Special interest groups (SIGs) have multiple channels of influence: contributing to decision-makers or providing them with information (henceforth, inside lobbying) and grassroots mobilizations or advertising their position to voters (henceforth, outside lobbying). How do these channels...

This paper presents a new model of interest groups and policy formation in the legislature. In our setting, the already given party ideological predispositions and power distribution determine the expected policy outcome. Our analysis applies to the case of un-enforced or enforced party...

This paper presents a new model of interest groups and policy formation in the legislature. In our setting, the already given party ideological predispositions and power distribution determine the expected policy outcome. Our analysis applies to the case of un-enforced or enforced party...

This paper presents a new model of interest groups and policy formation in the legislature. In our setting, the already given party ideological predispositions and power distribution determine the expected policy outcome. Our analysis applies to the case of un-enforced or enforced party...

This paper presents a new model of interest groups and policy formation in the legislature. In our setting, the already given party ideological predispositions and power distribution determine the expected policy outcome. Our analysis applies to the case of unenforced or enforced party...

While the surge in 501(c)(4)s that led to the current IRS scandal is widely attributable to Citizens United, it was a very deliberate IRS action – the decision to exempt donations to 501(c)(4)s from gift tax – that was equally responsible for the unprecedented spending by 501(c)(4)s in the...

Conventional public choice literature suggests that interest groups have a largely malign effect upon the economy. Suggesting that interest groups are primarily established to lobby governments for rents, the public choice approach essentially rests upon normative presumptions concerning the...

Why are some lobby groups less benign in their external effects than others? Nearly three decades ago, Mancur Olson (1982) proposed that less-encompassing lobby groups with their constituents collectively representing a narrow range of sectors are more apt to seek the types of subsidies,...

This monograph is a long-term analysis of citizens' collective action to influence public policy toward communication and information. We define and defend a vision of communication and information policy (CIP) as a comprehensive and integrated policy domain. We also define and describe the...

Activist NGOs have increasingly foregone public politics and turned to private politics to change the practices of firms and industries. This paper focuses on private politics, activist strategies, and nonmarket strategies of targets. A formal theory of an encounter between an activist...