Buy, Lobby or Sue: Interest Groups' Participation in Policy Making - A Selective Survey

The participation of interest groups in public policy making is unavoidable. Its unavoidable nature is only matched by the universal suspicion with which it has been seen by both policy makers and the public. Recently, however, there has been a growing literature that examines the participation of interest groups in public policy making from a New Institutional Economics perspective. The distinguishing feature of the New Institutional Economics Approach is its emphasis in opening up the black box of decision-making, whether in understanding the rules of the game, or the play of the game. In this paper we do not attempt to fairly describe the vast literature on interest group's behavior. Instead, the purpose of this essay for the New Institutional Economics Guide Book is to review recent papers that follow the NIE mantra. That is, they attempt to explicate the micro-analytic features of the way interest groups actually interact with policy-makers, rather than providing an abstract high-level representation. We emphasize the role of the institutional environment in understanding interest groups' strategies.

Persuasion, Spillovers, and Government Interventions

We develop a model of Bayesian persuasion with spillovers to investigate the impact of information production on optimal policy design. A sender produces information to persuade a receiver to take an action with external effects, and the government implements corrective subsidies and taxes to maximize social welfare. Subsidies to the sender’s preferred action incentivize her to produce less information, while taxes motivating her to produce more. Such an informational effect impacts the receiver’s decision and social welfare. We show that the optimal corrective subsidies and taxes may be different from the Pigouvian level. Most notably, the optimal policy is no government intervention when the spillover is positive and small

Debate: What is complex government and what can we do about it?

‘Complex government' relates to many factors: the size and multi-level nature of government; the proliferation of rules, regulations and public bodies; a crowded arena with blurry boundaries between policy-makers and the actors who influence them; and general uncertainty when people interact in unpredictable ways within a changeable policy environment. Complex government is difficult to understand, control, influence and hold to account. This article considers it from various perspectives: scholars trying to conceptualize it; policy-makers trying to control or adapt to it; and scientists, interest groups and individuals trying to influence i

Who’s in and who’s out?: Explaining access to policymakers in Belgium

In most political systems, the community of policy insiders represents a small subset of the total interest group population. Therefore, one key question is which factors explain why some mobilized interests become insiders and others remain outsiders. By contrasting a bottom-up registration of interest groups with a top-down census of all groups that enjoy access to policymakers, we present a unique approach to distinguish insiders from outsiders. This approach allows us to systematically analyze which factors-such as resources, constituency, scale of organization and policy portfolio-predict who becomes a policy insider. Our analysis focuses on interest group politics in Belgium, and shows that next to resources, the size of the membership, the scale of organization and a group's policy portfolio are strong predictors of the likelihood to gain access

Centralized Oversight of the Regulatory State

Born out of a Reagan-era desire to minimize regulatory costs, and not fundamentally reconsidered since its inception, the centralized review of agency rulemakings has arguably become the most important institutional feature of the regulatory state. Yet it is a puzzling feature: although centralized review is sometimes justified on the ground it could harmonize the uncoordinated sprawl of the federal bureaucracy, the agency tasked with regulatory review, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has never embraced that role. It has instead doggedly clung to its original cost-reduction mission, justifying its function as a check on the federal bureaucracy with reference to the pervasive belief that agencies will systematically over-regulate. This article shows why this belief is wrong. The claim that agencies are systematically biased in favor of regulation finds little support in public choice theory, the political science literature, or elsewhere. In any event, theories predicting rampant over-regulation are no more plausible than alternative theories suggesting that agencies will routinely under regulate. Even if zealous agencies captured by powerful interest groups did characterize the regulatory state, OMB review is a curious and poorly designed counterweight. There is no reason to believe that OMB's location in the Executive Office of the President will inoculate OMB from the pathologies that afflict other agencies, and some reason to think that it will exacerbate them. As a response to these problems, we urge a reconsideration of the foundational role that centralized review should play in our regulatory state, and a revival and re-conceptualization of the neglected principles of harmonization that once ostensibly animated it.

The Politics of Democratizing Finance: A Radical View

How can finance be durably democratized? In the centers of financial power in both the United States and the United Kingdom, proposals now circulate to give workers and the public more say over how flows of credit are allocated. This article examines five democratization proposals: credit union franchises, public investment banks, sovereign wealth funds, inclusive ownership funds, and bank nationalization. It considers how these plans might activate worker and public engagement in decision making about finance by focusing on three modes of public participation: representative democracy, direct democracy, and deliberative minipublics. It then considers the degree to which democratization plans might be resilient to de-democratization threats from business. It argues that of the five, bank nationalization goes furthest in guarding against de-democratization threats but is still pocked with pitfalls if it relies solely on representative democracy. It argues that two criteria appear necessary for democratically durable alternatives: the active direct participation of workers and citizens and the weakening of businesses’ capacity for democratic retrenchment. finance, democracy, labor, credit, business powe

The organisation of the boundary spanning government affairs units

Malgrat la importància estratègica de l’activitat política corporativa (APC) i els esforços realitzats per a estudiar les seves diferents característiques, hi ha pocs estudis sobre com poden les empreses organitzar i gestionar les seves unitats d’assumptes governamentals (AG) d’una manera més efectiva. Aquesta tesi tracta de contribuir a millorar la comprensió d’aquesta important àrea de l’APC. En concret, aquesta tesi es centra en explorar com les empreses poden dissenyar les seves unitats d’AG de forma que puguin millorar la seva capacitat de processar informació. Amb aquesta finalitat, s’ha utilitzat la metodologia de l’estudi de cas. El focus d’anàlisi és la unitat d’AG de les grans empreses i les seves activitats de tractament de la informació. Aquesta unitat canalitza el flux d’informació entre les unitats de negoci internes de l’empresa i el seu entorn polític exterior. Basant-se en la teoria de disseny organitzatiu, aquesta tesi mostra els antecedents organitzatius de l’APC. Finalment, aquesta tesi mostra als professionals un conjunt de mecanismes organitzatius, complementaris entre si, que poden utilitzar les unitats d’AG per a millorar la seva capacitat de gestionar la informació política.A pesar de la importancia estratégica de la actividad política corporativa (APC) y de los esfuerzos realizados para estudiar sus diferentes características, hay pocos estudios sobre cómo las empresas pueden organizar y gestionar sus unidades de asuntos gubernamentales (AG) de una manera más efectiva. Esta tesis trata de contribuir a mejorar la comprensión sobre este importante aspecto de la APC. En concreto, esta tesis se centra en explorar cómo las empresas pueden diseñar sus unidades de AG de manera que puedan mejorar su capacidad de procesar información. Con este objetivo, se ha empleado la metodología del estudio de caso. El foco de análisis es la unidad de AG de las grandes empresas y sus actividades de tratamiento de la información. Esta unidad canaliza el flujo de información entre las unidades de negocio internas de la empresa y su entorno político exterior. Basándose en la teoría de diseño organizativo, esta tesis muestra los antecedentes organizativos de la APC. Finalmente, esta tesis muestra a los profesionales un conjunto de mecanismos organizativos, complementarios entre sí, que pueden emplear las unidades de AG para mejorar su capacidad de gestionar la información política.Despite the strategic importance of firms’ corporate political activity (CPA) and the efforts to study its different aspects, little has been researched about how firms can organise and manage their government affairs (GA) units more effectively. This thesis seeks to shed further light into this relevant aspect of CPA. Specifically, the focus of this thesis is on exploring how firms can design their GA units in ways to improve their ability to perform their information processing activities. To this end, this thesis relies on the case study methodology. The empirical focus is the GA unit working in large firms and its information processing activities as a boundary-spanning unit. This unit mediates the flow of information between its external political environment and the firms’ internal business units. Drawing on organisational design theory, this thesis contributes to CPA scholarship by exposing organisational antecedents of CPA. Ultimately, this thesis offers practitioners a set of mutually-reinforcing organizational mechanisms that can be put in place to improve the ability of their GA units to manage political information

Legislating while Learning: How Staff Briefings, Cue-Taking, and Deliberation Help Legislators Take Policy Positions

This dissertation examines how legislators learn about policy proposals. It focuses on three common sources of policy information --- staff briefings, cues, and group deliberations --- to show the causal effect of information on legislators' policy positions. It uses a new approach, field experiments, that allows me to answer questions about information, institutions, and outcomes that heretofore have been difficult to study quantitatively. Results from the three studies I conducted are largely consistent with theories of legislating under imperfect information. All three studies find that information affects position-taking. On average, information increases support by reducing legislators' uncertainty. Information is most influential on bills that legislators are ideologically predisposed to support. In some respects, findings extend or challenge existing theories. Legislators appear responsive to repeated messaging. Cues and briefings interact to make legislators even more supportive of bills than we would expect from their separate effects. Cues determine a far greater proportion of positions than prior studies suggested. Finally, group deliberation appears to reduce partisan polarization in bill coalitions. All together, the studies illustrate that imperfect information constrains position-taking, that legislative staff, cue-taking, and deliberation can effectively communicate information, and that legislative institutions influence individual positions by providing policy-relevant information

Partisan Policymaking: Research and Advocacy in an Era of Polarization

In recent decades, partisan polarization has not only grown but also extended to a wide variety of political processes. Despite this fact, we lack a strong understanding of the policy process under conditions of relatively extreme polarization. The roles of interest groups and think tanks in this environment are particularly understudied. How have research producing institutions changed in response to partisan polarization? And which types of organizations are most influential under the current system? Existing theories often lack an appreciation of the role of partisanship and assume relatively unstructured pluralistic competition in the development and debate of public policy. To help rectify this limitation, I view actors in the policy process as part of a system structured mainly by partisan dynamics. This changing “marketplace for ideas” has incentivized some interest groups and think tanks to invest in a single political party to enhance their influence and accomplish their goals. The result is a policy system defined by two competing extended party networks, or loose coalitions of formal party members and outside research institutions. Under such conditions, influence accrues to those organizations that engage in relatively partisan research and advocacy efforts. In the first empirical chapter, I use interview results to show that members of Congress require information, ideas, and talking points from outside actors. These politicians seek out resources that will help further their individual and partisan goals (which are increasingly distant from the opposing party). This decision-making calculus has downstream effects on research institutions, incentivizing many to become party allies across a range of issue areas. Not all groups have responded this way, though. There still exists a cohort of academic and/or politically moderate organizations that have changed more slowly in response to increased polarization. Problematically, groups that are both partisan (in terms of their preferences and behavior) and political (in terms of their direct advocacy strategies) are growing in number and influence. In the second empirical chapter, I levy a wide range of evidence to show that these “Partisan-Political” groups are designed to produce research that consistently supports a particular ideological or partisan vision. These types of groups also develop reputations as key party allies and thick ties to members from their preferred party. In the final empirical chapter, I use a case study of the debate surrounding cap-and-trade regulations to show that these partisan advocacy strategies pay off, as Partisan-Political groups have significant influence over the discourses of their preferred party. In general, the textual and network analyses in this chapter demonstrate that ideas and talking points flow mostly along party lines, prohibiting compromise and allowing extended party actors to institutionalize their preferences. Thus, there is significant evidence for “polarized policymaking”, with two relatively distinct extended party networks developing alternative ideas and discourses in policy debates. These findings have implications for the presence and continuation of partisan polarization, the legislative process, and democratic representation

Decorporatization and organized interests in public policymaking in Norway: A tide that lifts all ships or an ebb tide leaving only the few afloat?

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