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

合作与合谋：美国游说的社会矛盾心理摘要本项目使用社会网络、定性和定量分析的独特组合，考察了华盛顿特区游说者的社会组织。关注游说者和政客的社会嵌入性，相关的分析问题是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？政策领域内的根深蒂固的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，来扩展对政治进程的现有知识。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不充分和过度社会化的描述。然而，在这种社会化程度低和社会化程度过高的账户之间走一条中间道路，包括嵌入社交网络、信任和社会规范，可以大大增加我们对政治和民主的理解。该项目希望发现，嵌入的社会关系和基于信任的社会规范使游说者和政客之间的日常政策互动成为可能并得到支持。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，这些外部行为者可能包括社会活动家，甚至包括雇用和依赖说客的实体，以至于外部人士将内部关系和规范描述为串通和腐败。社会网络分析、传统统计分析和定性分析被独特地结合在一起，以专注于基于信任的社会规范的作用，这些规范在两个政策领域-高等教育政策和退休政策-管理说客网络社区内的非正式互动。这项研究将依赖于联邦游说者登记报告、对华盛顿政治参与者的深入采访和调查，以及其他可公开获得的有关游说的信息。从这项研究中获得的知识将帮助公民理解非正式互动在政治进程中的作用和重要性。此外，这项研究有可能通过探索未得到充分利用的数据来源--游说者登记报告--来扩大知识，作为研究政治互动和结果的来源。这项研究的一个预期副产品将是将说客登记报告组织成可供其他研究人员使用的可用的归属和社交网络数据集，从而鼓励组合使用不同的方法。另一个预期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，将突出游说者在报告方面的不足和不足，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