Agency problems and interest representation: An empirical analysis of the costs of lobbying

Schiff, Eleanor; Seufer, Kim; Whitesell, Anne; Lowery, David

doi:10.1057/iga.2015.4

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…For instance, since interests often function as principals who delegate political activity to their lobbyists and policy advocates as their agents, the lobbying activity we ultimately observe reflects how lobbyists and policy advocates resolve discrepancies between the preferences of themselves and their employers. However, with the exception of a few formal models and qualitative studies (Drutman 2015; Hirsch et al n.d.; Kersh 2002), we have little empirical insight on how interests and lobbyists and policy advocates navigate this principal‐agent problem (but see Holyoke 2017; Schiff, Seufer, Whitesell and Lowery 2015), and bringing lobbyists themselves more prominently into our research can help shed light on this dynamic. Again, while recent studies on the revolving door have brought attention to the importance of lobbyists’ previous government experience (e.g., LaPira and Thomas 2017; McCrain 2018; Vidal, Draca, and Fons‐Rosen 2012), we otherwise have scant knowledge of the characteristics of the persons who populate the lobbying community and how those characteristics might inform their advocacy behavior such as their partisanship and ideology (but see Hirsch et al n.d.), professional experience, substantive expertise, gender, and race.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Whose Door to Knock? Organized Interests’ Strategic Pursuit of Access to Members of Congress

Miller

2021

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Organized interests routinely seek direct contacts with, or access to, members of Congress to advance their policy goals. While studies often explore the tactics interests use to obtain access, few examine interests’ strategic considerations in choosing which members to target. Furthermore, the few empirical studies that examine organized interests’ targeting strategies yield inconclusive results concerning the types of members interests target. This article presents a conjoint experiment with federal lobbyists and policy advocates—a novel experimental sample in political science—to evaluate which types of members organized interests target when trying to advance a proposal in an empirical framework that addresses some of the inferential challenges faced by prior studies. The results indicate that organized interests target members who are undecided on or are weak supporters of the proposal of interest and who possess institutional roles providing them with influence over the proposal at its current stage of the legislative process.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Whose Door to Knock? Organized Interests’ Strategic Pursuit of Access to Members of Congress

Miller

2021

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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“…Participant observation techniques have been very successfully used with respect to lobbyists (Benoit, 2007;Birnbaum, 1992;Kersh, 2002;McFarland, 1984;McHale, 2004;Schlesinger et al, 2001). And we do gain useful insights into lobbyists in the developing principal-agent literature (Lowery and Marchetti, 2012;Schiff et al, 2015; Stephenson and Jackson, 2010). However, it is true that the academic literature on lobbyists is less extensive and much less systematic than that on lobbying.…”

Section: Much Of the Work Citingmentioning

confidence: 96%

Lester Milbrath’s The Washington Lobbyists, 50 Years On: An Enduring Legacy

McGrath

2017

Political Studies Review

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Published in 1963, Lester Milbrath's The Washington Lobbyists has become indispensable for understanding how lobbying operates and the societal benefits it brings. Milbrath there presented the first detailed survey of lobbying activities, and his findings have been generally affirmed by a range of later studies, although his conviction that lobbying was an essentially benign force which exerted relatively little impact on policy has been more contested. Milbrath's theoretical model of lobbying as a communication process has enduring value to scholars and practitioners alike, and the definition of lobbying which he formulated continues to be useful. This article seeks explicitly to celebrate Milbrath's outstanding research on lobbyists, more than 50 years after his book was published, and highlights some elements of Milbrath's work which have not yet been fully explored by scholars. Political Studies Review Washington Lobbyists as a 'pioneering study'; Rosenthal (2001, p. 17) calls it 'one of the seminal studies' in the field; and Tichenor and Harris (2005, p. 252) include it as one of a few works which 'transformed interest group studies'. Continuity and Change in Washington Lobbying Whether Milbrath's analysis of lobbying in the late 1950s remains relevant to today's scholars and practitioners is a reasonable question (indeed, one raised by this journal's anonymous reviewers). Some argue, for instance, that Milbrath's is an unrealistic and overly benign view

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“…After revelations that lobbyist Jack Abramoff ripped-off clients to advance his personal interests (e.g., Lowery and Marchetti 2012), scholars grew concerned that the rate at which legislators and staff were leaving Congress through the “revolving door” to exploit their connections as lobbyists for profit might lead to more of the same (LaPira and Thomas 2017). Researchers also found evidence of lobbyists over-charging their corporate clients (Schiff et al 2015) or advocating bill positions at odds with member preferences (at least when measured with ordinal scales in Holyoke 2011). Unethical lobbyists might be getting away with this behavior, scholars feared, because of severe information asymmetry in their principal-agent relationships with members or clients.…”

Section: Lobbying and Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic Lobbying and the Pressure to Compromise Member Interests

Holyoke

2021

Political Research Quarterly

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Do lobbyists always advocate for the interests of the members or clients employing them, or, under competing pressures, do they sometimes take positions on bills reflecting the interests of lawmakers or other lobbyists? Do they, in fact, lobby strategically by making choices that balance competing pressures in pursuit of goals like furthering their careers? Most lobbying research assumes that interest groups and lobbyists are the same, but I argue that the interests of lobbyists may be different from those they represent, which I test with a model of strategic lobbying using data on positions lobbyists took on bills in Congress from 2006 to 2017 made available by MapLight. I find that lobbyists sometimes do take positions at odds with member interests under pressure from legislators, other lobbyists, and the president, though some groups can constrain their lobbyists. I conclude by speculating on what this means for lobbying as a form of representation.

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Agency problems and interest representation: An empirical analysis of the costs of lobbying

Cited by 11 publications

References 36 publications

On Whose Door to Knock? Organized Interests’ Strategic Pursuit of Access to Members of Congress

On Whose Door to Knock? Organized Interests’ Strategic Pursuit of Access to Members of Congress

Lester Milbrath’s The Washington Lobbyists, 50 Years On: An Enduring Legacy

Strategic Lobbying and the Pressure to Compromise Member Interests

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