The Political Economy of Pressure Groups

Abstract

Sebbene l’influenza dei gruppi di pressione sulle scelte pubbliche sia innegabile, non è facile dimostrare in qual modo essa si esercita. Un’occasione per approfondire l’argomento è costituita dalla pubblicazione del volume curato da Dennis Mueller, The Political Economy of Growth, che raccoglie una serie di saggi diretti a commentare la nota teoria di Mancur Olson sugli effetti dei gruppi d’interesse sul saggio di sviluppo dell’economia.L’esame dei numerosi saggi contenuti nel volume (non tutti, in verità, concentrati sulla tematica in oggetto) fa ritenere che l’ipotesi presentata da Olson, sebbene interessante, non si presti ad essere verificata empiricamente. Un’altra lacuna di quest’ipotesi è che essa non dà alcuna indicazione sul modo in cui i gruppi d’interesse influiscono in concreto sul potere politico.

The political feasibility of rural poverty reduction

“…Social groups can be defined in terms of shared interests for collective action. Yet, this does not imply that interest groups will actually organize into pressure groups [Naert (1985)]. Several triggering mechanisms of social aggregation for collective action have been identified in the development literature concerned with grassroot movements.…”

“…In this case, interest groups no longer exercise -10-pressure on government, but become part of decision making in specific areas of government intervention. They then become an instrument of government as they pledge to enforce the results of the negotiation with their rank and file [Naert (1985)].…”

The political economy of public procurement in Ukraine

“…Ukraine's defense is interesting considering previous work on how subnational self-governing patrols contribute to collective security (Arjona, 2016;Escalante, 2020; and links between political structure and collective security (Frey and Luechinger, 2003;Enders and Sandler, 2006). Another line of research considers how Russia's institutions contributed to Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, including the institutional foundations of Russian support for Putin's war (Trantidis, 2024), as well as how it transitioned from a middle-income capitalist democracy to a totalitarian warmongering state through encouraging rent-seeking and patronage systems (Hebert and Krasnozhon, 2024). Procurement reforms provide another contrast with Russia, where backsliding and corruption have characterized institutional change over the past decade.…”