Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cooperation and Collusion: The Ambiguous Role of Lobbying in America

合作与勾结：美国游说活动的社会矛盾性摘要本研究采用社会网络、定性和定量分析相结合的方法，考察了华盛顿，华盛顿特区游说者的社会组织。 这种互动如何加强政策互动？ 政策领域内的嵌入式关系是否会将局外人排除在民主进程之外？这项研究将通过关注社会结构，非正式互动和游说的社会规范作为政策制定的关键部分来扩展当前对政治过程的认识。 嵌入性和社会规范已经被证明在许多经济情况下都很重要，但经济学和政治学都倾向于对政治过程进行社会化程度不足和过度社会化的解释。 然而，在这种社会化不足和过度社会化的账户之间存在一条中间道路，它将嵌入社交网络、信任和社会规范中，可以大大增加我们对政治和民主的理解。 该项目预计将发现，嵌入式社会关系和基于信任的社会规范使游说者和政治家之间的日常政策互动成为可能和基础。 此外，这些相同的社会关系和规范对外部行为者（可能包括社会活动家，甚至是雇用和依赖游说者的实体）设置了障碍，使得外部人将内部关系和规范定性为勾结和腐败。和定性分析是独特的结合，以集中在信任的作用-基于社会规范，在两个政策领域-高等教育政策和退休政策-网络化的说客社区内管理非正式互动。 这项研究将依赖于联邦游说者登记报告、对华盛顿政治人物的深入采访和调查，以及其他有关游说的公开信息。 从本研究中获得的知识将有助于公民了解非正式互动在政治过程中的作用和重要性。 此外，这项研究有可能扩大知识，探索一个未充分利用的数据源-说客登记报告-作为一个来源的政治互动和结果的研究。 这项研究的一个副产品是将说客登记报告组织成可用的属性和社交网络数据集，供其他研究人员使用，从而鼓励结合使用不同的方法。 另一个希望的影响将是游说者活动的更大透明度。 这项研究在向更广泛的公众传播的过程中，将突出游说者报告的不足和缺陷，并有望改善国会收集游说者信息的工作

Cooperation and Collusion: The Social Ambivalence of Lobbying in AmericaAbstractUsing a unique combination of social network, qualitative, and quantitative analyses, this project examines the social organization of lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Focusing on the social embeddedness of lobbyists and politicians, the relevant questions for analysis are how do social relations and trust-based norms among lobbyists operate? How do such interactions enhance policy interactions, if at all? Do embedded relationships within policy areas operate to exclude outsiders from the democratic process?This research will extend current knowledge of the political process by focusing on the social structure, informal interactions, and social norms of lobbying as a key part of policy making. Embeddedness and social norms have been shown to matter in a host of economic situations, but both economics and political science tend to present under- and over-socialized accounts of the political process. However, a middle path between such under- and over-socialized accounts that incorporates embeddedness in social networks, trust, and social norms can add much to our understanding of politics and democracy. This project expects to find that embedded social relationships and trust-based social norms enable and underpin everyday policy interactions among lobbyists and politicians. In addition, these same social relationships and norms erect a barrier to outside actors, who may include social activists or even the entities who hire and rely on lobbyists, such that outsiders characterize the insider relations and norms as collusive and corrupt.Social network analysis, traditional statistical analysis, and qualitative analysis are uniquely combnied in order to focus on the role of trust-based social norms that govern informal interactions within networked communities of lobbyists in two policy domains - higher education policy and retirement policy. The research will rely on federal lobbyist registration reports, in-depth interviews and surveys of political actors in Washington, as well as other publicly available information on lobbying. The knowledge gained from this study will help citizens understand the effect and importance of informal interactions in the political process. Moreover, this research has the potential of expanding knowledge by exploring an underutilized data source - lobbyist registration reports - as a source for the study of political interactions and outcomes. One intended by-product of this research will be to organize the lobbyist registration reports into useable attributional and social network datasets that will be available to other researchers and thereby encourage the combined use of different methodologies. Another hoped-for impact will be greater transparency of lobbyists' activities. This research, in the course of its dissemination to a wider public, will highlight shortfalls and deficiencies in reporting by lobbyists and hopefully improve the collection of lobbyist information by the Congress