucracy, and the courts reacted to a series of disruptions in abortion policy. The resulting policies made abortion a continuing source of tension within North Dakota politics.

• Parties are more than their formal structures. They cannot be understood without attention to the role of both activists and party-aligned interest groups. • The policy preferences of activists and interest groups are both shaped by and shape the behavior of elected officials. Sometimes activists and lobbies take cues from politicians, but their actions also reinforce and contribute to polarization in important ways. • The polarization of Democrats and Republicans reflects the incorporation of new groups in party coalitions since the 1970s. Polarization is visible in many aspects of American politics, from Congress to the courts to state legislatures and even the electorate. The common thread linking all of these settings is political parties. Polarization is a party story. Yet understanding American parties is a challenging endeavor. Parties, unlike the branches of government or even the electorate, are not well-bounded entities. Individuals and groups with no formal role or place on the organization chart play important roles in parties. In this chapter, I argue that activists and interest groups are key elements of political parties. Activists and party-aligned interest groups work within parties to advance their policy goals via candidate selection and lobbying elected officials. Unlike the formal party structure and some elements closely linked to it, activists and interest groups are a force for polarization. I review delegate and donor surveys as well as trends in interest group campaign contributions revealing evidence of polarization among activists and lobbies. Elected officials’ relationships with party activists and interest groups are not one-sided. Even more than highly informed voters, activists take cues from politicians, and interest group leaders are subject to pressure from elected officials. Still, evidence suggests that activists and party-linked interest groups promote polarization. AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES: REVIVED AND POLARIZED American political parties, once seen to be in terminal decline, have been reinvigorated in recent decades. In the same period that polarization emerged, party organizations have grown far better funded and staffed (Herrnson 2013). Mann and Corrado (2014) find that in the 1976 campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC), and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) raised $52.8 million, $4.1 million, and $3.8 million, respectively (all sums are in 2012 dollars). By 2012, the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC raised $290.4 million, $145.9 million, and $183.8 million in 2012 dollars, respectively.

Interest groups play a key role in the political economy of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Their support for or opposition to a planned PTA tends to be crucial in determining the fate of PTAs. But which PTAs receive support from (which) interest groups? Clearly, the design of a PTA, that is, which types of provisions are (not) included in the agreement, is essential in that respect. We argue that trade and trade-related provisions, such as those that regulate services trade or the protection of intellectual property rights, mainly increase support for PTAs among export-oriented business groups. In contrast, the inclusion of non-trade provisions, namely clauses aimed at the protection of environmental and labour standards, makes citizen groups, labour unions, and import-competing business groups more supportive of trade agreements. Relying on original data from a survey of interest groups across the globe, including a conjoint experiment, we find support for the argument that different types of interest groups value the inclusion of trade and non-trade provisions in PTAs differently. Interestingly, however, we find little difference between export-oriented and import-competing business interests. Our study speaks to research on interest groups and trade policy.

Introduction Herbert Kitschelt has argued parties can be distinguished according to whether they use clientelistic, programmatic, or charismatic links to voters to win electoral support (Kitschelt 2000). Programmatic parties, which aggregate politicians’ preferences sufficiently so that voters know what kind of policies the party is likely to implement, use ideological appeals to win votes. Charismatic-led parties, which lack organizational infrastructure and a clear ideology, rely on the personal skills and persuasive ability of their leaders for their electoral appeal. Loosely constructed clientelistic parties offer ‘selective material incentives’ to voters. The three kinds of parties are likely to remain distinct because clientelistic parties – controlling votes through particularist means – do not need to make universal appeals while programmatic parties win voters based on their ideology not on their offer of direct assistance to voters. Because they pay off voters in advance, clientelistic parties do not have to worry about delivering on policy promises, which in any case would require a concerted effort of aggregating politicians’ preferences not necessary in clientelism and which could even be potentially destabilizing for a loose clientelistic coalition. A programmatic party using clientelism faces the problem of an obvious disparity between its programmatic promises and clientelistic practices which undermine its ideological credibility (2000: 854). The policy commitments of programmatic parties also make particularistic ties superfluous because they promise a program of government that compensates voters only directly once universalistic policies are put in place, designed to benefit all, not just those who voted for them. Charismatic parties do not want their leaders unnecessarily bound by programmatic promises or reliant on political machinery. Kitschelt follows Max Weber in arguing that ‘charisma is a quality of personal authority that is difficult to sustain in a movement or party’ (2000: 855). Populist parties in Thailand and the Philippines can be conceptualized in a distinctly un-Kitscheltian fashion, however, as they combine all three types of party-voter linkages. Clientelistic organization is mixed with programmatic appeals to lower class voters made by charismatic leaders. Populism in these twoSoutheast Asian countries involves political marketing in which the mass media is used to win the support of the ‘masses’ both through vague charismatic appeals as well as through concrete programs to aid society’s downtrodden. In short, in the Southeast Asian context, populists make ‘ideological’ class-based appeals, but also use their personal charismatic appeals, while drawing on existing clientelistic networks. But does the hybrid nature of populist parties in Southeast Asia not create some of the collective action problems Kitschelt identified when these three forms of party linkage to voters – clientelistic, programmatic, and charismatic – are combined? In the first section of this chapter, it will be argued that it is necessary to rethink the character of clientelism as involving primarily, or even exclusively, ‘selective material incentives’. Voters in poor communities in the Philippines and Thailand are not simply ‘bought’. Rather, they are embedded in networks which provide security in the face of vicissitudes of life lived on the economic margin. A ‘moral economy of electoralism’ approach suggests that the poor vote for politicians they trust and who are seen as helping their communities over a long period of time. Put in Kitschelt’s terms, ‘clientelistic’ networks in this Southeast Asian context have a quasi-programmatic character, in which voters respond to promises made (and kept) of assistance to their community over time. But, confined to the local level, such political ‘programs’ remain largely invisible to elite audiences at the national level who continue to stereotype politics in poor areas as consisting of straightforward vote buying. Using the mass media to make charismatic appeals, populist leaders transport their promises of mutual assistance to the national level, the subject of the second part of this chapter. Despite important differences between Estrada in the Philippines and Thaksin in Thailand, they share a key political strategy. While on the one hand ‘nationalizing’ appeals of assistance to the poor, they also centralized once fragmented vote canvassing networks, as local leaders flocked to them as charismatic and wealthy politicians. They also both faced adamant opposition by traditional elites due to their populist strategy of direct charismatic appeals to the poor. One important difference though, is that while Thaksin promised, and delivered, on specific policy commitments to the poor, Estrada’s pledges to the poor remained largely rhetorical. This helps explain why in Thailand, Thaksin’s populist party (under different names after having been twice banned by state authorities) and the social movement it has generated (the so called ‘Red Shirts’) have remained remarkably resilient while Estrada’s party was less durable and did not generate ongoing extra-electoral support in the form of a poor people’s movement, which is the subject of the final section of this chapter.

International Relations: Theories

Chapter 2 presents the theoretical model. The chapter starts by specifying theoretical assumptions concerning the logic of action and the preferences of interest groups and the European institutions. Taking into account the institutional context, propositions about goods that are exchanged between interest groups and the European institutions are then deduced. It is reasoned that the European institutions trade influence for information supply, citizen support, and economic power that are provided by entire coalitions of interest groups pursuing the same policy objective. In addition, it is expected that the issue context affects the intensity of the exchange relationship between interest groups and the European institutions. The chapter concludes with the specification of the hypotheses derived from the theoretical model that guide the empirical analysis presented in the book.

International treaty negotiations and domestic politics are interrelated. We show that negotiators can strategically select treaties to mobilize domestic interest groups and support particular candidates for office. Interest groups will support (oppose) political parties that will ratify treaties benefiting (harming) them. By designing treaties that mobilize these “swing” groups, negotiators can affect different parties’ chances of assuming power. Our model produces specific predictions for treaty design, contingent on the preferences of negotiators, parties, and interest groups. With conservative and moderate interest groups, the results may be counterintuitive—for instance, foreign governments pushing liberal treaties on liberal incumbents they dislike, intentionally mobilizing interest groups against the treaty and in favor of conservative challengers. Highly competitive systems, particularly those where moderate interest groups’ support is in play, give treaty negotiators leeway to shape political outcomes. Powerful interest groups may exert strong influence or no influence, depending on the cost of appeasing them and whether domestic and foreign negotiators are willing to gamble the incumbent’s political future for the achievement of their policy ideals.

The politics of adjustment in deficit countries were characterized by strong domestic discontent, leading to significant political upheaval. Why did policymakers in these countries nonetheless implement unprecedented austerity and painful structural reforms? Zooming in on the domestic drivers of this adjustment choice, this chapter highlights mechanisms by which internal adjustment grew more politically feasible in deficit countries. The chapter draws on original survey data on the policy preferences of 359 economic interest groups in Ireland, Spain and Greece. It finds that while groups were consistently negative to a full range of scenarios by which external adjustment could be achieved in deficit countries, their preferences toward austerity measures and structural reforms varied much more widely. This variation, it is argued, facilitated the formation of pro-internal adjustment coalitions in deficit country contexts. Moreover, the chapter shows that opportunity costs mattered. While opposed to internal adjustment in absolute terms, a large majority of interest groups in deficit countries grew pliable to the prospect of it when faced with a choice between this and the alternative of abandoning the euro; even if internal adjustment programs were comprised of policies that groups themselves distinctly opposed.

Much work in political science today in some way or another involves the analysis of competition between interest groups, whether they are landlords and peasants, employers and workers, creditors and debtors, or producers and consumers. But how do we know what these groups want? Should we derive their interests from theory or discover their preferences through field research?1 These basic questions strike at the heart of current debates in comparative politics.2 In practice, many analysts derive group interests by logical assumption, often building on standard economic theory. In doing so, they implicitly or explicitly adopt a thick view of rationality. That is, they give rationality a specific substance: the maximization of economic welfare.3 Not surprisingly, those who work in political economy are particularly drawn to this approach.4 Proponents contend that by making certain assumptions about preferences they allow themselves to devise more parsimonious, powerful, replicable, and testable models. In any case, the interests of many groups, particularly those defined by their place within the economy, are virtually self-evident.5 After all, how many employers do not want lower wages, and how many workers do not want higher wages? How many producers do not want higher prices, and how many consumers do not want lower prices? Curiously, Japanese consumer groups have repeatedly advocated policy positions at odds with their basic material interest in lower prices, higher financial returns, greater choice, and a more efficient economic system. Japan offers a cautionary tale for those who assume that they know what interest groups want or that economistic assumptions about interest group preferences apply equally well in different national contexts.6 While I do not suggest that political scientists should never make simplifying assumptions about interest group preferences, I contend that even the safest assumptions may turn out to be false and that false assumptions tend to produce faulty political analysis in practice. In the case of Japanese consumers, seemingly innocuous assumptions about consumer preferences have not only led political analysts to mischaracterize Japanese consumers' role in politics, but also to misinterpret Japan's postwar political economy more generally. Economists, political scientists, U.S. negotiators, and Japanese consumer groups overwhelmingly agree that Japan's postwar economic system has favored producers over consumers.7 The financial system shifted resources from consumers to produc-

A key characteristic of the Eurozone crisis is that the burden of adjustment was carried almost exclusively by crisis countries. Surplus countries did not contribute to the necessary rebalancing, even though internal adjustment likely would have reduced some of the pressure on deficit states. The chapter argues that surplus countries’ resistance to internal adjustment is rooted in domestic distributive struggles about the design of possible adjustment policies. To explore this argument, original survey data is leveraged from 357 economic interest groups from Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands and qualitative interviews with interest group representatives. The chapter shows that although there is general support for internal adjustment among economic interest groups, they disagree heavily about how exactly to achieve this goal. Together with a broad consensus to avoid a breakup of the Eurozone, the resulting deadlock turned interstate financing—such as bailouts to crisis countries—into a politically attractive strategy. Rather than being rooted only in ordoliberal ideology or export orientation, distributive conflicts thus contributed significantly to surplus countries’ resistance to adjust.

This paper is a culmination of research conducted over the course of the fall 2009 semester for PSC 245: Interest Group Politics. Throughout the semester we discussed the origin of the interest group and their effect on American democratic politics and the populace. From Federalist #10, where Madison discusses factions and their necessity within a democratic system to theories questioning the concept of pluralism, which espouses equal representation amongst competing and countervailing influences. Notions such as fairness, equality, and access are often called into question when analyzing the influence and actions of interest groups in their pursuit of said policy-making goals. As Congress has conspicuously grown more polarized, the public’s ill view toward lobbyists and their influence have increased dramatically. However, despite this distrust the American voter has come to the realization that interest groups exercise an important part of our political system, their ability to act on behalf of those who cannot and will not speak for themselves. After all, the purpose of an interest group is to attempt to influence policy to the benefit of its members. The following research was the result of a class requirement to choose and examine an interest group within the health care reform debate. Following the research we were required to compile a research paper detailing our chosen groups lobbying techniques to determine which of our 6 groups were the most likely to succeed in achieving their policy goal, whether said group was for or against health care reform: H. R. 3962. The Business and Trade Associations is the largest sector whose apparent goal is to maximize profits. As such, its influence in terms of lobbying techniques is widely perceived to yield the most power in terms of funding. However, when evaluated in comparison to other interest group sectors, businesses in fact have more to lose than gain. The following research is structured beginning with the most successful interest group and will conclude with the group most likely to fail. My chosen 6 interest groups are Safeway, Wal- Mart, PepsiCo Inc., NFIB, NACS, and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.

Interest groups (IGs) can potentially influence policy making process or policy outcomes in their favor by using different lobbying tactics. In this paper, we study how and under what circumstances IGs exert influence on policy outcomes when they can use Micro-targeting (MT) as a lobbying strategy, i.e. the IGs can send group specific messages to a subset of voters. In the absence of IGs, the political candidate does not have means to privately commit a policy to a group of voters, who might vote for her after observing such policy commitment. Recognizing this, IGs can get policy favours from the political candidate in exchange for facilitating candidate’s private commitment. We identify conditions in which MT is influential, in the sense of leading to a different policy outcome in the presence of IGs. The analysis fully characterizes the set of influential MT equilibria. The like minded IG does not have any direct influence, but its presence could severely impact the direct influence of unlike minded IGs given that the competing candidates are ideologically motivated. Moreover, this may also lead to polarisation between the two competing candidates.