Political Entrepreneurs and the Transfer Demanding Process: Homesteading the Unassigned District

Abstract

This paper introduces the transfer-demanding entrepreneur to help bridge the gap between static equi- libria in an interest group theory of government and process theories. The transfer demanding entrepreneur acts in a creative, discontinuous fashion to organize latent demand for a particular transfer into an effective interest group. The disequilibrating, re-equilibrating transfer demanding entrepreneur provides a theoretical framework for understanding the movement between static political equilibria. This paper considers the transfer demand- ing entrepreneurship necessary to bring together the western railroads, organized labor, and potential Oklahoma colonists in the passage of white settlement and coal-lease ratification legislation in the Indian Territory.