Groups, Interests, and U.S. Public Policy

by William P. Browne

Overview

Synthesizing theory, personal research, and prior studies on interest groups and other lobbies, William P. Browne offers a new, insightful overview of organized political interests and explains how and why they affect public policy.

Drawing on his extensive experience researching interest groups, Browne assesses the impact that special interests have long had in shaping policy. He explains how they fit into the policymaking process and into society, how they exercise their influence, and how they adapt to changing circumstances.

Browne describes the diversity of existing interests-associations, businesses, foundations, churches, and others-and explores the multidimensional tasks of lobbying, from disseminating information through making financial contributions to cultivating the media. He shows how organized interests target not just the public and policymakers but even other interest groups, and how they create policy niches as a survival strategy. He also looks at winnable issues, contrasts them with more difficult ones, and explains what makes the difference.

Groups, Interests, and U.S. Public Policy is a serious study written in a lighthearted tone. It offers political scientists a new theory of how and why interest groups influence public policy while it enlightens students and general readers about how policy is actually shaped in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780878406821
Publisher:	Georgetown University Press
Publication date:	05/28/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)
Lexile:	1190L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William P. Browne is a professor of political science at Central Michigan University. An authority on agricultural policy as well as interest groups and a longtime observer of lobbyists, he has written numerous books, including Cultivating Congress: Constituents, Issues, and Interests in Agricultural Policymaking.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	xi
	Introduction	1
	Three Guiding Principles	1
	Asking the Right Questions	3
	The Following Chapters	6
1	Interest Groups and Public Policy	9
	What Are Interest Groups?	11
	When a Group's Not an Interest Group	13
	But Isn't It All Politics?	17
	Why People Join and Stay with Interest Groups	19
	The Fit between Joiners and Their Groups	25
	Summary and Highlights	27
2	Other Interests	30
	Business Institutions	33
	Social Institutions	39
	Governmental Institutions	43
	Personality-Based Interests	49
	The Problem with Pressure	55
	Summary and Highlights	60
3	The Meaning of Lobbying	62
	The Contact Game	64
	Lobbying as Winning Attention	68
	Reinforcement: Same Techniques, Different Purpose	75
	But Does This Busy Game Fit?	78
	Summary and Highlights	81
4	Targeting the Public	84
	Not Just Mobilizing the Joiners	86
	But Isn't the Public a New Target?	87
	Public Targets in a Modern Era	91
	The Media: Interest Partner or Follower?	95
	Does This Really Fit?	102
	Summary and Highlights	105
5	Targeting Policymakers	109
	Institutionalizing the Contact Game	111
	Paying for This Colorful History	118
	And the Price Goes On	125
	Changes in Governing, Changes in Interests	131
	Summary and Highlights	134
6	Targeting Other Interests	137
	Buying Help	139
	Forging Coalitions	146
	Other Lobbying of Interests	154
	The Resiliency of Interest Politics	163
	Summary and Highlights	166
7	Getting What Interests Want: The Winners	168
	Which Are Those Fortunate Interests?	171
	Gatekeeping Politics	180
	Good Issues and Compatible Public Institutions	184
	Summary and Highlights	189
8	What Some Interests Can't Get: The Losers	192
	What Are Some Bad Issues?	193
	Institutionalizing All This Stuff, or Not	197
	Government's Champions	200
	And No Rural Lobby at All	202
	Issues That Fit and Those That Don't	205
	Summary and Highlights	207
9	Revisiting Niches, Networks, Domains, and Other Scary Things	209
	Triangles: The Scariest Idea of All	211
	The Fallacy of Networks and Domains	215
	Niches: Getting a Little More into It	219
	Can There Be a Theory of Interests and Policy?	226
	Summary and Highlights	228
10	A Wasted Process? Or Running (Ruining?) Things?	230
	The Matter of Fit	230
	Adaptation by Interests	233
	How Much Does Lobbying Matter?	235
	A Concluding Word	239
	Notes	241
	Index	269

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This very personal guided tour of the world of interest group politics is led by a scholar who has visited all of its locales. Both comprehensive and iconoclastic, it places interest groups at the very core of American politics and public policy."—David Lowery, Burton Craige Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Christopher Bosso

A tour de force, an accessible book that every student of interest group politics should read. -- Christopher Bosso, professor of political sciencee, Northeastern University

David Lowery

This very personal guided tour of the world of interest group politics is led by a scholar who has visited all of its locales. Both comprehensive and iconoclastic, it places interest groups at the very core of American politics and public policy.
—(David Lowery, Burton Craige Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill )

Editorial Reviews

William Browne's Groups, Interests, and U.S. Public Policy is a quirky, brassy, and personal account of the place of interest groups in American politics. Browne covers a lot of ground. Seamlessly synthesizing and summarizing decades of empirical and theoretical work on interest groups, Browne examines what interest groups are, what they do, how they operate, and how they influence public policy.

Journal of Politics

This very personal guided tour of the world of interest group politics is led by a scholar who has visited all of its locales. Both comprehensive and iconoclastic, it places interest groups at the very core of American politics and public policy.

David Lowery

"William Browne's Groups, Interests, and U.S. Public Policy is a quirky, brassy, and personal account of the place of interest groups in American politics. Browne covers a lot of ground. Seamlessly synthesizing and summarizing decades of empirical and theoretical work on interest groups, Browne examines what interest groups are, what they do, how they operate, and how they influence public policy."—Journal of Politics

From the Publisher

After years of listening to and questioning executives, lobbyists, group activists, policymakers, and their confidants, the author has assembled his thoughts in a text designed for continuing education and undergraduate learning. Coverage includes what interest groups and their representatives do; nonmembership interests that are active in US politics (e.g. individual businesses, foundations, and churches); how organized interests influence public policy making; the historical structure and development of the US government and its lobbies; which interests win and why others never quite get well-organized; and the idea of policy niches. Paper edition (unseen), $15.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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