The Strategies and Tactics of Interest Groups: The Case of the Environmental and Energy Policy Arena

Abstract

This paper examines strategies, or sets of advocacy tactics, interest groups use to influence policy, and compares those to the various strategy constructs identified in the literature. Factor analysis of our data confirm that the tactics used by the groups active in the environmental and energy policy arena during the 1980s clustered into four overall strategies. The “informational” strategy remains the dominant approach to group advocacy, but the other strategies are distinguishable from the constructs in the literature after Milbrath's The Washington Lobbyists. Our data also show that the structure of group strategies varies among the three types of groups that function in this arena. Public interest groups pursue more differentiated strategies than trade associations, and professional and governmental associations adopt more narrowly informational approaches than public interest or trade groups.