Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-03T01:42:49.729Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Allocation of Resources by Interest Groups: Lobbying, Litigation and Administrative Regulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John M. de Figueiredo  and
Rui J.P. de Figueiredo Jr.
John M. de Figueiredo*
Affiliation:
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Haas School of Business and Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Rui J.P. de Figueiredo Jr.*
Affiliation:
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Haas School of Business and Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
*
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room E52-545, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142–1347, USA. E-mail: jdefig@mit.edu;
Haas School of Business, 545 Student Services #1900, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720–1900, USA. E-mail: rui@haas.berkeley.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

One of the central concerns about American policy making institutions is the degree to which political outcomes can be influenced by interested parties. While the literature on interest group strategies in particular institutions—legislative, administrative, and legal—is extensive, there is very little scholarship which examines how the interdependencies between institutions affects the strategies of groups. In this paper we examine in a formal theoretical model how the opportunity to litigate administrative rulemaking in the courts affects the lobbying strategies of competing interest groups at the rulemaking stage. Using a resource-based view of group activity, we develop a number of important insights about each stage that cannot be observed by examining each one in isolation. We demonstrate that lobbying effort responds to the ideology of the court, and the responsiveness of the court to resources. In particular, (1) as courts become more biased toward the status quo, interest group lobbying investments become smaller, and may be eliminated all together, (2) as interest groups become wealthier, they spend more on lobbying, and (3) as the responsiveness of courts to resources decreases, the effect it has on lobbying investments depends on the underlying ideology of the court.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , August 2002 , pp. 161 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2002 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainsworth, Scott. 1993. “Regulating Lobbyists and Interest Group Influence.” Journal of Politics 55: 41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Douglas. 1990. The Logic of Congressional Action. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Austen-Smith, David 1993. “Information and Influence: Lobbying for Agendas and Votes.” American Journal of Political Science 37: 799–834 Google Scholar
Austen-Smith, David 1995. “Campaign Contributions and Access.” American Political Science Review 89: 566–581.Google Scholar
Austen-Smith, David, Wright, and John R. 1992. “Competitive Lobbying for a Legislator's Vote.” Social Choice and Welfare 9: 229–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austen-Smith, David, Wright, and John R. 1994. “Counteractive Lobbying.” American Journal of Political Science 38: 25–44.Google Scholar
Banks, Jeffrey S. 1989. “Agency Budgets, Cost Information and Auditing.” American Journal of Political Science 33: 670–699.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banks, Jeffrey S. and Weingast, Barry R. 1992. “The Political Control of Bureaucracies under Asymmetric Information.” American Journal of Political Science 36: 509–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron, David P. 1994. Business and its Environment, 2nd Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Baron, David P. 1996. “The Non-Market Strategy System.” Sloan Management Review 37: 73–85.Google Scholar
Baron, David P. 1999. “Integrated Market and Nonmarket Strategies in Client and Interest Group Politics.” Business and Politics 1: 1–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Gary S. 1983. “A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 98: 371–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bendor, Jonathan and Moe, Terry M. 1986. “Agenda Control, Committee Capture, and the Dynamics of Institutional Politics.” American Political Science Review 80: 1187–1207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A. and Wright, John R. 1998. “Lobbying for Justice: Organized Interests, Supreme Court Nominations, and United States Senate.” American Journal of Political Science 42: 499–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canes-Wrone, Brandice. 1998. “Bureaucratic Decisions and the Composition of the Lower Courts.” Department of Political Science Working Paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Cohen, Linda and Spitzer, Matthew. 1994. “Solving the Chevron Puzzle.” Law and Contemporary Problems 57: 67–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cortner, Richard C. 1968. “Strategies and Tactics of Litigants in Constitutional Cases.” Journal of Public Law 17: 287–307.Google Scholar
Cross, Frank B. and Tiller, Emerson H. 1998. “Judicial Partisanship and Obedience to Legal Doctrine: Whistleblowing on the Federal Courts of Appeal.” Yale Law Journal 107: 2155–2176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Figueiredo, John M. 1997. “The Politics of the Court and the Strategy of the Firm,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business.Google Scholar
de Figueiredo, John M. and Rui, J. de Figueiredo, P. Jr. 2002. “Managerial Decision-Making in Non-Market Environments: A Survey Experiment.” Advances in Strategic Management 19: 67–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Figueiredo, Rui J. P. Jr., Spiller, Pablo, and Urbiztondo, 1999. “An Informational Perspective on Administrative Procedures.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 15: 283–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Lee (1985). Conservatives in Court. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee and Knight, Jack. 1995. “Positive Approaches to Supreme Court Decision-Making,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John A. and Shipan, Charles F. 1989. “Congressional Influence on the Bureaucracy.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 6: 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galatner, Marc. 1974. “Why Haves Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Social Change.” Law and Society Review 9: 95–160.Google Scholar
Grier, Kevin B., Munger, Michael C. and Roberts, Brian E. 1994. “The Determinants of Industry Political Activity, 1978–1986.” American Political Science Review 88: 911–926.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groseclose, Timothy. 1996. “An Examination of the Markets for Favors and Votes in Congress.” Economic Inquiry.Google Scholar
Groseclose, Timothy and Snyder, James. 1996. “Buying Supermajorities.” American Political Science Review, 90: 303–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, John Mark. 1991. Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919–1981. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Herring, Pendleton. 1929. Group Representation Before Congress. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John W. 1981. Congressmen's Voting Decision, rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latham, Earl. 1952. “The Group Basis of Politics: Notes for a Theory.” American Political Science Review 46: 376–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1979. The End of Liberalism, 2nd Edition. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Lupia, Arthur and McCubbins, Mathew D. 1994. “Designing Bureaucratic Regulation.” Law and Contemporary Problems 57: 91–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, Brian. 1988. “A Model of Judicial Influence on Congressional Policymaking: Grove City College v. Bell.” Political Science Working Paper, P-88-7, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University.Google Scholar
McCubbins, Mathew D. and Schwartz, Thomas. 1984. “Congressional Oversight Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols v. Fire Alarms.” American Journal of Political Science, 29: 721–749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCubbins, Mathew D., Noll, Roger and Weingast, Barry R. 1987. “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 3: 243–277.Google Scholar
McCubbins, Mathew D., Noll, Roger and Weingast, Barry R. 1989. “Structure and Process, Politics and Policy: Administrative Arrangements and the Political Control of Agencies.” Virginia Law Review 75: 431–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCubbins, Mathew D., Noll, Roger and Weingast, Barry R. 1994. “Legislative Intent: The Use of Positive Political Theory in Statutory Interpretation.” Law and Contemporary Problems 57: 3–37.Google Scholar
McGuire, Kevin T., Caldeira, and Gregory A. 1993. “Lawyers, Organized Interests, and the Law of Obscenity: Agenda Setting in the Supreme Court.” American Political Science Review 87: 717–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milbraith, Lester W. 1963. The Washington lobbyists. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Susan. 1990. “Interest Group Litigation in Federal District Court: Beyond Political Disadvantage Theory.” Journal of Politics 52: 854–882.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peltzman, Samuel. 1976. “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation.” Journal of Law and Economics 19: 211–240.Google Scholar
Riker, William H. and Weingast, Barry R. 1986. “The Political and Economic Consequences of Judicial Deference to Legislatures.” Mimeo, Washington University-St. Louis.Google Scholar
Rubin, Paul H., Curran, Christopher and Curran, John F. 1999. “Litigation versus Legislation: Forum Shopping by Rent-Seekers.” Public Choice 57: 295–310.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Edward P., Spiller, Pablo T. and Urbiztondo, Santiago. 1994. “A Positive Theory of Legislative Intent.” Law and Contemporary Problems 57: 51–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A. 1997. “Separation-of-Powers Games in the Positive Theory of Congress and the Courts.” American Political Science Review 91: 28–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A. and Spaeth, Harold J. 1993. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, James. 1990. “Campaign Contributions as Investments: The U.S. House of Representatives, 1980–1986.” Journal of Political Economy 98: 1195–1227.Google Scholar
Snyder, James. 1991. “On Buying Legislatures.” Economics and Politics 3: 93–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, James. 1992. “Long-Term Investing in Politicians; Or, Give Early, Give Often.” Journal of Law & Economics 35: 15–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Songer, Donald R. and Sheehan, Reginald S. 1992. “Who Wins on Appeal? Upperdogs and Underdogs in the United States Courts of Appeals.” American Journal of Political Science 36: 235–258.Google Scholar
Spiller, Pablo T. 1992. “Agency Discretion Under Judicial Review.” Mathematical and Computer Modelling 16: 185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiller, Pablo T. and Gely, Rafael. 1992. “Congressional Control of Judicial Independence: The Determinants of U.S. Supreme Court Labor-Relations Decisions, 1949–1988.” Rand Journal of Economics 23: 463–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiller, Pablo T. and Spitzer, Matthew. 1992. “Judicial Choice of Legal Doctrines.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 8: 8–46.Google Scholar
Stratmann, Thomas. 1992. “Are Contributors Rational? Untangling Strategies of Political Action Committees.” Journal of Political Economy 100: 647–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stratmann, Thomas. 1998. “The market for congressional votes: Is Timing of Contributions Everything?” Journal of Law & Economics 41: 85–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1971. “The Theory of Economic Regulation.” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science 2: 3–21.Google Scholar
Tiller, Emerson H. 1998. “Controlling Policy by Controlling Process: Judicial Influence on Regulatory Decision Making.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 14: 114–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tiller, Emerson H. and Spiller, Pablo T. 1999. “Strategic Instruments: Legal Structure and Political Games in Administrative Law.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 15: 349–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truman, David. 1971. The Governmental Process, 2nd Edition. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Tullock, Gordon. 1980. “Efficient Rent-Seeking.” In Toward a Theory of the Rent-Seeking Society, edited by Buchanan, James M., Tollison, R. D. and Tullock, Gordon. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Stanton, Cartwright, Bliss, Kagan, Robert and Friedman, Lawrence. 1987. “Do the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead? Winning and Losing in the State Supreme Courts, 1870–1970.” Law and Society Review 21: 403–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar