Competitive Interests ─ Competition and Compromise in American Interest Group Politics

Democratic theory has largely ignored interest group competition since the emergence of group theory in the late 1960s, according to Holyoke (political science, California State U. at Fresno), who presents and tests a model of lobbyist decision making in a competitive environment. The multivariate model is built on data drawn from interest group competition behavior in the legislative areas of dairy pricing, bioengineered food, money laundering, bankruptcy reform, oil royalties for wildlife, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and is used to predict how lobbyists react to the three different factors: pressure from legislators, interest group member constraints, and indirect pressure from a competitive interest group (with the first and the third factors predicted to push lobbyists towards compromise). Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Thomas T. Holyoke is an associate professor of political science at California State University, Fresno.