Browsing by Subject "Interest groups"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Interacting interests : exploring the nature of interest group coalition building in the regulatory state
(2016-12) Dwidar, Maraam Ahmed; Jones, Bryan D.
The lobbying literature is rife with studies of interest groups, spanning their democratic value, successes, failures, and the tools they employ in advocating for their positions. One of these tools is coalition building, where interest groups join forces with one another in lobbying. While the literature pertaining to coalitions is theoretically vibrant, due to difficulties in collecting comprehensive empirical data, scholars have relied heavily on qualitative evidence to answer questions concerning coalition building (Timmermans 2016). Addressing this gap, this paper presents a dataset that tracks coalition building through public comments that have been co-submitted by interest groups during the notice-and-comment periods of rules proposed by federal agencies. It contains all public comments submitted by a random sample of 40 American interest groups between 1998 and 2015. Using this data, I explore the composition, recurrence, and policy emphases of interest group coalitions.
Interest group policy goals and electoral involvement : lessons from legislative primary challenges
(2011-08) Patterson, Jerod Thomas; Casellas, Jason P., 1977-; Leal, David L.
Elections are one way in which interest groups seek to advance their policy goals. Policy studies and election studies have approached this issue differently, leaving unanswered questions about the relationship between interest group policy goals and electoral involvement. This report helps to fill the gaps by applying conventional wisdom to the unstudied question of interest group support for primary challengers. Its findings amend the conventional wisdom in a few key ways. While legislative access does have a negative effect on challenger support, a group-specific measure of access rather than a type-based inference shows the effect to extend beyond groups traditionally thought of as access-seekers. Further, interest in legislative access does not preclude targeted support for challengers by these groups. This suggests that groups may be more sensitive to political circumstances and willing to achieve policy goals through elections than previously thought.
Power to the partner : organizational coalitions and minority representation in federal rulemaking
(2020-08) Dwidar, Maraam Ahmed; Jones, Bryan D.; Leech, Beth L.; McDaniel, Eric L.; Strolovitch, Dara Z.; Wlezien, Christopher
How do advocates for minorities gain influence in bureaucratic policymaking? In this dissertation, I argue that organizations representing minorities strategically form coalitions to compensate for the costly nature of bureaucratic lobbying. I develop a general theory of the mechanisms of coalition influence and formation by these advocates. I test this theory through a text analysis of two original corpora of public comments to federal agencies by over 12,000 organizations between 2004 and 2015. I show that while organizational advocates for minorities frequently collaborate in lobbying, coalitional lobbying does not significantly enhance their policy influence. Rather, I show that the influence of minority advocates is significantly heightened when lobbying in coalitions with greater numbers of elite partners. Finally, I show that in contrast to the experience of organizational advocates for minorities, coalitional lobbying significantly enhances the policy influence of mainstream organizational advocates. This project sheds new light on the study of representation and lobbying in bureaucratic policymaking, whilst offering a theoretical framework for better understanding the role of collaboration and information in American rulemaking.
Territorial taxation system : a story of inequality and political process capture
(2023-05-01) Barros, Pedro Moraya; Jensen, Nathan M. (Nathan Michael), 1975-
Under territorial individual taxation domestic source income is taxable, while foreign source income is not. Therefore, it incentivizes residents to remove capital out of the country, e.g. investing in stocks, bonds, and real estate offshore. Moreover, individuals migrating to territorial taxation jurisdictions may even be better off leaving their capital abroad. Hence, why do several governments choose to only tax their residents on domestic source income and not on international income? In other words, which countries are more likely to embrace territorial taxation? I argue that countries with a high level of inequality are more likely to embrace territorial taxation. That happens because, in unequal societies, elites (i.e. the ones with enough capital to invest abroad) have more de facto power to influence policies that please them. To test my arguments, I use a cross-sectional analysis with 228 countries and territories, along with a case study from Bolivia.