Search

Using data from more than 19,000 reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, we analyze the distribution of lobbying on a random sample of 137 issues and find a tremendous skewness. The median issue involved only 15 interest groups, whereas 8 of the issues involved more than 300 interest groups. The top 5% of the issues accounted for more than 45% of the lobbying, whereas the bottom 50% of the issues accounted for less than 3% of the total. This distribution makes generalizations about interest group conflict difficult and helps explain why many scholars have disagreed about the abilities of lobbyists to get what they want. We also confirm and expand upon previous findings regarding the tremendous predominance of business firms in the Washington lobbying population.

Rivalry between lobby organizations is an essential foundation of internalization of externalities. The competitive political process itself and the reality that several lobby groups alter their economic aims to show that environmental concerns advance the political organization. In a joint agency of politics, it was demonstrated that the Pigouvian adjustment is mirrored in the price organization in spite of the different political distortions.

Policy advocates in many states may pursue their policy agendas either by traditional legislative politics or by direct legislation. I show that this choice matters: policy outcomes resulting from direct legislation often reflect different interests than policy outcomes resulting from the legislative process, even on similar issues. Using data from California statewide elections, I analyze policies that were considered in both the legislative process and the direct legislation process, and for which the two processes led to different outcomes. I demonstrate that features of the legislature, especially party organization, can induce individual legislators to vote against their district majority preference. In the aggregate, these influences are shown to lead legislative and direct legislation outcomes to diverge.

Professional lobbying has been a growth area in recent years in countries like Britain and Canada. One reaction has been calls for the registration of lobbyists, but few countries have experience of registration. The longest and most extensive experience is found in the United States, but systemic differences mean that little attention has been paid in parliamentary systems to that experience. Concern about the hidden world of the professional lobbyist rather than evidence of significant abuse led to calls for the registration of lobbyists. Canada introduced registration in 1989 and a British proposal currently lies on the table. Canadian experience provides an opportunity to examine registration within a parliamentary context and to consider the merits of the proposed British scheme.

The lobbying industry continues to fare well in Britain despite the lack of professional standards and regulatory control. The industry provides monitoring, information and opinion-forming services within the political system. Its success can be attributed to personnel that lobbying firms employ such as former Members of Parliament and civil servants who have substantial knowledge of and contacts within the political system. Although the effects of lobbying have been exaggerated in media, it has created no serious negative effects at present.