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SAGE Journal Articles

SJ-userguide.pdf

Article 1: Victor, J. N. (November 2007). Strategic Lobbying: Demonstrating How Legislative Context Affects Interest Groups’ Lobbying Tactics. American Politics Research 35(6). 826-845.

This article discusses the lobbying tactics utilized by interest groups. The author attempts to explain variations in interest group behavior at the policy level and finds that measures of legislative context are important components of models of direct and indirect lobbying.

Questions to Consider:

1. What is the author’s primary hypothesis?

2. Identify the four categories of legislative context. How do they relate to interest group strategy selection?

3. Which factors contribute to the interest groups decision about how to lobby?

Learning Objective: 13.4 Distinguish between different types of interest group activities

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Article 2: Ozymy, J. (January 2013). Keepin' on the Sunny Side: Scandals, Organized Interests, and the Passage of Legislative Lobbying Laws in the American States. American Politics Research 41(1). 3-23.

This article examines how state house can overcome entrenched interests to pass more restrictive legislative lobbying laws. The author presents a model that explains that under normal political conditions, legislatures face strong pressures from organized interests  to resist tougher regulation. The findings show that the prospects for reform are tempered by the power of organized interests.

Questions to Consider:

1. How do states regulate interests and lobbying?

2. Identify the different typologies of political culture as stated by Elazar. Do interests groups use political culture to their advantage?

3. How does the professionalism of the legislature allow for greater control over the policy process? How do the judiciary and executive branches differ?

Learning Objective: 13.5 Debate the role of interest groups in American politics

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Article 3: Jacobson, R. D. (November 2011). The Politics of Belonging: Interest Group Identity and Agenda Setting on Immigration.  39(6). 993-1018.

This article discusses how interest groups decide policy positions through case studies of organizations shifting stances on the issue of immigration. The three case studies are: AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club, and the Christian Coalition. The author finds that in all three cases, from across the political spectrum, the groups changed their policy stances and struggled with the notions of race and organizational identity.

Questions to Consider:

1. What tools are used by leader to craft new narratives about what the group stands for?

2. What is the two-way relationship between groups and constituents?

Learning Objective: 13.1 Define lobbying and its role in the political process

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CQ Researcher

Logic7eCh13-regulatinglobbying.pdf

McCutcheon, C. (June 2014). Regulating Lobbying. CQ Researcher, 24(21). 481-504.

This article discusses lobbying and its transformation. Federal government lobbyists today face multiple challenges: a gridlocked Congress, an end to special-interest funding provisions known as earmarks that once created big business for lobbyists and an Obama administration that has taken steps to curtail their access and influence. Meanwhile, lobbyists are forming closer alliances with public relations firms and other entities while trying to better explain the breadth of their services.

Questions to Consider:

1. What does a lobbyist have to do to be effective today?

2. Does lobbying produce results?

Learning Objective: 13.3 Explain why contemporary interest groups have proliferated