Lobbying Campaign Research Articles

Upstream influence: The positive impact of PAC contributions on Marcellus Shale roll call votes in Pennsylvania

Political scientists have long tried to explain how interest group lobbying and political action committee campaign donations affect election outcomes and public policy debates. Unfortunately, they are often met with null or conflicting results. Consequently, scholars have tested the influence of campaign donations on Congressional outcomes in different parts of the policy-making process, such as roll call votes and committee hearings. Building on these findings, I use the adoption of a Marcellus Shale impact fee in Pennsylvania to test whether campaign contributions have a different effect on bill amendment roll call votes than final floor votes. Given the differing political contexts of these two votes, it stands to reason that there is variation in the relationship between campaign donations and member voting behavior. Specifically, I expect that legislators have more flexibility in voting on amendments than on final bills, and thus factors other than party, including campaign funding, are also relevant. I find that while party, ideology and tenure are the only significant factors associated with roll call votes on final bills, campaign contributions and local-level salience are positively associated with voting on amendments. This shows that while moneyed interests may not be successful in stopping undesirable legislation, they can achieve legislative victory by shaping the bill as it travels through the legislature.

Legally Speaking -- The Other "L" Word: A Primer for Creating Library Lobbying and Marketing Campaigns While Staying Within the Law

Legally Speaking -- The Other "L" Word: A Primer for Creating Library Lobbying and Marketing Campaigns While Staying Within the Law

Six strategy lessons from Clausewitz and Sun Tzu

A good strategy is crucial for a successful lobby or public affairs campaign. In this article, six strategy lessons from Clausewitz and Sun Tzu's classical works on military strategy are discussed, which could be useful for lobbyists and public affairs managers. Although waging war and lobbying are totally different things, there are also many similarities: both deal with aims to be achieved, opponents, threats and opportunities, (political) victories, and defeats. Therefore, military strategic thinking might provide the field of public affairs with some good and practical insights. First of all, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz stress the importance of meticulous exploration before the action starts. Subsequently, when laying strategy plans, one should beware of Pyrrhic victories and ‘the fallacies of hope’. Clausewitz, in particular, warns us to expect the unexpected and not to be surprised by the friction between even the best plans and their realization. A good way to handle this friction is to lay down the why and the what of coming actions but not how these actions should be carried out. Both thinkers also provide guidance in how to effectively deal with opponents; surprise an opponent to achieve the upper hand, and bring yourself in a position which will enable a decisive step forward; divide opponents whilst making yourself as strong as possible; and finally prevent a hard-edged confrontation by offering an alternative. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Democracy and the Skill-Bias in Trade Policy in Developing Countries

A growing body of research suggests that democracy promotes trade liberalization in developing countries. We argue that democracy in developing countries generates a skill bias in trade policy where democratic incumbents have incentives to increase tariffs on high skilled goods but reduce trade barriers on low skilled goods. Our model analyzes how electoral competition and interest group politics in the Heckscher-Ohlin economy of a democratic developing country affects trade protection on low and high skilled goods. It predicts that electoral competition induces the government to reduce trade barriers for low skilled goods to maximize the utility of the abundant factor, namely the low skilled median voter, who optimally prefers a reduction in tariffs for low skilled goods. At the same time, electoral politics also engenders lobbying pressure and campaign contributions from the scarce factor in the polity – the owners of skill-intensive industries (the interest group) – who prefers more trade protection for high skilled goods. The government rationally responds to contributions and electoral dividends generated by protecting skill-intensive industries from import competition by increasing tariffs on high skilled goods. Empirical tests conducted on a novel disaggregated industry-level dataset of trade protection for 92 developing countries from 1978-2004 provides robust statistical support for our theoretical predictions.

NONPROLIFERATION POLICY CROSSROADS:

On October 1, 2008, Congress enacted a proposal that originated with President George W. Bush in 2005 to approve an unprecedented nuclear trade pact with India by removing a central pillar of US nonproliferation policy. Despite the numerous political challenges confronting the Bush administration, the initiative won strong bipartisan support, including votes from Democratic Senators Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. The four-year struggle to pass the controversial US-India nuclear trade agreement offers an exceptionally valuable case study. It demonstrates a classic tradeoff between the pursuit of broad multilateral goals such as nuclear nonproliferation and advancement of a specific bilateral relationship. It reveals enduring fault lines in executive branch relations with Congress. It vividly portrays challenges confronting proponents of a strong nonproliferation regime. This article is based on an analysis of the negotiating record and congressional deliberations, including interviews with key participants. It assesses the lessons learned and focuses on three principal questions: how did the agreement seek to advance US national security interests?; what were the essential elements of the prolonged state-of-the-art lobbying campaign to win approval from skeptics in Congress?; and what are the agreement's actual benefits—and costs—to future US nonproliferation efforts?

What is known about tobacco industry efforts to influence tobacco tax? A systematic review of empirical studies

ObjectiveTo systematically review studies of tobacco industry efforts to influence tobacco tax policies.MethodsSearches were conducted between 1 October 2009 and 31 March 2010 in 14 databases/websites, in relevant bibliographies and...

Russian lobbying in the United States: stages of evolution

The article examines Russian lobbying in the US. The endogenous and exogenous factors of Russian lobbying are analyzed as well as its qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The article depicts stages of Russian lobbying development: (i) from government to private entities; (ii) nongovernmental lobbying; and (iii) a return to government. Additionally, occasional attempts by Russian entities to secure funding from the US budget are mentioned. Two case studies are studied to show the nature of current Russian lobbying in the US: lobbying campaigns by Techsnabexport, state‐owned corporation, and GML, a private business concern. The article concludes that Russian lobbying in the US is weak. At the beginning, it was mostly about investment consulting, and with the rise in oil prices and the decrease in political freedom, the need for and availability of lobbying diminished. Some private corporations were nationalized under President Putin and, as a result, lost control over their international expansion strategies, with the remaining private corporations being afraid of independent lobbying campaigns abroad. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Who Listens to the Grass Roots? A Field Experiment on Informational Lobbying in the UK

Research on interest groups indicates that elected representatives respond positively to the informational content of a lobby campaign; but scholars also acknowledge that this claim is hard to evaluate because of the methodological challenges of establishing whether influence occurred or not. To test for the impact of informational lobbying, we deploy an experimental design, recruiting citizen interest groups in eight local authority areas to campaign on a matter of importance to them. These groups sent either information-rich or information-poor lobbying letters to 248 randomly selected local councillors in their areas, and we monitored the responses. Descriptive statistics and regressions with clustered standard errors show that the informational content of the letter does not make a difference to the response overall. But the information-rich treatment affected the quality of the response, encouraging councillors to pass on the letter to another expert or professional. Our findings indicate that elected representatives in English local government use a cue from an informational lobby to defer to other professional elites rather than to engage with the lobbyist's request. These findings have implications for the study of lobbying influence in other jurisdictions.

“What we have here is a failure to communicate”: Same-Sex Marriage, Evangelicals, and the Canadian News Media

Abstract: From the time it was introduced, evangelicals in Canada were fervently opposed to the federal government's same-sex marriage legislation and from 2003 to 2006 several evangelical organizations waged an extensive lobbying campaign against it. To persuade the public and federal politicians to support their position, these organizations employed a sophisticated communication strategy that focused on three core arguments. The arguments, which were worked into speeches, petitions, presentations, letters, and media-savvy talking points, were not based on theological ideals but secular, empirical data. This study content analyzed news coverage from Canada's national newspapers and national television news programs that focused on evangelicals and the same-sex marriage debate. Based on the extant literature it was hypothesized that in their news coverage, in order to mitigate the influence of the evangelicals' position (with which they disagreed), journalists would ignore/omit the evangelicals' three core, non-religious arguments for opposing same-sex marriage. The hypothesis was supported.

Three’s Company: Wall Street, Capitol Hill, and K Street

This paper explores the link between the political influence of the financial industry and financial regulation in the run-up to the global financial crisis. We construct a detailed database documenting the lobbying activities, campaign contributions, and political connections of the financial industry from 1999 to 2006 in the United States. We find evidence that spending on lobbying by the financial industry and network connections between lobbyists and the legislators were positively linked to the probability of a legislator changing positions in favor of deregulation. The evidence also suggests that hiring connected lobbyists who had worked for legislators in the past enhanced this link.

Taxation as Prevention and as a Treatment for Obesity: The Case of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

The contemporary American food environment makes energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods and beverages the "default" option for most consumers. Economic interventions like taxes can shift the relative prices of unhealthy foods to nudge consumers towards healthier options. Beverages with added sugar are a good starting point for food taxation; they constitute over 10 percent of caloric intake nationwide and provide little or no nutritional value. Current levels of taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are too low to affect consumer behavior, but the implementation of a penny-per-ounce excise tax could lead to substantial public health benefits. Current estimates predict that a tax that raised the cost of SSBs by 20 percent could lead to an average reduction of 3.8 pounds per year for adults, causing the prevalence of obesity to decline from 33 to 30 percent. SSB taxes would also generate considerable revenue for public health and obesity prevention programs. Although the beverage industry is fighting such taxes with massive lobbying and public relations campaigns, support for the policies is increasing, especially when revenue is earmarked for obesity prevention.

Who Listens to the Grassroots? A Field Experiment on Informational Lobbying in the UK

Research on interest groups indicates that elected representatives respond positively to the informational content of a lobby campaign; but scholars also acknowledge that this claim is hard to evaluate because of the methodological challenges of establishing whether influence occurred or not. To test for the impact of informational lobbying, we deploy an experimental design, recruiting citizen interest groups in eight local authority areas to campaign on a matter of importance to them. These groups sent either information-rich or information-poor lobbying letters to 248 randomly selected local councillors in their areas, and we monitored the responses. Descriptive statistics and regressions with clustered standard errors show that the informational content of the letter does not make a difference to the response overall. But the information-rich treatment affected the quality of the response, encouraging councillors to pass on the letter to another expert or professional. Our findings indicate that elected representatives in English local government use a cue from an informational lobby to defer to other professional elites rather than to engage with the lobbyist’s request. These findings have implications for the study of lobbying influence in other jurisdictions.

Culture Wars: The U.S. Art Lobby and Congressional Tariff Legislation during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

From 1883 to World War I, disputes over art tariffs roiled America's art community, drawing preeminent painters, sculptors, architects, and illustrators into national lobbying campaigns. This essay exposes artists’ agency in tariff politics, illuminates their ideologies, and explains congressional debates, legislation, and diplomacy regarding U.S. art schedules, while demonstrating how the art tariff imbroglio often challenged longstanding partisan patterns in Washington with respect to tariff protectionism. It also contributes to Atlantic world studies by exploring how artists’ anti-tariff positions derived from transoceanic systems of art pedagogy and exhibitions and by showing how protectionists (including a minority of artists) capitalized upon persistent popular stereotypes of national cultural inferiority. Finally, this essay argues that growing disparities of wealth and class sensitivities increasingly affected turn-of-the-century tariff discourse. Protectionists demanded punitive retribution against the international collecting activities of America's ostentatious plutocrats; free-art proponents craved tariff reforms for the didactic purpose of elevating popular taste through exposure to European masterworks.

‘Modest Monuments’?

The postage stamp issued by the USA in 2002 to commemorate Hawaiian athlete and cultural icon, Duke Kahanamoku, represented the culmination of a 30-year plus lobbying campaign involving a wide cross-section of interest groups. Via this prominent example, this paper examines postage stamps as an under-explored form of social memory and historical evidence and questions the weight and importance of stamps relative to other types of social memory. Intuitively, postage stamps might appear to be a relatively insignificant form of evidence; certainly, they have not been widely utilised by historians, including Pacific historians. Through an examination of the origins, semiotics and impact of the Kahanamoku stamp, this paper argues that stamps have the potential to reveal broad, underlying cultural forces and meanings, and re-evaluates their commemorative and interpretive effectiveness alongside other, complementary forms of social memory.

Peering in From Corporate Political Activity

This article responds to Professor Barley's address in which he said that corporations have inordinate power relative to other groups in society because of their superior resources and relationships with political actors. The article provides data on lobbying and political campaign contributions to show that corporations are dominant in resources, although nonbusiness interest groups actively use the same political activities. Also reviewed are prior studies showing that large corporations share intimate social networks with high-ranking public policy officials, leading to many benefits, including political power. The article provides conjecture that six conditions exist often enough to check the absolute dominance of corporate interests in public policy outcomes. The article indicates that contemporary organizational researchers have largely focused on the private benefits of corporate political activities and in turn have neglected to study the public economic, social, and political effects of such activities.

The President's Playbook: White House Strategies for Lobbying Congress

In today's White House, implementing elaborate lobbying campaigns in support of the president's legislative initiatives is a familiar exercise. However, even as tales of presidential arm-twisting and deal making abound, still unclear are the general strategies by which presidents can build winning coalitions on Capitol Hill. Here I propose that presidents have available two basic options for influencing Congress: they can shift the distribution of preferences for roll-call votes, and they can censor the policy alternatives that make it that far. The first constitutes a vote-centered strategy, the second an agenda-centered strategy. After developing each within a framework that explains presidents’ choices of lobbying targets and tactics, hypotheses are tested against corresponding data on the interactions between administration officials and U.S. Senators for three important issues in the 107th Congress.

When lobbying backfires: balancing lobby efforts with insights from stakeholder theory

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to improve upon lobby theory by learning from a failed lobby campaign in which the lobbyist managed to annoy and anger key constituencies.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a qualitative case study, conducted on attempts made by the Norwegian oil industry in 2002‐2004 to achieve a tax amendment. Qualitative interviews were carried out with oil industry representatives, two former ministers, political advisers, and members of parliament, and with journalists who had followed the campaign.FindingsThe main argument being put forward in this paper is that lobbyists should use insights from stakeholder theory.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is a single‐case study and it is difficult to generalise its findings. This invites more research.Practical implicationsThe paper combines lobby theory with an approach suggested by stakeholder theory which might temper single‐minded advocacy that is too preoccupied with getting immediate political results, and help organizations to remember that it is important to develop good long‐term relations with stakeholders.Originality/valueThe paper has potential to improve lobby theory and efforts.

John J. Parker and the Beginning of the Modern Confirmation Process

John J. Parker and the Beginning of the Modern Confirmation Process ERNESTO J. SANCHEZ* Ideological concerns’ dominance ofthe Supreme Court confirmation process has certainly become routine, especially in the form ofissue-driven interest groups’ influence over the agenda for Senate debates. More significantly, the Senate normally focuses on what Laurence Tribe has called “the net impact ofadding [a] candidate to the Court”1 interms ofsteering the Courttoward adherence to a particular judicial philosophy, such as originalism2 or pragmatism,3 or toward a specific outlook on a given constitutional issue. And when the President nominates someone with priorjudicial experience, the candidate’s decisions, as well as his or her prior speeches or other public activities, become fair game as supposed indications ofhis or her fitness for service on the Court. This article tells the story ofthe first such confirmation controversy that resulted in the Senate’s rejection of a Supreme Court nom­ inee. President Herbert Hoover’s nomination ofFourth Circuit Court ofAppeals Judge John J. Parker to the Court in 1930 prompted un­ precedented opposition that extended beyond traditional party lines and concerns over basic competence to single-issue agendas. Almost immediately, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), onlytwenty-two years old, launched a lobbying campaign against Judge Parker because of a purportedlyracist statement he had made asthe Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina in 1920. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) initiated an equally virulent movement against the judge because of one prior decision in which he had upheld a com­ pany’s “yellow dog” contracts, or agreements by the company’s workers not to join unions. A closer analysis of the Parker contro­ versy, however, reveals its parallels to contem­ porary disagreements over presidential nom­ inations to both the Supreme Court and, more recently, lower federal courts. Reflect­ ing Tribe’s assessment, a central issue un­ derlying the dispute was not Parker himself, but the course the Court would follow in resolving a seminal legal issue: Congress’s ability to pass legislation to rebuild the col­ lapsed American economy in the wake of the BEGINNING OF THE MODERN CONFIRMATION PROCESS 23 Court’s invalidation of many such laws with that same intent.4 A secondary question in­ volvedthe degree to which the Court would ex­ amine the constitutionality ofstate “Jim Crow” laws, the reason for the NAACP’s involve­ ment in the Parker debate. And in the form of modern controversies over whether a nom­ inee will, for example, vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, Judge Parker’s opponents felt that only a personally like-minded Justice could en­ sure their desired outcome in labor and civil rights cases. Thus, just as in some modern judicial confirmation battles, which Supreme Court scholar Henry Abraham has likened to “emotion-packed, politicized drama[s],”5 the Parker episode involved misrepresentations of the judge’s record and apparently groundless accusations for the sake of achieving specific agendas. Of course, one might argue that this trend toward ideologically oriented confirma­ tion processes with a level of discourse equal to that of a crass political campaign instead commenced with Woodrow Wilson’s nomi­ nation of Louis D. Brandeis to the Court in 1916. Numerous business interests, angered by Brandeis’s support of such causes as trade union rights and antitrust regulation, pres­ sured Senators to oppose a nomination that was to guarantee one more Court vote in fa­ vor of the Wilson administration’s generally progressive economic program.6 But the fact that the Parker controversy constituted the first time the Senate actually rejected a Supreme Court nominee under such politically charged circumstances—albeit a nominee who would likely have differed from Brandeis philosoph­ ically as a Supreme Court Justice—arguably makes it, rather than earlier confirmation bat­ tles, the definitive event that set forth the overall thematic context underlying the con­ temporary judicial nomination scene.7 Criticism by the NAACP helped torpedo Judge John Parker’s nomination to the Supreme Court, but the alle­ gations against the moderate Southerner focused on a single racist remark he made during an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1920. Above, NAACP members picketed the practice of lynching, an underprose­ cuted crime in many...

The Treatment of Behavior: Drugs or Behavior Analysis?

The papers by Wong, and by Wyatt and Midkiff cover similar themes, the extensive use of drugs to change and control behavior across the lifespan in the United States. The data and position of these two papers are discouraging. They address the billion-dollar lobbying industry and advertising campaigns among drug companies, which claim the only scientific precursor to behavior change, maintenance, and control is drugs. The papers discuss how the lobbying and drug campaigns dismiss the evolutionary fact that all human behavior is subject to behavior change through learning. Both papers address the importance of observing contingencies and stimulus control that maintain behavior and those that can be used to change behavior for improved outcomes. Specifically, Dr. Wong’s paper addresses serious medical mental health messages which are portrayed to the general public as established science, yet are not substantiated by science. One example is the vagueness of the unverified DSM labels. He also points to the omission of applied behavior analysis in medical mental health settings; how the proper use of behavior treatment in clinical settings can effect positive change; and how improper use of behavior (e.g., contingencies; reinforcers) can lead to failure. Dr. Wong does very well bringing to the reader’s attention how activities of daily living (ADL), psychophysiology issues (e.g. somatic complaints) and social issues (e.g., interacting well with others) can be treated with effective stimulus control techniques (such as designing an environment to help shape schizophrenic behavior) and staff time (such as with token economies). The paper by Drs. Wyatt and Midkiff speaks to active refusal by medical and scientific associations and individuals to evaluate the influence of environmental stimuli on behavior, and how chemical analyses and genetics are used to explain behavior, though its causality cannot be explained, and/or it lacks scientific merit in many cases. The author clearly describes the effective manipulation of population control in clinical trials, and the effective and expensive lobbying phenomenon on people and the federal government, especially on the regulatory agencies whose sole mission is to protect the public. Drs Wyatt and Midkiff address how learning appropriate skills and behavior directs future behavior, thereby reducing the opportunity for bad consequences such as long term stress and its subsequent influence on health. However, these inexpensive and easy-to-learn behavior models are replaced by the dispensing of prescriptions and drugs. The author shows the reader how behavior education and training are effective in reaching desired goals. Ironically, for hundreds of years, humans have tried to understand people; to explain why people behave the way they do. For example, psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate majors, and psychology courses are required or recommended in many

El arduo tránsito hacia la modernidad: Historia de la industria textil colombiana durante la primera mitad del siglo XX

Este libro de Santiago Montenegro analiza la historia de la industria textil colombiana durante la primera mitad del siglo XX. El autor pre-senta informacion valiosa sobre la fundacion y desarrollo de las princi-pales fabricas durante ese periodo. Senala que los capitales iniciales en la industria provenian del comercio, lo que refuta las afirmaciones de autores que han considerado que cafeteros e industriales eran las mis-mas personas.