Suchergebnisse

Examines the impact of variations in lobbying laws and their enforcement on variations in size, interests, and organizational forms of pressure groups; based on analysis of state lobby registration data, 1990-98.

At present, we have little theory accounting for variations in alliance behavior among interest organizations. To address this problem, we extract three hypotheses about social hunting from foraging theory, as developed in behavioral ecology. The foraging theory hypotheses about resource competition, resource distribution, and individual sources of variation in alliance activity are tested with data on interest organizations in the American states. We report preliminary support for several foraging theory hypotheses and discuss how they might be more rigorously tested in future research.

After criticizing current models of political action committee (PAC) formation as flawed both in the samples used in tests and in the specifications tested, we develop a new explanation of PAC formation that emphasizes competition for access among those already engaged in lobby ing. We test both organization- and state-level implications of this alternative account, respec tively, employing survey and aggregate data on PACs in the American states. The empirical findings provide preliminary support for our explanation and sharply contradict prior evidence that PAC formation is governed by problems of free riding.