Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Comparative, State-Level Study of Strength of Political Party and Lobbying Expenditures

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

General Summary Although political scientists have long believed that more disciplined and cohesive political parties are better able to resist interest group influence, recent scholarship calls this proposition into question for two reasons. First, interest groups possess specialized policy information that legislators need, and, second, lobbying strategies have grown more sophisticated in the last couple decades. Using an original dataset of lobbying expenditures in thirty-two state legislatures between 2001 and 2014, this project will tests how party conditions (polarization, cohesion, and majority party seat share) affect lobbying expenditures. The expected relationship between each of these conditions and lobbying expenditures depends on what interest groups do when they lobby. If groups lobby only when they believe they can change legislator beliefs about policy, then interest groups should spend less on lobbying as legislator beliefs become more fixed, i.e., as the legislature grows more polarized. However, if groups are successful at moderating the beliefs of increasingly stubborn legislators, then we might expect that groups opposed to the majority party will spend more as polarization increases. Alternatively, if interest groups advance their agendas primarily by enhancing the efforts of their legislative allies, then they should lobby harder when their friends are both more productive and more supportive. Thus, party polarization should encourage more lobbying by groups allied with the majority party. Party cohesion and majority party seat share are expected to have the same effect as party polarization. Preliminary results suggest that as the parties grow more polarized, interest groups spend less on lobbying. Technical Summary Scholars have long believed that the power of interest groups is inversely related to the discipline and cohesion of the governing political parties. But interest groups may remain influential even in the face of strong parties, because they provide and process technical information and have grown more experienced at lobbying. This project examines how party conditions associated with party strength affect lobbying expenditures by organized interests. A negative relationship between each of these conditions and lobbying expenditures would be consistent with the exogenous cost model of lobbying. Alternatively, increases in each party condition might encourage interest groups allied with the majority party to increasingly subsidize the efforts of friendly legislators. The endogenous cost model of lobbying predicts that, as each party condition increases, interest groups opposed to the majority party will spend more on lobbying. Quantitative analyses is performed using an original dataset of lobbying expenditures in thirty-two state legislatures from 2001 to 2014 and interviews of lobbyists. The investigator expects that an increase in party polarization will substantially reduce interest group lobbying expenditures. The project will not only provide an indirect test of contemporary lobbying theories, but it will help to build empirical generalizations about the roles and relationship between political parties and interest groups in democratic politics.