Legislative agendas and interest advocacy: Understanding the demand side of lobbying

Virginia Gray, David Lynn Lowery, Matthew Fellowes, Jennifer L. Anderson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

Efforts to understand the mobilization of organized interests have turned away from focusing on their internal traits to assessing the environmental forces that influence the supply of lobbying organizations and the demand for their services. Unfortunately, empirical analysis has provided far more support for the supply hypothesis than for expectations about the role of policy energy or demand. This has largely been a function of the lack of appropriate measures at either the state or federal level and/or potential problems of research design. We address these problems by testing the energy-stability-area model of interest system density using a new measure of policy energy or demand in cross-state, cross-interest guild, and pooled specifications. We find strong support for the hypothesis that the demand for lobbying - as measured by the size of legislative agendas of concern to different types of organized interests - has a profound effect on the size of lobbying communities.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)404-434
Number of pages31
JournalAmerican Politics Research
Volume33
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2005

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Sociology and Political Science

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