Collaborative Research: Cooperation and Competition in Coalitions: Corporate Lobbying as a Two Stage Rent-Seeking Game

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Coalition formation, maintenance, and dissolution are fundamental elements of politics. One the most puzzling questions in the study of lobbying strategies is why firms join coalitions on issues where hundreds of interests lobby. Why would a corporation devoted to maximizing profits spend substantial resources lobbying in very large coalitions where their impact appears to be negligible? Why do these coalitions form? How is their membership determined? What causes their dissolution? Answering these questions will provide substantial insight into public policymaking and the impact of organized interests on that process. Two observations guide our efforts with this research. First, policymaking in the United States occurs in stages. Our second observation is that the interests and coalitions of interests that pursue policy goals in Washington are keenly aware of the multi-stage policy process, and they vary their lobbying strategies to fit the changing institutional characteristics of that policy process. For instance, coalitions of lobbying interests at one stage in the policymaking process may splinter at other stages in the process. The patterns of lobbying contacts at one stage may vary considerably from the lobbying patterns at another stage. In addition, the strategic concerns of coalition members at the early stages of the policymaking process may be affected by what they anticipate to occur at later stages in the process. The most difficult task that interests face is getting the attention of decision-makers. Thousands of legislative proposals are submitted in each session of a Congress. Of those, only about 500 receive serious consideration. Fewer yet are passed along to the president. Large coalitions often dominate this agenda-setting stage of the policy process. During this first stage of the policymaking process, lobbyists must sell an idea, a vision. Each lobbying coalition casts issues in terms that suggest that its position will benefit the public interest?while also attempting to structure the issues to favor its members. This stage of the policy process reflects the pluralist and neopluralist views of politics, which argue that politics typically involve numerous competing interests. During later stages of the policy process, the broad policy goals are fine-tuned with an eye toward policy implementation. Whenever implementation is at issue, lobbyists focus on narrow goals. That is, proposals that begin as broad measures concerned with collective goods often end up as distributive policies that provide narrow, private benefits. The different nature of the good, more private and less collective, leads to changes in the lobbying coalitions. Those coalitions that dominated at an earlier policymaking stage often disperse in later stages. Indeed, allies during the early stages sometimes become competitors during later stages. The lobbying patterns that we observe are partly a function of the policymaking stage we observe.The implications for this research are far reaching. Coalitions are a common human construct. We see coalitions everywhere. Coalitions are regularly formed by special interests pursuing legislative goals; states pursuing changes in federal policy often form coalitions; and nations pursuing international goals often form coalitions. The models of coalition building that we develop are general enough to be applicable to any situation where collective goals are pursued at early stages and private goods are pursued at later stages. The coalition that secured the collective good may disperse as its members compete over the spoils. Of course, our primary focus will be on the coalition building efforts of corporations as they pursue policies in Washington.