Explaining the anomalous growth of public sector lobbying in the American States, 1997-2007

We examine an anomalyçthe rapid increase over the past decade in the number of local public sector organizations lobbying their state governments. After documenting this increase in public sector lobbying from1997 to 2007, we discuss why this pattern is so theoretically anomalous and then develop several explanations that might account for this puzzle. These candidate explanationsçrepresenting attention to both the supply of and demand for lobbyingçare then tested using the 1997 and 2007 data.We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for organization ecology theory and for more substantive fears about the diversity of lobbying communities, especially intergovernmental lobbying.