Interest groups and lobbyists play a crucial role in how public policy is made in the United States' representative democracy. By helping citizens organize and pursue their self-interests in the political arena, interest groups and lobbyists are an alternative but very effective form of representation. However, the adversarial nature of interest groups often fuels voter discomfort with the political process. Interest Groups and Lobbying is an accessible and comprehensive text that examines the crux of this conflict. Pulling together two areas of interest group research (why advocacy organizations form and how they are able to gain influence in Washington) DC. Thomas T. Holyoke shows students the inner workings of interest groups in the United States. Using case studies to clarify and expand on the issues surrounding lobbying and group action in federal, state, and local government, Holyoke explores how we can use interest groups and their adversarial impulse to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Understanding why individuals participate in politics demands attention to more than just individual attributes and attitudes. Similarly, understanding how interest groups influence policy-making demands attention to more than just the financial donations and direct activities of Washington-based lobbyists. To answer fundamental questions about what determines when and why people participate in politics and how organized interests go about trying to influence legislative decision-making we must understand how and why political leaders recruit which members of the public into the political arena. Looking from the bottom up with survey data and from the top down with data from interest group interviews, Kenneth Goldstein develops and tests a theory of how tactical choices in a grass-roots campaign are made. In doing so, he demonstrates that outside lobbying activities deserve a place in any correctly-specified model of interest group influence, political participation, or legislative decision-making.

The growing need for a concise and comprehensive overview of the world of interest groups, lobbying, and public affairs called for a compendium of existing research, key theories, concepts, and case studies. This project is the first transnational encyclopedia to offer such an interdisciplinary and wide overview of these topics, including perspectives on public relations, crisis management, communication studies, as well as political science, political marketing, and policy studies. It is an interdisciplinary work, which involved an extraordinary pool of contributors made up of leading scholars and practitioners from all around the globe; it is a live and evolving project focused on drawing together grounded international knowledge for our diverse and developing world. The 200+ entries of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs (to be found as a live reference work online here, and in two print volumes in 2022) address these research avenues, tackling a growing demand for a comprehensive international reference work regarding key global sectors and policymaking structures, looking beyond the traditional markets of Europe and North America to incorporate practice and research from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. This encyclopedia acts as a synthesis of existing research, and aims to aid academics, students, and practitioners navigate their relevant fields around the globe.

With its broad spectrum of scholarship on interest groups past and present, Interest Group Politics brings together noted political scientists to provide comprehensive coverage and cutting-edge research on the role and impact of interest groups in U.S. politics, all geared to an undergraduate audience. In the wake of the Citizens United decision and the growth of lobbying into a multi-billion dollar industry, this trusted classic provides students with a guide to the influence and reach of interest groups.

Americans regularly rail against so-called “special interests.” Yet, many members of society are themselves represented in one form or another by organized groups trying to affect government decisions. Interest Groups in American Politics, Third Edition, is grounded by the role of information in interest group activity, a theme that runs through the book. This concise, thorough text demonstrates that interest groups are involved in the political system at all levels of government—federal, state, and local—and in all aspects of political activity, from election campaigns to agenda setting to lawmaking and policy implementation. Rather than an anomaly or distortion of the political system, interest group activity is a normal and healthy function of a pluralist society and democratic governance. Nonetheless, Nownes warns of the dangers of unwatched interest group activity, especially in the realms of the electoral process and issue advocacy. This much-anticipated third edition of Nownes’s text retains a student-friendly tone. It thoroughly updates the references to interest group research, social media activity, new foreign actors in American politics, and political action committee (PAC) and party connections. Numerous figures and tables throughout the book help students visualize significant trends and information. New to the Third Edition A new section in Chapter 1 (Interest Groups in the United States) on social movements in the US. A new section in Chapter 4 (The Non-Lobbying Activities of Interest Groups) on how interest groups use social media to recruit members and burnish their image. A new section in Chapter 5 (Direct Lobbying) about lobbying regulation, how it affects group behavior, and "shadow interests." New data in Chapter 6 (Electoral Lobbying) on how and how much groups spend on PACs, super PACs, and other vehicles for election spending. A new section in Chapter 7 (Indirect Lobbying) on how interest groups use social media and new technology to affect political outcomes. A new section in Chapter 8 (Interest Groups and Political Parties) on interest groups, the Republican Party, and President Donald Trump. New information in Chapter 9 (The Influence of Interest Groups) on the latest research on interest group power and influence. The new section will cite the latest literature on the growing power of business.

"To demonstrate this, the author models the incentives that the initiative process creates for interests to organize and for how they communicate their preferences to policy makers. Interests that represent a broader range of the public are found to gain the most from the option to propose initiatives, implying that the set of organized interests in initiative states should reflect this advantage. Ironically, an effect of direct legislation is to potentially increase the effectiveness of special interest lobbying in state legislatures - in a sense, the opposite of the direct control that gives direct legislation its theoretical appeal. Yet, the clear effect is one of empowering voices that traditionally had very little effect in the legislative process.

This volume combines an analysis of special interest groups and their operations, with three case studies of lobbying in action. Controversy has long surrounded the activities and influence of special interest groups. This book examines why and how Washington lobbies attempt to influence government policy and legislative action. It analyzes types the types of lobbies, they role they play, their resources, tactics, and regulation.

In this chapter the topic of this book is introduced. Section 1. 1 provides a brief and rather general motivation for the scientific project undertaken here. Interest groups are a very popular object of scientific inquiry, and they received already considerable research attention from scholars in political science, as well as from researchers in economics. Necessarily, then, this book adds to a literature which is already quite developed. A detailed positioning in this literature of the theoretical material presented in this monograph will be given in Chapter 2. This second chapter will also, by means of a review of the empirical literature, provide a more general overview of the issues deemed to be important when studying the influence of interest groups on public policy. The outline of the entire book is described in greater detail in Section 1. 2. As most issues involved are more easily presented in later chapters, this introductory chapter is kept brief. 1. 1 MOTIVATION Substantial political power is often attributed to interest groups. Examples abound in both the economics and political science literature, as well as in journalistic accounts and popular publications. On many occasions the authors express concerns about the negative impact of interest groups on the democratic quality of government. "The interests of a small group are served at the expense of the interests of the general public, the taxpayers!", is an often heard popular complaint.

Provides information about a variety of organizations, arranged alphabetically within such groupings as Agriculture, Environmental, Health, Labor, and Political, Ideological and Religious.

Thousands of lobbyists lobby decision-makers in Brussels every day, but little is known about their impact on policy. Lobbying in the European Union addresses this research gap and analyzes the conditions under which interest groups can successfully lobby the European institutions.