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"Interest Groups and Lobbying shows how political organizations and their lobbyists play a crucial role in how policy is made in the United States. It cuts through the myths and misconceptions about interest groups and lobbyists with an accessible and comprehensive text supported by real world examples and the latest research. New to the Second Edition Fully updates and expands the discussion of social media and other online activity engaged in by interest groups, showing that they have become more sophisticated in their use of the internet--especially social media--for keeping current members informed and for their advocacy work. New case studies on more recent advocacy efforts. Updated data used in the book, including: Total number and types of interest groups lobbying in Washington, DC Total number and types of interest groups lobbying in the fifty states Data on campaign contributions Data on amicus briefs and case sponsorship Data on stages of the lawmaking process where interest groups appear to lobby the most New data on revolving-door lobbyists."

"Interest Groups and Lobbying shows how political organizations and their lobbyists play a crucial role in how policy is made in the United States. It cuts through the myths and misconceptions about interest groups and lobbyists with an accessible and comprehensive text supported by real world examples and the latest research. New to the Second Edition Fully updates and expands the discussion of social media and other online activity engaged in by interest groups, showing that they have become more sophisticated in their use of the internet--especially social media--for keeping current members informed and for their advocacy work. New case studies on more recent advocacy efforts. Updated data used in the book, including: Total number and types of interest groups lobbying in Washington, DC Total number and types of interest groups lobbying in the fifty states Data on campaign contributions Data on amicus briefs and case sponsorship Data on stages of the lawmaking process where interest groups appear to lobby the most New data on revolving-door lobbyists"--

Since the early days, citizens have hired professionals to press their interests with lawmakers. However, recent examples of misconduct highlight ethical challenges the industry faces. Holyoke offers a road map to reform that will transform "ethical lobbyist" from an oxymoron to an expectation--and change the industry and our government for the better.

The public's view of lobbying is that it is synonymous with corruption. Corruption is rare despite the popular perception, but there is plenty of evidence that the lobbying profession has a serious problem with inaccurate representation of member or client interests, which Holyoke argues is fundamentally an ethics problem. Holyoke's research has shown that lobbyists go against their clients' or members' interests about 50% of the time in order to curry favor with lawmakers. Why is this unethical and how can it be prevented? The First Amendment protects political participation and representation--citizens freely assembled (into interest groups) may employ professional petitioners (lobbyists) to faithfully press their causes to lawmakers, but this also shows why compromising member interests is unethical. Holyoke makes the analogy that the lobbyist-client relationship should be more like the attorney-client relationship of ironclad representation. He says that the current laws regulating lobbying are inadequate when it comes to ensuring ethical behavior. Finally, he presents a set of principles and a specific proposal for reform based on these principles

Competitive Interests does more than simply challenge the long-held belief that a small set of interests control large domains of the public policy making landscape. It shows how the explosion in the sheer number of new groups, and the broad range of ideological demands they advocate, have created a form of group politics emphasizing compromise as much as conflict. Thomas T. Holyoke offers a model of strategic lobbying that shows why some group lobbyists feel compelled to fight stronger, wealthier groups even when they know they will lose. Holyoke interviewed 83 lobbyists who have been advocat

AbstractPolicies are assumed to rarely change after enactment. Punctuated equilibrium theory argues this is because law makers shift attention away from policies after enactment, letting them run on autopilot. I argue that the periods between punctuations deserves study, and that what law makers do is design institutions to make policies path dependent so they can only change within limited parameters—if at all. It may also be that interest groups opposing new policies are still able to shape the way they evolve, pushing against intended paths. In this article I test the influence of path dependence versus group opposition in state charter school policies. I find some evidence of path dependence, but I also find that, to some extent, opposing interests can still change these laws after enactment. Furthermore, I find these policies became increasingly similar over time, partially because of path dependence, but also because of the influence of opposing interests.Related ArticlesErtas, Nevbahar. 2015. "Policy Narratives and Public Opinion concerning Charter Schools." Politics & Policy 43(3): 426–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12120.Kwon, Sung‐Wook, and Sylvia Gonzalez‐Gorman. 2019. "Influence of Local Political Institutions on Policy Punctuation in Three Policy Areas." Politics & Policy 47(2): 300–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12295.Patrick, Barbara. 2016. "Performance Policies and Workforce Development: Can the Market Model Be Successfully Implemented in the Public Arena?" Politics & Policy 44(6): 1116–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12185.

Do lobbyists always advocate for the interests of the members or clients employing them, or, under competing pressures, do they sometimes take positions on bills reflecting the interests of lawmakers or other lobbyists? Do they, in fact, lobby strategically by making choices that balance competing pressures in pursuit of goals like furthering their careers? Most lobbying research assumes that interest groups and lobbyists are the same, but I argue that the interests of lobbyists may be different from those they represent, which I test with a model of strategic lobbying using data on positions lobbyists took on bills in Congress from 2006 to 2017 made available by MapLight. I find that lobbyists sometimes do take positions at odds with member interests under pressure from legislators, other lobbyists, and the president, though some groups can constrain their lobbyists. I conclude by speculating on what this means for lobbying as a form of representation.

Scholarship on interest groups and lobbying has become bifurcated between the dominant micro-level research on the choices of individual groups and macro-level research on group-level populations, especially the work of Gray and Lowery, with almost no integration of the two. Failure to integrate levels of analysis, unfortunately, will impede future progress in the subfield. I discuss some of the challenges to integrating research at multiple levels and then propose a solution which I test by re-analyzing two of my micro-level research projects now combined with Gray and Lowery' macro-level density variable using hierarchical modeling. It turns out that grouping micro-level observations by group interest niches matters in the statistical analysis, though the effects of varying group population density are more subtle.