Organized interests are perennially under fire for distorting public policies. Critics charge that they privilege the demands of favored constituencies at the expense of the broader public interest. Yet despite the importance of interest groups in the political process, little systematic research has been conducted into the development of political identities and lobbying capacities among major advocacy organizations. How does a group come to represent a set of interests? Are the identities and policy priorities of advocacy organizations stable over time, or do they evolve? What causes such evolution to occur, and what tensions arise as a consequence? This book explores the development of interest-group politics in the United States through the defining lens of four key advocacy associations in two major and highly contested policy domains, the small business and environmental lobbies. Through close examination of the National Small Business Association, National Federation of Independent Business, Sierra Club, and National Resources Defense Council, McGee Young addresses questions of how groups come to represent particular interests, which groups succeed and which fail, and how groups shape political institutions. Young explains how political opportunities shape entrepreneurial efforts to form organizations, how formative events shape advocacy strategies and tactics, and how an interest group's identity arises from entrepreneurial "opportunity seekers" interacting with the broader ebb and flow of politics. He shows that received understandings of what constitutes a small business or environmental interest only gradually solidified as policy conflicts forced group leaders to stake out firm principles-such as when pivotal battles in the 1950s over Western dams intersected with a longstanding membership tradition to transform the Sierra Club, or when the NFIB struggled to balance its conservatism with its hostility toward big business, to the dismay of its political allies. Developing Interests bridges the gap between traditional interest-group research and new research in American political development. It marks the first extensive study of small business interest groups in more than 40 years, while its organizational perspective provides a fresh look at environmental politics, and it features the first organizational histories of the NFIB, the NSBA, and the NRDC. With its illuminating case studies of small business lobbies and environmental groups over time, it provides readers with new insights into both the theoretical and empirical significance of interest-group development.

Interest is just emerging as a critical bridge between cognitive and affective issues in both learning and development. This developing "interest" in interest appears to be linked to an increasing concern for studying the individual in context, examining affective variables as opposed to purely structural features of text, analyzing the interrelationship of cognitive and social development, understanding practical applications of theories of motivation, and recognizing the importance of developmental psychology for the study of learning. This book addresses both how individual interest and interest inherent in stimuli (books, text, toys, etc.) across subjects affect cognitive performance. While the book's particular emphasis is on theory-driven research, each of the contributing authors offers a unique perspective on understanding interest and its effects on learning and development. As such, each has contributed a chapter in which particular questions in interest research are described and linked to a clearly stated theoretical perspective and recent findings. Relevant material from the broader literatures of psychology and education are analyzed in the context of these discussions. In addition, the introductory and concluding chapters build on the contributions to the volume by providing the basis of a coherent view of interest across genres such as stories and expository text, and domains as varied as play, reading, and mathematics.

What are the grand dynamics that drive the history of economies? The laws of supply & demand, most economists would argue. For the history of European banking, this book offers an alternative explanation: Rather than market forces, the coincidence and coalitions of charismatic ideas and powerful interests is what shaped banking in Europe! In “Ideas, Interests and the Development of the European Banking Systems”, Florian Brugger traced decisive moments in the history of the European Banking Sector: from the time of the Italian City-States to the post World War I period, he shows how coalitions of ideas and interests built the tracks along which the European Banking Sector developed. Inspired by Max Weber he argues that economic organizations and institutions, like the Banking Sector, are embedded into three fundamental orders: the economic, the cultural and the political order. Enforced and institutionalized by vested interests, ideas of the cultural order legitimate and empower interests of the economic and political order. What is more, decisive moments were frequently characterized by coalitions of ideas and interests between parties that in normal times had nothing in common or were even confronting each other in a hostile way.

In recent years, the appropriate level and structure of interest tates have come to be seen as major issues in connection with stabilization programs undertaken by members. These issues arise from consideration both on the demand side, as interest rates affect the magnitude of aggregate demand, and on the supply side, as they influence the volume and quality of investment and, thus, the growth of output.

This work addresses the environmental and developmental impacts of patent protection by focusing on the global agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). While the TRIPS agreement serves as an important step in harmonizing international intellectual property systems, the author contends that it currently fails to properly balance public and private interests, especially in the gap between rich and poor.

This book offers a clear process for managers, professionals, and future leaders to help discover their personal meaning in life and apply it to their work. The author uses research outcomes and theories to refute the contemporary philosophy that stresses following an individual’s passion alone when choosing a particular job or career. Instead, she recommends employing a personal meaning-oriented approach to life and work, and then becoming passionate about one’s work organically. The book also highlights the positive outcomes to organizations and societies when individuals engage with finding meaning in work, focusing on physical and emotional health and satisfaction. The author provides numerous examples of leaders who have aligned their personal meaning and organizational mission, also known as “meaning-mission fit,” and the relationship of this alignment to their emotional well-being. Together, the research, theory, and evidence in this book equip leaders and managers with an inspiring model to find their own meaning-mission fit, as well as create opportunities for the employees to do the same.

This is the second of a three volume landmark study of the criminal mind. This book describes an intensive therapeutic approach designed to completely change the criminals way of thinking. The authors reject traditional treatment approaches as reinforcing of the criminals sense of being a victim of society. Rather Yochelson and Samenow stress that the criminal must make a choice to give up criminal thinking and learn morality. A Jason Aronson Book

Time -series estimates for individual countries and cross -section and time -series estimates for a number of countries show the positive effects of interest rates on savings.

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

Every one of us will die, and the processes we go through will be our own - unique to our own experiences and life stories. End-of-Life Care and Pragmatic Decision Making provides a pragmatic philosophical framework based on a radically empirical attitude toward life and death. D. Micah Hester takes seriously the complexities of experiences and argues that when making end-of-life decisions, healthcare providers ought to pay close attention to the narratives of patients and the communities they inhabit so that their dying processes embody their life stories. He discusses three types of end-of-life patient populations - adults with decision-making capacity, adults without capacity, and children (with a strong focus on infants) - to show the implications of pragmatic empiricism and the scope of decision making at the end of life for different types of patients.