Interest Group Theory Research Articles

Who litigates and who collaborates? Evidence from environmental groups influencing National Forest management

Natural resource decision making is changing. Previously, federal agencies made decisions about public lands and resources with one-way input from user groups and the public, but now agencies are collaborating more with stakeholders and the public to develop alternatives and choose a course of action. Changes in decision-making venues and procedures can have an impact on the representation of different interest groups, as some groups are better suited to take advantage of new opportunities than others. It is important to understand how the rise of collaborative decision making is affecting interest group representation, as it can alter not only interest group survival and influence, but also policy and management outcomes. This research examines environmental interest group participation in collaborative National Forest decision making to understand the differences between participants and non-participants in collaboration and to determine the extent to which there is equal representation of these groups under a model of collaborative governance. A survey was conducted on 101 environmental groups to test hypotheses about the dominantly theorized drivers of interest group behavior – resources and interest. Then, four organizations were chosen for case study analysis to examine the correlations in greater detail. The results indicate that resources are important for shaping the environmental groups’ ability to collaborate; organizations with larger budgets and a higher level of professionalization were associated with a collaborating strategy. Interest is important for shaping the environmental groups’ willingness to collaborate; organizations with multiple values were associated with a collaborating strategy, whereas organizations with a single, environmental value were associated with a confronting strategy. The results provide empirical evidence that smaller, less professionalized environmental groups and more ideological environmental groups are not well represented in collaboration. Given that collaboration is increasingly used to address environmental conflicts, the exclusion of these groups could affect their survival and influence on policy making, and could change the composition and influence of the environmental movement. Building organizational capacity, networking and encouraging alternative forms of participation in collaboration could help limit organizations’ marginalization under collaborative governance. Further, encouraging appropriate and legitimate collaboration, and upholding the legal foundation of environmental decision making will ensure that environmental organizations can participate in policy making through whatever strategy they choose.

Appropriate reactions to globalisation? Interest group theory and trade associations in clothing between 1970 and 2000 – a comparison between Denmark and Sweden

Today both Denmark and Sweden are successful fashion exporters due to the re-export of clothing designed in Scandinavia and produced in low-wage countries, while domestic clothing manufacturing has become almost non-existent over the past 20 years. This article compares the strategies of Danish and Swedish trade associations in clothing manufacturing and discusses whether or not the associations encouraged the abandonment of local manufacturing and adoption of global value chains. The analysis is carried out on the basis of interest group theory as developed by Mancur Olson and others, and the findings confirm that interest group influence can entail long-term negative effects, but also that variations in institutional settings are decisive.

Business as usual: interest group access and representation across policy-making venues

AbstractWe provide the first comprehensive study of lobbying across venues by studying interest group registrations in both the legislative and administrative branches. We present four major findings based on Federal and state data. Firstly, groups engage in substantial administrative lobbying relative to legislative lobbying. Secondly, the vast majority of groups lobby the legislature, but a large proportion of groups also lobby the bureaucracy. Thirdly, representational biases in legislative lobbying are replicated across venues: business groups dominate administrative lobbying at least as much as they do legislative lobbying. Finally, the level of interest group activity in one venue for a given policy area is strongly related to its level in the other venue. The findings potentially have important implications for the impact of institutional design on both the form and promotion of broad participation in policy-making as well as the ultimate content of policies chosen by democratic governments, broadly construed.

Book Review: Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling

Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola Creative License: Law and Culture of Digital Sampling. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. 325 pp.Due to Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA), United States is one of sixty-seven nations to protect copyright for author's life plus seventy years-the longest term ever-or for ninety-five years for works anonymous or made for hire. Still, any causal relationship between term of protection and proliferation of original works of authorship (the U.S. Copyright Office label) has never been established, even though positive correlation may be evident, for example, in rising number of book titles (more than 347,000 in 2011, according to market research firm Bowker).1McLeod and DiCola's well-crafted book, which examines intersections of with copyright law, explains why causal relationship simply may not exist.Digital sampling, or using snippets of existing recordings in new recordings, is subject of this elegant book, whose authors have succeeded in creating a richer text- collage of words that both describes and enacts technique of (p. 18). If digital sampling is phenomenon in U.S. music (or recording) industry, then it should evoke keen interest in students of not only copyright but also contemporary American musicology.The book is based on interviews of more than one hundred stakeholders of recording industry, including musicians who have sampled or been sampled (including Saul Williams), music executives and lawyers (including Mia Garlick), clearance professionals (including Pat Shanahan), public interest group representatives (including Brian Zisk), music historians (including Greg Tate), musicologists (including Joanna Demers), journalists (including JeffChang), and law professors (including Lawrence Lessig). A sublime chapter titled The Sample Clearance System: How It Works (and How It Breaks Down) describes business of clearing samples, including types of negotiation, structure and terms of sample licenses, musician may navigate system, benefits of licensing, expenses in sample clearance, relationships, timing difficulties and bureaucracies in sample clearances, and obstacles to mash-ups such as gatekeepers and distributors. In following chapter, authors analyze implications of those issues for creativity, including superb commentary on licensing costs.The authors find that clearly, the sample licensing and collage-based forms of creativity are in conflict (p. 17), and they state their goal is to figure out how to properly fix sample clearance system (p. …

Multiplex networks and interest group influence reputation: An exponential random graph model

Interest groups struggle to build reputations as influential actors in the policy process and to discern the influence exercised by others. This study conceptualizes influence reputation as a relational variable that varies locally throughout a network. Drawing upon interviews with 168 interest group representatives in the United States health policy domain, this research examines the effects of multiplex networks of communication, coalitions, and issues on influence reputation. Using an exponential random graph model (ERGM), the analysis demonstrates that multiple roles of confidant, collaborator, and issue advocate affect how group representatives understand the influence of those with whom they are tied, after accounting for homophily among interest groups.

The interest group theory of financial development: Evidence from regulation

We use a new dataset of de jure measures of trade, capital account, product market, and domestic financial regulation for 91 countries from 1973 to 2005 to test Rajan and Zingales’s (2003) interest group theory of financial development. In line with the theory, we find strong evidence that trade liberalization is a leading indicator of domestic financial liberalization. This result is robust to the use of different data frequencies (annual, 5-year intervals), estimation methods (OLS, 2SLS, system GMM) and a check for non-linear effects. However, in contrast to the theory, we do not find consistent evidence of an effect of capital account liberalization.

Piercing the Corporate Veil in China: Where Is It Now and Where Is It Heading

This Paper presents the results of the first comprehensive empirical study of China’s cases adjudicated under the statutory veil piercing regime introduced as part of the 2005 corporate law reform. It provides insights into the way Chinese courts have interpreted and applied the veil piercing doctrine, an area of law renowned for its complexity and uncertainty. Some comparisons are drawn between the results of this study and similar studies undertaken in common law jurisdictions, which served as a model for the new Chinese veil-piercing regime. The empirical findings are analyzed in an attempt to answer the question whether and how China’s veil-piercing law has fulfilled its stated mission, namely to protect creditors. A number of suggestions are offered with a view to improve its efficacy. The Paper also applies the interest-group theory to explain and project the development of China’s veil-piercing rules. The outcome of the research can be of considerable significance, especially to foreign lenders, business partners or investors in Chinese companies.

Human Perspectives and Conservation of Grizzly Bears in Banff National Park, Canada

Some conservation initiatives provoke intense conflict among stakeholders. The need for action, the nature of the conservation measures, and the effects of these measures on human interests may be disputed. Tools are needed to depolarize such situations, foster understanding of the perspectives of people involved, and find common ground. We used Q methodology to explore stakeholders' perspectives on conservation and management of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) in Banff National Park and the Bow River watershed of Alberta, Canada. Twenty-nine stakeholders participated in the study, including local residents, scientists, agency employees, and representatives of nongovernmental conservation organizations and other interest groups. Participants rank ordered a set of statements to express their opinions on the problems of grizzly bear management (I-IV) and a second set of statements on possible solutions to the problems (A-C). Factor analysis revealed that participants held 4 distinct views of the problems: individuals associated with factor I emphasized deficiencies in goals and plans; those associated with factor II believed that problems had been exaggerated; those associated with factor III blamed institutional flaws such as disjointed management and inadequate resources; and individuals associated with factor IV blamed politicized decision making. There were 3 distinct views about the best solutions to the problems: individuals associated with factor A called for increased conservation efforts; those associated with factor B wanted reforms in decision-making processes; and individuals associated with factor C supported active landscape management. We connected people's definitions of the problem with their preferred solutions to form 5 overall problem narratives espoused by groups in the study: the problem is deficient goals and plans, the solution is to prioritize conservation efforts (planning-oriented conservation advocates); the problem is flawed institutions, the solution is to prioritize conservation efforts (institutionally-oriented conservation advocates); the problems have been exaggerated, but there is a need to improve decision-making processes (optimistic decision-process reformers); the problems have been exaggerated, but managers should more actively manage the landscape (optimistic landscape managers); and the problem is politicized decision making, solutions vary (democratizers). Although these 5 groups differed on many issues, they agreed that the population of grizzly bears is vulnerable to extirpation, human use of the area should be designed around ecological constraints, and more inclusive decision-making processes are needed. We used our results to inform a series of workshops in which stakeholders developed and agreed on new management strategies that were implemented by Parks Canada. Our research demonstrates the usefulness of Q method to illuminate people's perspectives and identify common ground in settings where conservation is contested.

Revisiting the Impact of Judicial Review on Agency Rulemakings: An Empirical Investigation

ABSTRACT It is generally believed that the judicial review of agency rulemakings helps protect the public against industry capture. Yet very little empirical research has been done to assess the accuracy of this conventional wisdom. This Study examines the entire set of air toxic emission regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with particular attention to those rules appealed to judgment in the court of appeals, and discovers significant disconnects between popular understanding of judicial review and rulemaking reality. Of these air toxic rules (N=90), the courts were summoned to review only a small fraction (8%), despite evidence that many air toxic rules may have problems, at least from the public perspective. Moreover, although virtually all of the litigation brought by public groups against the EPA's air toxic rules was successful, the resulting victories have not yet had much impact in practice. For most of its vacated regulations, the EPA has either ignored or limited the courts' opinions and has not repromulgated revised rules. Thus, while the tenor of the opinions seems to reaffirm the courts' role as guardian of the public the actual impact of these opinions on agency practice may be less influential than one might expect. A concluding section takes the analysis one step further and explores the possibility that the net effect of judicial review may actually be more perverse. The ability of the dominant parties (which in the case of the EPA's air toxic rules are regulated industries) to threaten the agency with expensive and time-consuming litigation could provide these groups with legal leverage that, in the aggregate, serves to further undermine the agency's ability to act on behalf of the public interest. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. JUDICIAL REVIEW OF AGENCY RULEMAKINGS: THEORY AND PRACTICE A. Basics of Judicial Review B. Unreviewed Assumptions II. THE STUDY III. FINDINGS A. The Role of the Courts in Advancing the Public Interest 1. The Court Opinions 2. The Denominator Factor: Comparing the Appeals Against the Larger Set of Air Toxic Emission Standards 3. Summary B. What Is the Impact of the Courts' Rulings on the EPA's Rulemaking Project? 1. Repairing Deficient Rules 2. Precedential Effects C. Some of the Unintended Costs to the Public Interest from Judicial Review IV. REVISITING THE IMPACT OF JUDICIAL REVIEW ON AGENCY RULEMAKINGS A. Interest Group Representation Model B. The Traditional Model, Revisited C. The Limits of the Courts CONCLUSION APPENDIX INTRODUCTION The judicial expansion of standing in the 1970s radically altered administrative process. A legal system available only to regulated industries seeking to protect their narrow interests against agency abuse (1) was transformed into a process that allowed all affected parties, including public groups, to challenge agency rules in court. (2) The risk that the agency could now be sued by all affected parties, rather than just by regulated interests, was expected to cause agencies to be both more solicitous of and more receptive to the views of all stakeholders. (3) Equally beneficial, when an agency did ignore stakeholder input, the agency could be forced to explain its decision to the courts. (4) This new, broader form of judicial review was expected to play a particularly important institutional check against capture by regulated parties. (5) Although there is vigorous debate about whether this pluralistic model--initially dubbed the interest group representation model--is the best one for administrative process, (6) there seems to be tacit agreement among commentators that this model generally describes what occurs on the ground. (7) Yet central features of the pluralistic model remain unsubstantiated as an empirical matter. …

Medicaid

In the United States, Medicaid is the primary social safety net that provides health care for the poor and other vulnerable populations. Interest group theory and federalism, state level sovereignty, are used to create a theoretical model that proposes factors, other than increasing health care cost, as growth determinants of Medicaid expenditure and enrollments. For over three decades driven by federalism state-level discretionary Medicaid waiver programs have been creating new and unsustainable entitlements. The role of Medicaid waivers is poorly understood and in need of scholarly attention. Due to a lack of federal oversight and other social and political factors, some of which will be discussed in this paper, it appears that discretionary Medicaid waiver programs put in place as a solution are contributing to the overall structural issues of Medicaid. The paper concludes with suggestions on needed research and some potential policy recommendations.

Ethnic enterprise governance: a public choice analysis of Liverpool's Chinatown

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to use a case study of Liverpool, UK, to perform a public choice analysis of the governance of Chinatown. This case study is a theoretical application of clubs and interest group theory to ethnic economies.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on fieldwork conducted in the Chinatown of Liverpool, England. It utilises interviews, surveys and observation to capture the emergence of the organisation of the community.FindingsThe paper demonstrates how the availability of regeneration funds can create incentives for voluntary community associations to switch into predatory rent‐seeking collectives. The characteristics of a Chinese community are predisposed towards being an effective interest group.Originality/valueThe paper presents new primary data and is a rare attempt to chart the evolution and development of “ethnic enterprise governance”. It extends the existing literature on the economic organisation of Chinatown into a theory of the political representation of ethnic communities, utilising the tradition of rational choice political science.

Who cares about the lobbying agenda?

There has been a long-standing concern about inequality in the representation of interests by organized groups and lobbyists in American politics. The lobbying community in Washington is dominated by corporations, trade associations and professional associations. In Lobbying and Policy Change, Baumgartner and colleagues find that interest group resources are not a very reliable predictor of policy outcomes. This might lead some to conclude that inequality in interest group representation is not a major problem for American democracy. However, we suggest that inequality in interest group representation presents itself at the agenda-setting stage. The public agenda is quite different from the lobbying agenda. That is, the types of issues that are most important to the public differ from the types of issues that lobbyists bring to the attention of government officials. We examine public opinion data in more detail to determine if there is greater congruence between the public agenda and lobbying agenda for certain publics (for example, high SES citizens). We find additional evidence that the lobbying agenda does not reflect the policy priorities of the public. However, we find relatively few differences between the policy priorities of low-income and high-income Americans, suggesting that the lobbying agenda fails to represent the concerns of all broadly defined income groups.

Investigating interest group representation on the Pacific Fisheries Management Council

A pervasive argument has emerged in debates over US ocean fishery policy that the policy-making process has generally been captured by commercial industry interests and consequently permits fishing quotas beyond sustainable harvesting levels. While it is clear that commercial interests are over-represented relative to recreational interests on the regional councils that set fishery policy, it is not clear whether commercial interests necessarily enact unsustainable policies. This paper examines the vote choices of representatives on the Pacific Fisheries Management Council by creating a spatial map of ideal point locations of voting members during the years 2006–2009 and then identifying voting coalitions. If a dominance by commercial interests leads to unsustainable policies, then it must be the case that members of this interest group vote as a cohesive and distinct bloc. In the end, however, it is shown that a geographic explanation for vote choices outperforms an interest group explanation. ► Vote choices made by members of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council are largely similar within state coalitions. ► Vote choices are largely dissimilar within interest group designations. ► Overall, state-based explanations for vote choices outperform interest group explanations. ► Arguments over reforms to the Regional Fisheries Management Councils must utilize empirical evidence.

Between Detachment and Responsiveness: Civil Servants in Europe and North America

The article shows that civil servants who believe that the long-term interest of society is best served by their detached policy advice to policy-makers also hold on to their opinion more than any other actor involved in policy development. However, more civil servants currently emphasise responsiveness, at the expense of detached analysis, owing to increased exposure to international consultancy and forums. As a consequence, the attitude of civil servants in developing public policy is more likely to be indistinguishable from that of actors who have political functions, without significant variation from country to country. Evidence supporting this argument is provided by an analysis of the results of a survey first conducted in 2006 and repeated in 2008. The two waves of the survey drew responses from civil servants, interest group representatives and non-governmental experts who contribute to biotechnology policy development in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and the European Union.

International Affairs and the Public Sphere

Most social scientists would like to believe that their profession contributes to solving pressing global problems. There is today no shortage of global problems that social scientists should study in depth: ethnic and religious conflict within and between states, the challenge of economic development, terrorism, the management of a fragile world economy, climate change and other forms of environmental degradation, the origins and impact of great power rivalries, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, just to mention a few. In this complex and contentious world, one might think that academic expertise about global affairs would be a highly valued commodity. One might also expect scholars of international relations to play a prominent role in public debates about foreign policy, along with government officials, business interests, representatives of special interest groups, and other concerned citizens. Yet the precise role that academic scholars of international affairs should play is not easy to specify. Indeed, there appear to be two conflicting ways of thinking about this matter. On the one hand, there is a widespread sense that academic research on global affairs is of declining practical value, either as a guide to policymakers or as part of broader public discourse about world affairs. On the other hand, closer engagement with the policy world and more explicit efforts at public outreach are not without their own pitfalls. Scholars who enter government service or participate in policy debates may believe that they are speaking truth to power, but they run the risk of being corrupted or co-opted in subtle and not-so-subtle ways by the same individuals and institutions that they initially hoped to sway. The remainder of this essay explores these themes in greater detail.

Challenges to achieving greater and fairer stakeholder involvement in marine spatial planning as illustrated by the Lyme Bay scallop dredging closure

The statutory closure of 60 square miles of Lyme Bay to towed fishing gear in 2008 marked the culmination of nearly 20 years of discussions between conservationists and fishermen. Prior to the 2008 decision, voluntary, bottom–up led agreements resulted in inadequate protection of the bay's biological resources and significant erosion of social capital. Lyme Bay provides an excellent case study of the challenges likely to be posed by wider stakeholder involvement imposed under the new Marine Act. This paper examines a broad range of perspectives in relation to the Lyme Bay consultation and subsequent closure, via semi-structured interviews with 25 representatives of different interest groups in Lyme Bay. All respondents acknowledged significant flaws in the process leading to the Lyme Bay decision and felt the Marine Act was well placed to tackle many of these criticisms. However, while the Marine Act should provide a framework for resolving conflicts, it will not prevent them. Success will depend on collaboration between different marine interests, and also on the government acknowledging that outcomes are unlikely to favour everyone in the short-term and that top-down interventions are inevitable.

Open the door to more of the same? The development of interest group representation at the WTO

AbstractThe openness of the World Trade Organization (WTO) towards non-state actors has led to much debate among scholars and practitioners. The objective of this paper is to add empirical knowledge to this ongoing debate. In particular, we examine the effects of allowing interest groups to participate at WTO Ministerial Conferences (MCs) during 1996–2009 by analyzing a novel dataset of 1992 interest organizations that attended seven MCs. The data we present demonstrate that, in contrast to what many expected, the WTO did not attract a more diverse population of interest groups since these organizations were allowed to participate at MCs. Moreover, we observe an increasing overrepresentation of some specific issue-related interests, especially agriculture, and a strong presence of Northern American and European interest organizations attending MCs. Another important observation is that MCs are not particularly dominated by business interests at the expense of NGOs (non-governmental organization), who are also consistently well represented at the WTO meetings. Yet, the high levels of volatility observed at the level of individual organizations suggests that, although it is rather easy to start lobbying at WTO MCs, only a relatively small number of interest organizations keep a long lobbying presence at this level.

Dynamics of peace and democratization. The Aceh lessons

The viability of the thesis that liberalization and democracy foster peace, security and development is at stake. The main critique is that more liberties and elections lead to more conflict and abuses of power. There are three principal responses to this critique. The liberal argument calls for improving the democratic institutions; the institutions first thesis prioritizes strengthening the rule of law and state capacity over democracy; whilst the transformation argument proposes using fledgling democracy to foster gradually more favourable relations of power and popular capacity towards more substantial democracy. This article analyses the relevance of these theses to the remarkable dynamics of peace-building in Aceh, from the introduction of Indonesian democracy in 1998, the impact of the tsunami in 2004 and the Helsinki peace agreement in 2005 to the general elections in 2009. The study concludes that the liberal argument is congruous with the democratic opportunities for peace, while the institutions first and the transformation arguments give prominence to the dynamics that made peace-building possible but also difficult. While the institutions first argument responds to these difficulties by resorting to power sharing, the transformation thesis proposes more citizen participation coupled with interest and issue group representation.

La force d'une institution faible.

The strength of a weak institution. The case of a European information agency To understand how information produced by European agencies contributes to the convergence of individual state policies it is often necessary to study the venues where experts, policy makers, representatives of interest groups or civil society, etc., socialize. In particular, it is argued that those venues and arenas are key settings where social learning process takes place. It is not as common, however, to study the conditions under and the processes by which information is generated within/by those agencies. This type of analysis could nevertheless be of interest for better understanding the elementary mechanisms that compose socialisation and social learning processes : by analysing the actual production process of information, one can disclose what are the peculiar nature and features of this information and according to which it is considered as true, reliable or legitimate by actors evolving in European arenas, networks and institutions. It helps explaining the efficacy of ideas, i.e. their capacity to circulate, to convince and, finally, to affect the behaviours of its main targets.

Electoral Support for Community Growth Management Policy*

Objectives. This study seeks to explain the variation in voter support for growth management policy. Interest group theory of local politics and property rights is used as a theoretical framework to explore how competing pro‐growth and anti‐growth interests influence the level of electoral support at the ballot box.Methods. Survey data collected from local planning officials in Massachusetts are analyzed using a two‐stage Heckman selection model.Results. The results indicate that development competition has a negative effect and controversy over development a positive effect on the probability of a community placing growth management policy on the local ballot. The analysis further indicates that environmental interests and suburban communities have a positive influence on the percentage of votes cast in favor of conservation‐oriented growth management policy. Neighborhood‐based interests, on the other hand, have a negative influence on voter support.Conclusions. The findings suggest that compared to the normal legislative process, ballot‐box voting allows anti‐growth and localized interests the opportunity to craft proposals and then mobilize support for policy changes.