IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v17y2005i1p41-74.html

Sisyphus Meets the Borg

Author

Listed:
  • David Lowery

    (Department of Public Administration at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, dlowery@fsw.leidenuniv.nl)

  • Virginia Gray

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, vagary@email.unc.edu)

  • Matthew Fellowes

    (Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy at The Brookings Institution, mfellowes@brookings.edu)

Abstract

Recent interpretations of the changing diversity of state interest communities emphasize the distinctive ways that the numbers of organizations representing different kinds of substantive interests grow in response to economic growth. Some guilds readily add new lobbying organizations as economies become larger, while many others grow hardly at all. As economies become larger, then, the relative composition of interest communities can change in ways having little to do with the distribution of interests in society. We develop and test four explanations of the changing diversity of interest communities using the first derivatives of the gross state product (GSP) response functions of 17 guilds of state interest organizations in 1997 as a dependent variable. Our results suggest that some guilds - including several major traditional economic interests - have a demographic advantage over social and public organizations that will make it very difficult for the latter to keep pace with the former as state economies grow.

Suggested Citation

  • David Lowery & Virginia Gray & Matthew Fellowes, 2005. "Sisyphus Meets the Borg," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 41-74, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:17:y:2005:i:1:p:41-74
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629805047798
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629805047798
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629805047798?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
    ---><---

    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. Caldeira, Gregory A. & Wright, John R., 1988. "Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(4), pages 1109-1127, December.
    3. Salisbury, Robert H., 1984. "Interest Representation: The Dominance of Institutions," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 64-76, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. David Lowery & Virginia Gray, 2004. "Bias in the Heavenly Chorus," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(1), pages 5-29, January.
    2. Marcel Hanegraaff & Arlo Poletti, 2021. "The Rise of Corporate Lobbying in the European Union: An Agenda for Future Research," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 839-855, July.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    5. Becker, Johannes & Peichl, Andreas & Rincke, Johannes, 2008. "Politicians' Outside Earnings and Political Competition," IZA Discussion Papers 3902, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Tom S Clark, 2016. "Scope and precedent: judicial rule-making under uncertainty," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(3), pages 353-384, July.
    7. Muro, Sergio & Chehtman, Alejandro, 2020. "Law or strategic calculus? Abstention in the Argentine Supreme Court," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    8. Šálka, Jaroslav & Dobšinská, Zuzana & Hricová, Zuzana, 2016. "Factors of political power — The example of forest owners associations in Slovakia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 88-98.
    9. Greg Vonnahme, 2014. "A preferential attachment model of campaign contributions in state legislative elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 235-249, April.
    10. Stratmann, Thomas, 1998. "The Market for Congressional Votes: Is Timing of Contributions Everything?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 85-113, April.
    11. Fabio Padovano & Ilaria Petrarca, 2013. "When and how politicians take ‘scandalous’ decisions?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 336-351, December.
    12. Juan Carlos Berganza, 2000. "Politicians, voters and electoral processes: an overview," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(3), pages 501-543, September.
    13. Marcin Kalinowski, 2014. "Competition in politics," Ekonomia i Prawo, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 13(3), pages 389-402, September.
    14. Paul Johnson, 1988. "On the theory of political competition: Comparative statics from a general allocative perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 217-235, September.
    15. Suzuki, Mao, 2020. "Profits before patients? Analyzing donors’ economic motives for foreign aid in the health sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    16. Joost Berkhout & Jan Beyers & Marcel Hanegraaff, 2023. "The Representative Potential of Interest Groups: Internal Voice in Post-Communist and Western European Countries," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 50-64.
    17. Bonica Adam, 2016. "Avenues of influence: on the political expenditures of corporations and their directors and executives," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(4), pages 367-394, December.
    18. Patrick A. McLaughlin & Adam C. Smith & Russell S. Sobel, 2019. "Bootleggers, Baptists, and the risks of rent seeking," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 211-234, June.
    19. Zacharias Maniadis, 2009. "Campaign contributions as a commitment device," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 301-315, June.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:jothpo:v:17:y:2005:i:1:p:41-74. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.