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

摘要本研究采用社会网络分析、定性分析和定量分析相结合的独特方法，考察了华盛顿特区游说者的社会组织。以游说者和政客的社会嵌入性为重点，分析了游说者之间的社会关系和基于信任的规范是如何运作的。这种互动如何加强政策互动，如果有的话？政策领域内的内在关系是否会将外部人士排除在民主进程之外？这项研究将通过关注作为政策制定关键部分的游说的社会结构、非正式互动和社会规范来扩展当前对政治过程的了解。嵌入性和社会规范已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描述。然而，在这种社会化程度较低和过度社会化的账户之间找到一条中间道路，将嵌入性融入到社交网络、信任和社会规范中，可以大大增进我们对政治和民主的理解。本项目希望发现，嵌入的社会关系和基于信任的社会规范能够支持游说者和政治家之间的日常政策互动。此外，这些相同的社会关系和规范为外部行为者设置了障碍，这些行为者可能包括社会活动家甚至雇用和依赖游说者的实体，因此局外人将内部关系和规范定性为串通和腐败。社会网络分析、传统的统计分析和定性分析被独特地结合起来，以关注基于信任的社会规范在两个政策领域——高等教育政策和退休政策——的网络游说者社区中管理非正式互动的作用。这项研究将依赖于联邦游说者登记报告、对华盛顿政治行为者的深度访谈和调查，以及其他有关游说的公开信息。从这项研究中获得的知识将有助于公民理解非正式互动在政治过程中的作用和重要性。此外，本研究通过探索未充分利用的数据源-游说者登记报告-作为研究政治互动和结果的来源，具有扩大知识的潜力。这项研究的一个预期副产品是将游说者注册报告组织成可用的归因和社会网络数据集，这些数据集将可供其他研究人员使用，从而鼓励不同方法的组合使用。另一个希望的影响是提高游说者活动的透明度。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不足，并有望改善国会对游说者信息的收集

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