Negative Lobbying and Policy Outcomes

What explains policy outcomes? Using a data set containing the actions and assessments of 776 lobbyists working closely on 77 policy proposals, combined with newly collected data on each proposal, I show that the intensity of lobbying against a proposal is a powerful predictor of the likelihood that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American politics research 2012-01, Vol.40 (1), p.116-146
Main Author: McKay, Amy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agency
Conflict
Government
Interest Groups
Legislative Bodies
Legislatures
Lobbying
Majorities
Polarization
Policy making
Presidents
Public policy
U.S.A
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Summary:What explains policy outcomes? Using a data set containing the actions and assessments of 776 lobbyists working closely on 77 policy proposals, combined with newly collected data on each proposal, I show that the intensity of lobbying against a proposal is a powerful predictor of the likelihood that the proposal is adopted in Congress or a federal agency. This negative lobbying is more effective than positive lobbying: it takes 3.5 lobbyists working for a new proposal to counteract the effect of just one lobbyist against it. Negative lobbying is a more important predictor of the policy outcome than the level of conflict, the preference of the majority of lobbyists, and differences in interest group resources. Several institutional factors—presidential support for the measure, congressional polarization, and whether the proposal was initiated by a federal agency—are found to affect policy outcomes, but only presidential support matters more than negative lobbying.
ISSN:1532-673X
1552-3373
DOI:10.1177/1532673X11413435