Author: Timothy LaPira
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700624503
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
In recent decades Washington has seen an alarming rise in the number of "revolving door lobbyists"—politicians and officials cashing in on their government experience to become influence peddlers on K Street. These lobbyists, popular wisdom suggests, sell access to the highest bidder. Revolving Door Lobbying tells a different, more nuanced story. As an insider interviewed in the book observes, where the general public has the "impression that lobbyists actually get things done, I would say 90 percent of what lobbyists do is prevent harm to their client from the government." Drawing on extensive new data on lobbyists’ biographies and interviews with dozens of experts, authors Timothy M. LaPira and Herschel F. Thomas establish the facts of the revolving door phenomenon—facts that suggest that, contrary to widespread assumptions about insider access, special interests hire these lobbyists as political insurance against an increasingly dysfunctional, unpredictable government. With their insider experience, revolving door lobbyists offer insight into the political process, irrespective of their connections to current policymakers. What they provide to their clients is useful and marketable political risk-reduction. Exploring this claim, LaPira and Thomas present a systematic analysis of who revolving door lobbyists are, how they differ from other lobbyists, what interests they represent, and how they seek to influence public policy. The first book to marshal comprehensive evidence of revolving door lobbying, LaPira and Thomas revise the notion that lobbyists are inherently and institutionally corrupt. Rather, the authors draw a complex and sobering picture of the revolving door as a consequence of the eroding capacity of government to solve the public’s problems.
Author: Frank R. Baumgartner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226039463
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
During the 2008 election season, politicians from both sides of the aisle promised to rid government of lobbyists’ undue influence. For the authors of Lobbying and Policy Change, the most extensive study ever done on the topic, these promises ring hollow—not because politicians fail to keep them but because lobbies are far less influential than political rhetoric suggests. Based on a comprehensive examination of ninety-eight issues, this volume demonstrates that sixty percent of recent lobbying campaigns failed to change policy despite millions of dollars spent trying. Why? The authors find that resources explain less than five percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts. Moreover, they show, these attempts must overcome an entrenched Washington system with a tremendous bias in favor of the status quo. Though elected officials and existing policies carry more weight, lobbies have an impact too, and when advocates for a given issue finally succeed, policy tends to change significantly. The authors argue, however, that the lobbying community so strongly reflects elite interests that it will not fundamentally alter the balance of power unless its makeup shifts dramatically in favor of average Americans’ concerns.
Author: Huchen Liu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 183
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Book Description
An increasing portion of lobbyists in American politics have a history of employment in government, a major facet of the wider "revolving door" phenomenon that connects government office and non-governmental sectors. An elite slice of these lobbyists held public office as elected or appointed officials, while former government staff make up the far more numerous category. How may revolving-door lobbyists help organized interests, which already enjoy important advantages over the disorganized, influence government decisions? Existing research argues that government experience gives revolvers advantages in political connections and knowledge about policy and processes. I advance a distinct theory: What distinguishes revolving-door lobbyists from conventional lobbyists without government experience is the ability to think like politicians, for which working in government provides the best training. In particular, government experience teaches one to claim credit effectively for policy outcomes--demonstrating that one's actions and efforts are responsible for good results--in order to survive the election cycle. When former government officials and staffers become lobbyists, they do not leave this intangible skill set behind. If effective credit claiming helps politicians win elections whereby they are evaluated by voters, it helps lobbyists survive their own hiring and firing cycles whereby they are evaluated by clients. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate that corporations prefer revolvers to conventional lobbyists in the face of policy uncertainty. Interest groups' need for revolvers to help manage uncertainty provides an ideal environment for their credit-claiming behavior. Revolvers claim credit by expending resources efficiently to achieve lobbying goals. I examine two concrete manifestations of this behavior in the following chapters. In Chapter 3, I show that revolvers make campaign contributions to political candidates more efficiently and succeed more in purchasing access to legislators. In Chapter 4, I show that revolvers exercise more restraint when lobbying on congressional appropriations and consequently hit their announced targets more often. These advantages help revolvers secure lobbying clients' satisfaction and make them loyal customers. To show this, in Chapter 5 I liken lobbying transactions to election results and demonstrate that revolvers are more likely to be "reelected" by clients than conventional lobbyists.
Author: Beth L. Leech
Publisher: Apress
ISBN: 1430245611
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
"Lobbyists at Work is a must-read for anyone interested in the serious business of government. Leech's probing questions reflect her years of research tracking the real impact of money and influence on policy." —Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr. (Chairman, Patton Boggs LLP) Received wisdom has it that lobbyists run the American government on behalf of moneyed interests. But what makes lobbyists run, and how do they induce legislators and bureaucrats to do their bidding? These are questions for which even the harshest critics lack satisfying answers. Lobbyists at Work explores what lobbyists really do and why. It goes behind the scenes and brings back in-depth interviews with fifteen political advocates chosen to represent the breadth and diversity of the lobbying profession. The interviewees profiled in this book range from the top lobbyists-for-hire at the most powerful K Street firms to pro bono lobbyists for the disenfranchised and powerless. The roster spans all types of lobbyists working for all types of clients and seeking to influence all levels and branches of government. The permutations include business-lobbying-government, government-lobbying-government, government-to-business revolving door, regulatory lobbying, state and local lobbying, citizen-advocacy lobbying,single-issue lobbying, and multiple-issue lobbying. In colorful and sometimes hilarious detail, the interviewees take the reader through their arsenals of traditional and next-generation lobbying techniques, including face-to-face persuasion of elected officials and their staffs, educational campaigns and coalition-building, ghost-drafting complex legislation and regulation for government committees and agencies, contributions, and social media campaigns. In Lobbyists at Work, the normally self-effacing subjects open up about themselves and their profession: why they chose to become lobbyists, what motivates them to keep lobbying, how they cultivate their lobbying influence, how they adjust to changes in the rules affecting their lobbying methods, and what they actually do at work each day (and night). As an authority on lobbying respected in Washington for her impartiality, Professor Beth Leech elicits frank disclosures, career tips, and riveting stories about the good, the bad, and the ambivalent on both sides of the symbiotic relationship between government officials and lobbyists.
Author: Daniel Carpenter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107036089
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 531
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Book Description
Leading scholars from across the social sciences present empirical evidence that the obstacle of regulatory capture is more surmountable than previously thought.
Author: Jordi Blanes i Vidal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Washington's `revolving door' -the movement from government service into the lobbying industry- is regarded as a major concern for policy-making. We study how ex-government staffers benefit from the personal connections acquired during their public service. Lobbyists with experience in the office of a US Senator suffer a 24% drop in generated revenue when that Senator leaves office. The effect is immediate, discontinuous around the exit period and long-lasting. Consistent with the notion that lobbyists sell access to powerful politicians, the drop in revenue is increasing in the seniority of and committee assignments power held by the exiting politician.
Author: Thomas T. Holyoke
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0813345820
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323
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Book Description
Interest groups and lobbyists play a crucial role in how public policy is made in the United States' representative democracy. By helping citizens organize and pursue their self-interests in the political arena, interest groups and lobbyists are an alternative but very effective form of representation. However, the adversarial nature of interest groups often fuels voter discomfort with the political process. Interest Groups and Lobbying is an accessible and comprehensive text that examines the crux of this conflict. Pulling together two areas of interest group research—why advocacy organizations form and how they are able to gain influence in Washington, DC—Thomas T. Holyoke shows students the inner workings of interest groups in the United States. Using case studies to clarify and expand on the issues surrounding lobbying and group action in federal, state, and local government, Holyoke explores how we can use interest groups and their adversarial impulse to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Author: Phil Harris
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030445569
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1532
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Book Description
The growing need for a concise and comprehensive overview of the world of interest groups, lobbying, and public affairs called for a compendium of existing research, key theories, concepts, and case studies. This project is the first transnational encyclopedia to offer such an interdisciplinary and wide overview of these topics, including perspectives on public relations, crisis management, communication studies, as well as political science, political marketing, and policy studies. It is an interdisciplinary work, which involved an extraordinary pool of contributors made up of leading scholars and practitioners from all around the globe; it is a live and evolving project focused on drawing together grounded international knowledge for our diverse and developing world. The 200+ entries of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs (to be found as a live reference work online here, and in two print volumes in 2022) address these research avenues, tackling a growing demand for a comprehensive international reference work regarding key global sectors and policymaking structures, looking beyond the traditional markets of Europe and North America to incorporate practice and research from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. This encyclopedia acts as a synthesis of existing research, and aims to aid academics, students, and practitioners navigate their relevant fields around the globe.
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264065237
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 87
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Book Description
This report exposes how “policy capture”, where public decisions over policies are consistently or repeatedly directed away from the public interest towards a specific interest, can exacerbate inequalities and undermine democratic values, economic growth and trust in government.
Author: Gene M. Grossman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262571678
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
An exploration of the role that special interest groups play in modern democratic politics.
