Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Lobbying Strategies of American Interest Groups

小行星9631232 长期以来，利益集团一直被视为政策制定过程中的重要角色，但学者们对利益集团影响力的实现方式仍存在严重分歧。 先前的研究对利益集团是作为压力集团还是服务机构，以及为什么一个集团在华盛顿的问题网络上奔波，而另一个集团则转向环城公路以外的基层，存在分歧。 方法论上的困难使过去的研究无法检验不同的政治环境如何影响游说策略的理论，并产生了一些难题，如为什么大众媒体策略同样被内部和外部群体使用。 这个博士论文研究项目通过将许多群体的数据与特定问题的数据联系起来，解决了过去研究的方法问题。 该项目涉及对2 500个利益集团和公司进行的邮件调查，以及对200名调查答卷人进行的深入电话访谈，在方法上具有创新性，因为有关策略选择的问题将与答卷人自己选择的具体问题挂钩。 策略的使用与特定的政治环境相关联，从而可以测试游说策略的战略选择的上下文敏感理论。 ***

9631232 Baumgartner Interest groups have long been seen as important actors in the policymaking process and yet scholars remain deeply divided about the means by which interest group influence is achieved. Prior studies have disagreed about whether interest groups act as pressure groups or service bureaus, and about the reasons why one group plies the issue networks of Washington while another turns to the grass roots beyond the beltway. Methodological difficulties have prevented past studies from testing theories of how different political circumstances affect the lobbying tactics groups choose, and have created conundrums such as why mass media tactics are used equally by insider and outsider groups. This Doctoral Dissertation Research project resolves the methodological problems of past research by linking data on many groups to data about specific issues. The project, involving a mail survey of 2,500 interest groups and corporations and in-depth phone interviews with a subsample of 200 survey respondents, is methodologically innovative in that questions about tactic choice will be linked to specific issues selected by the respondents themselves. Tactic use is linked to particular sets of political circumstances, making it possible to test a context-sensitive theory of strategic choice of lobbying tactics. ***