Organized Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congress

9310247美国政治制度的霍尔批评者长期以来一直哀叹有组织的“派系”在国家政策制定中的影响。华盛顿游说者的激增和政治行动委员会的壮大，加剧了人们的指控，即国会是一般“特殊”利益集团的领地，尤其是私人商业利益集团。同样，联邦机构和委员会经常被说成是它们成立来监管的行业的“俘虏”，各种说法表明，国会行为者参与了这种安排。与这一观点相抗衡的一个重要观点是，公共利益集团在美国多元化政治中扮演着重要而健康的角色。这些组织在追求的目标上大相径庭，但其中相当多的组织寻求影响公共政策，特别是在涉及重要公共利益的问题上。虽然其中一些团体拥有强大的政治行动委员会，但这些团体往往更多地依赖游说和信息努力，而不是他们的竞选捐款来实现他们的立法目的。这些组织的努力提供了什么制衡作用(如果有的话)？更广泛地说，与更多、更有钱、更受研究、更受诋毁的私人团体或商业协会相比，公共利益团体的倡导努力有什么影响？调查人员通过评估公共和私人利益集团在一系列不同问题上的作用来检验这个问题，在这些问题上，来自两个部门的行为者在国会政策制定和间接在机构规则制定中进行竞争。他们首先阐述了立法动员的理论，该理论列出了人们可能期望每个人(或两者)的游说和竞选捐款努力都得到回报的条件。其次，他们进行了广泛的实证研究，包括能源、环境、人力资源和外交政策领域的案例样本。研究将采用访谈和档案资料，分析方法将是多方面的。这项研究应该会大大增强我们对国会立法中的公共倡导团体和私人利益以及国会对机关规则制定的干预的理解。***

9310247 Hall Critics of American political institutions have long lamented the infuence of organized "factions" in national policy making. The proliferation of Washington lobbyists and the growth of political action committees have intensified the charge that Congress is the province of "special" interests in general and private business interests in particular. Federal agencies and commissions, likewise, are often said to be "captives" of the industries they were established to regulate, and various accounts suggest that Congressional actors conspire in such arrangements. An important counterweight to this view is the notion that the public interest groups play an important and healthy role in the politics of American pluralism. Such organizations vary considerably in the purposes to which they aspire, but a significant number of them seek to influence public policy, especially on issues where important public goods are at stake. While a few of these have formidable PACs, such groups tend to rely far more heavily on lobbying and informational efforts than they do campaign contributions to achieve their legislative purposes. What counterweight, if any, do the efforts of such organizations provide? More generally, what influence do the advocacy efforts of public interest groups have relative to the more numerous, more moneyed, more studied, and more maligned private groups or business associations? The investigators examine this question by assessing the role of public and private interest groups on a diverse set of issues where actors from the two sectors compete in congressional policy making and, indirectly, in agency rule-making. They first elaborate a theory of legislative mobilization which lays out the conditions under which one might expect both the lobbying and campaign contribution efforts of each (or both) to pay off. Second, they undertake a broad empirical study, including samples of cases from the energy, environment, human resources, a nd foreign policy domains. The study will employ interview and archival data, and the analysis will be multi-method. This study should enhance substantially our understanding of public advocacy groups and private interests in Congressional law-making and Congressional intervention in agency rule-making. ***