IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v175y2018i3d10.1007_s11127-018-0541-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Getting the message across: evaluating think tank influence in Congress

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Y. Lerner

    (Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law)

Abstract

Skirting the lines between academic, promotional and advocacy organizations, think tanks spend an inordinate amount of time and money attempting to influence policy debates, all the while being legally barred from lobbying. Think tanks, unlike interest groups, do not bring with them electoral constituencies to advocate on behalf of, so the ways in which they persuade legislators to adopt their opinions cannot simply be electoral in nature. Using a dataset of think tank citations from congressional floor speeches and committee testimony records, I compare the influence of think tanks based on a new measure of their ideologies and, in doing so, show that think tanks engage in strategic ideological positioning to maximize their influence. An additional hypothesis examined is the relationship between think tank members’ previous work experiences in government with the organizations’ overall prominence. By treating think tanks as strategic actors in legislative politics, I show that think tanks’ ideological positioning affects directly how members of Congress engage with them, both by citing them in floor speeches and in calling them to testify, with more extreme think tanks being cited more frequently in floor speeches and more moderate think tanks called more often to testify.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Y. Lerner, 2018. "Getting the message across: evaluating think tank influence in Congress," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 347-366, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:175:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11127-018-0541-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-018-0541-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-018-0541-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-018-0541-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Denzau, Arthur T. & Munger, Michael C., 1986. "Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(1), pages 89-106, March.
    2. Adam Martin & Diana Thomas, 2013. "Two-tiered political entrepreneurship and the congressional committee system," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 21-37, January.
    3. Esterling, Kevin M., 2007. "Buying Expertise: Campaign Contributions and Attention to Policy Analysis in Congressional Committees," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 93-109, February.
    4. Gilens, Martin, 2001. "Political Ignorance and Collective Policy Preferences," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(2), pages 379-396, June.
    5. Hall, Richard L. & Wayman, Frank W., 1990. "Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 797-820, September.
    6. Stanley Winer & Michael Tofias & Bernard Grofman & John Aldrich, 2008. "Trending economic factors and the structure of Congress in the growth of government, 1930–2002," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 415-448, June.
    7. Bertelli, Anthony M. & Wenger, Jeffrey B., 2009. "Demanding Information: Think Tanks and the US Congress," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 225-242, April.
    8. Bonica, Adam & Jowei, Chen & Tim, Johnson, 2015. "Senate Gate-Keeping, Presidential Staffing of "Inferior Offices," and the Ideological Composition of Appointments to the Public Bureaucracy," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 10(1), pages 5-40, May.
    9. Tim Groseclose & Jeffrey Milyo, 2005. "A Measure of Media Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1191-1237.
    10. Amy McKay, 2011. "The decision to lobby bureaucrats," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 123-138, April.
    11. SHOR, BORIS & McCARTY, NOLAN, 2011. "The Ideological Mapping of American Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 530-551, August.
    12. Fleisher, Richard & Bond, John R., 2004. "The Shrinking Middle in the US Congress," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 429-451, July.
    13. John Wilkerson & David Smith & Nicholas Stramp, 2015. "Tracing the Flow of Policy Ideas in Legislatures: A Text Reuse Approach," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(4), pages 943-956, October.
    14. Walker, Jack L., 1983. "The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(2), pages 390-406, June.
    15. Adam Bonica, 2014. "Mapping the Ideological Marketplace," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(2), pages 367-386, April.
    16. Keith Poole, 2007. "Changing minds? Not in Congress!," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 435-451, June.
    17. James Rogers, 2005. "The Impact of Divided Government on Legislative Production," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 217-233, April.
    18. Amy McKay, 2008. "A simple way of estimating interest group ideology," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 69-86, July.
    19. Clinton, Joshua & Jackman, Simon & Rivers, Douglas, 2004. "The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(2), pages 355-370, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jingjing Zeng & Guihua Huang, 2024. "Bureaucratic biases in trust of expert policy advice: a randomized controlled experiment based on Chinese think tank reports," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 57(2), pages 305-351, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nathan Canen & Chad Kendall & Francesco Trebbi, 2020. "Unbundling Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 1197-1233, May.
    2. Michael J. Barber & Brandice Canes‐Wrone & Sharece Thrower, 2017. "Ideologically Sophisticated Donors: Which Candidates Do Individual Contributors Finance?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(2), pages 271-288, April.
    3. Nicholas R. Jenkins & Michelangelo Landgrave & Gabriel E. Martinez, 2020. "Do political donors have greater access to government officials? Evidence from a FOIA field experiment with US municipalities," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(2).
    4. Laurent Bouton & Julia Cagé & Edgard Dewitte & Vincent Pons, 2021. "Small Campaign Donors," Working Papers hal-03878175, HAL.
    5. Clio Andris & David Lee & Marcus J Hamilton & Mauro Martino & Christian E Gunning & John Armistead Selden, 2015. "The Rise of Partisanship and Super-Cooperators in the U.S. House of Representatives," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    6. Cindy Cheng & Joan Barceló & Allison Spencer Hartnett & Robert Kubinec & Luca Messerschmidt, 2020. "COVID-19 Government Response Event Dataset (CoronaNet v.1.0)," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(7), pages 756-768, July.
    7. Jonathan B Slapin, 2014. "Measurement, model testing, and legislative influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 24-42, March.
    8. Sanford C. Gordon & Dimitri Landa, 2018. "Polarized preferences versus polarizing policies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 193-210, July.
    9. Ryan J. Vander Wielen & Michael J. Vander Wielen, 2020. "Unpacking the unknown: a method for identifying status quo distributions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 49-72, January.
    10. Ivan Pastine & Tuvana Pastine, 2010. "Politician preferences, law-abiding lobbyists and caps on political contributions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 81-101, October.
    11. Nathan J. Canen & Chad Kendall & Francesco Trebbi, 2020. "Political Parties as Drivers of U.S. Polarization: 1927-2018," NBER Working Papers 28296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Gerald Carlino & Thorsten Drautzburg & Robert Inman & Nicholas Zarra, 2023. "Partisanship and Fiscal Policy in Economic Unions: Evidence from US States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(3), pages 701-737, March.
    13. Melki, Mickael & Pickering, Andrew, 2020. "Polarization and corruption in America," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    14. Lerner, Joshua Y. & McCubbins, Mathew D. & Renberg, Kristen M., 2021. "The efficacy of measuring judicial ideal points: The mis-analogy of IRTs," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    15. Bellemare, Marc F. & Carnes, Nicholas, 2015. "Why do members of congress support agricultural protection?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 20-34.
    16. Wolton, Stephane, 2016. "Lobbying, Inside and Out: How Special Interest Groups Influence Policy Choices," MPRA Paper 68637, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. J. Lawrence Broz, 2008. "Congressional voting on funding the international financial institutions," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 351-374, December.
    18. Dodge Cahan & Niklas Potrafke, 2021. "The Democrat-Republican presidential growth gap and the partisan balance of the state governments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 577-601, December.
    19. Bronars, Stephen G & Lott, John R, Jr, 1997. "Do Campaign Donations Alter How a Politician Votes? Or, Do Donors Support Candidates Who Value the Same Things That They Do?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 317-350, October.
    20. Keng-Chi Chang & Chun-Fang Chiang & Ming-Jen Lin, 2021. "Using Facebook data to predict the 2016 U.S. presidential election," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-24, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:175:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11127-018-0541-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.