Suchergebnisse

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 auth

"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"--Provided by publisher.

Education policy provides a fertile ground for analyzing the perennial tug-of-war between interest groups and public officials. Baumgartner considers thirty examples of French education policymaking during the early 1980s using a combination of documentary evidence, interviews with more than 100 politicians, civil servants, members of parliament, union and interest group leaders, and a thorough analysis of press coverage of education topics.

Education policy provides a fertile ground for analyzing the perennial tug-of-war between interest groups and public officials. Baumgartner considers thirty examples of French education policymaking during the early 1980s using a combination of documentary evidence, interviews with more than 100 politicians, civil servants, members of parliament, union and interest group leaders, and a thorough analysis of press coverage of education topics

Many commentators accuse government of being far too generous towards the poor, while others bemoan the lack of support for those in poverty. Max Rose and Frank R. Baumgartner have looked at how media commentary and government policy on poverty have changed over the past fifty years. They find that while the government and media had a sympathetic focus on poverty in the 1960s, by the mid-1970s this had shifted to a discourse around social wrongs, dependency and waste. This focus on dependency is now the dominant narrative, meaning that we are now no more generous towards the poor than we were more than 50 years ago, before the War on Poverty.

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Part I. "Seek and Ye Shall Find" -- Chapter 1. Search, Information, and Policy Agendas -- Chapter 2. Organizing for Expertise or Organizing for Complexity? -- Chapter 3. Information, Search, and Government -- Part II. Information and the Growth of Government -- Chapter 4. The Rise and Decline of Institutional Information Processing in the Executive and Legislative Branches -- Chapter 5. From Clarity to Complexity in Congress -- Chapter 6. The Search for Information and the Great New-Issue Expansion -- Chapter 7. The Thickening and Broadening of Government -- Chapter 8. Rounding Up the Usual Political Suspects -- Part III. The Implications of Information in Government -- Chapter 9. Organizing Information and the Transformation of U.S. Policy Making -- Chapter 10. Organizing Complexity -- Appendices -- References -- Index.

A generation ago, scholars saw interest groups as the single most important element in the American political system. Today, political scientists are more likely to see groups as a marginal influence compared to institutions such as Congress, the presidency, and the judiciary. Frank Baumgartner and Beth Leech show that scholars have veered from one extreme to another not because of changes in the political system, but because of changes in political science. They review hundreds of books and articles about interest groups from the 1940s to today; examine the methodological and conceptual probl