Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T02:22:56.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Coalitional Lobbying and Intersectional Representation in American Rulemaking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

MARAAM A. DWIDAR*
Affiliation:
Syracuse University, United States
*
Maraam A. Dwidar, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, United States, [email protected].

Abstract

Interest groups representing the marginalized regularly neglect advocacy on behalf of their most vulnerable constituents—those with intersectional disadvantage. Yet, they claim that such advocacy is central to their missions. I argue that interest groups representing women, people of color, Native nations, and the poor strategically conduct intersectional advocacy through coalitional lobbying. I test this claim using a new dataset of cosignature patterns within public comments on proposed federal agency rules submitted by a set of such groups between 2004 and 2014. I find that these groups are significantly more likely to pursue intersectional advocacy in coalitions but that coalition work, alone, does not relate to influential intersectional advocacy. Rather, it is particular coalition characteristics, including organizational diversity and financial capacity, that predict such influence. I conclude that collaborative lobbying is an effective tactic for mediating representational bias in interest group advocacy and promoting more pluralistic administrative policy making.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baumgartner, Frank R., and Leech, Beth L.. 1998. Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R., Breunig, Christian, Green-Pedersen, Christoffer, Jones, Bryan D., Mortensen, Peter B., Nuytemans, Michiel, and Walgrave, Stefaan. 2009. “Punctuated Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (3): 603–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R., Berry, Jeffrey M., Hojnacki, Marie, Leech, Beth L., and Kimball, David C.. 2009. Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M. 1989. The Interest Group Society. Northbrook, IL: Scott Foresman and Company.Google Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M., and Arons, David F.. 2005. A Voice for Nonprofits. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Boehmke, Frederick, and Witmer, Richard. 2012. “Indian Nations as Interest Groups: Tribal Motivations for Contributions to U.S. Senators.” Political Research Quarterly 65 (1): 179–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boydstun, Amber E., Bevan, Shaun, and Thomas, Herschel F.. 2014. “The Importance of Attention Diversity and How to Measure It.” Policy Studies Journal 42 (2): 173–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Henry E., Verba, Sidney, and Schlozman, Kay Lehman. 1995. “Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 89 (2): 271–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Melissa, Ray, Rashawn, Summers, Ed, and Fraistat, Neil. 2017. “#SayHerName: A Case Study of Intersectional Social Media Activism.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 40 (11): 1831–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, Daniel P. 2002. “Groups, the Media, Agency Waiting Costs, and FDA Drug Approval.” American Journal of Political Science 46 (3): 490505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chubb, John E. 1983. Interest Groups and the Bureaucracy: The Politics of Energy. Red Oaks, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Clough, Paul, and Stevenson, Mark. 2011. “Developing a Corpus of Plagiarised Short Answers.” Language Resources and Evaluation 45 (1): 524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coaston, Jane. 2019. “The Intersectionality Wars.” Vox. March 20, (updated May 28, 2019). https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination.Google Scholar
Collective, Combahee River. 1977. Combahee River Collective Statement. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/.Google Scholar
Corntassel, Jeff, and Witmer, Richard. 2008. Forced Federalism: Contemporary Challenges to Indigenous Nationhood. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croley, Steven P. 1998. “Theories of Regulation: Incorporating the Administrative Process.” Columbia Law Review 98 (1), 1168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cropper, Maureen L., Evans, William N., Berardi, Stephen J., Duclasoares, Maria M., and Portney, Paul R.. 1992. “The Determinants of Pesticide Regulation: A Statistical-Analysis of EPA Decision Making.” Journal of Political Economy 100 (1): 175–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dür, Andreas, and De Bièvre, Dirk. 2007. “The Question of Interest Group Influence.” Journal of Public Policy 27 (1): 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dwidar, Maraam A. 2021. “Diverse Lobbying Coalitions and Influence in Notice-and-Comment Rulemaking.” Policy Studies Journal (early view). https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12431.Google Scholar
Dwidar, Maraam A. 2021. “Replication Data for: Coalitional Lobbying and Intersectional Representation in American Rulemaking.” Harvard Dataverse. Dataset. at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/TNXRNM.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
English, Ashley. 2019a. “She Who Shall Not Be Named: The Women That Women’s Organizations Do (and Do Not) Represent in the Rulemaking Process.” Politics & Gender 15 (3): 572–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
English, Ashley. 2019b. “Implementing Intersectionality: Women’s Organizations’ Representation of Women of Color and Poor Women During Two Rulemakings.” Politics, Groups, and Identities. doi: 10.1080/21565503.2019.1674161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
English, Ashley. 2020. “Where Are All the Single Ladies? Marital Status and Women’s Organizations’ Rule-making Campaigns.” Politics & Gender 16 (2): 581607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, David, and O’Halloran, Sharyn. 1996. “Divided Government and the Design of Administrative Procedures: A Formal Model and Empirical Test.” Journal of Politics 58 (2): 373–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, David, and O’Halloran, Sharyn. 1999. Delegating Powers: A Transaction-Cost Approach to Policymaking under Separate Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gershon, Sarah A., Montoya, Celeste, Bejarano, Christina, and Brown, Nadia. 2019. “Intersectional Linked Fate and Political Representation.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 7 (3): 642–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 2004. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin, and Page, Benjamin I.. 2014. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12 (3): 564–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golden, Marissa Martino. 1998. “Interest Groups in the Rule-Making Process: Who Participates? Whose Voices Get Heard?Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 8 (2): 245–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Virginia, and Lowery, David. 1998. “To Lobby Alone or in a Flock: Foraging Behavior Among Organized Interests.” American Politics Quarterly 26 (1): 534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimmer, Justin, and Stewart, Brandon M.. 2013. “Text As Data: The Promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts.” Political Analysis 21 (3): 267–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haeder, Simon F., and Yackee, Susan Webb. 2015. “Influence and the Administrative Process: Lobbying the U.S. President’s Office of Management and Budget.” American Political Science Review 109 (3): 507–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haider-Markel, Donald P. 2006. “Acting as Fire Alarms with Law Enforcement? Interest Groups and Bureaucratic Activity on Hate Crime.” American Politics Research 34 (1): 95130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Hahrie, McKenna, Elizabeth, and Oyakawa, Michelle. 2020. Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in Twenty-First Century America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Heaney, Michael T. 2004. “Issue Networks, Information, and Interest Group Alliances: The Case of Wisconsin Welfare Politics, 1993–99.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 4 (3): 237–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinz, John P., Laumann, Edward O., Nelson, Robert L., and Salisbury, Robert H.. 1993. The Hollow Core: Private Interests in National Policy Making. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hojnacki, Marie. 1997. “Interest Groups’ Decisions to Join Alliances or Work Alone.” American Journal of Political Science 41 (1): 6187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hrebenar, Ronald J. 1997. Interest Group Politics in America. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Hula, Kevin. 1999. Lobbying Together: Interest Group Coalitions in Legislative Politics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Imig, Douglas R. 1996. Poverty and Power: The Political Representation of Poor Americans. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Bryan D., Theriault, Sean M., and Whyman, Michelle. 2019. The Great Broadening: How the Vast Expansion of the Policymaking Agenda Transformed American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Junk, Wiebke Marie. 2019. “When Diversity Works: The Effects of Coalition Composition on the Success of Lobbying Coalitions.” American Journal of Political Science 63 (3): 660–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kastellec, Jonathan P. 2013. “Racial Diversity and Judicial Influence on Appellate Courts.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (1): 167–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerwin, Cornelius, Furlong, Scott R., and West, William. 2011. “Interest Groups, Rulemaking, and American Bureaucracy.” In The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy, ed. Durant, Robert F., 590611. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kerwin, Cornelius M. 2003. Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Kitchener, Caroline. 2020. “‘How Many Women of Color Have to Cry?’: Top Feminist Organizations Are Plagued by Racism, 20 Former Staffers Say.” The Lily, July 13.Google Scholar
Klüver, Heike. 2009. “Measuring Interest Group Influence Using Quantitative Text Analysis.” European Union Politics 10 (4): 535–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroeger, Mary. 2016. “Plagiarizing Policy: Model Legislation in State Legislatures.” Working Paper.Google Scholar
Laperrière, Marie, and Lépinard, Eléonore. 2016. “Intersectionality as a Tool for Social Movements: Strategies of Inclusion and Representation in the Québécois Women’s Movement.” Politics 36 (4): 374–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laumann, Edward O., and Knoke, David. 1987. The Organizational State: Social Choice in National Policy Domains. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Lewallen, Jonathan. 2020. Committees and the Decline of Lawmaking in Congress. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, J. Scott. 1997. Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Geoff. 2019. “Prioritized Interests: Diverse Interest Group Coalitions and Congressional Committee Agenda-Setting.” Journal of Politics 82 (1): 225–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyon, Caroline, Malcolm, James, and Dickerson, Bob. 2001. “Detecting Short Passages of Similar Text in Large Document Collections.” Proceedings of the 2001 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, Pittsburgh, PA.Google Scholar
Magat, Wesley A., Krupnick, Alan J., and Harrington, Winston. 1986. Rules in the Making. Washington, DC: RFF Press.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Christine. 2007. “Networking vs. Allying: The Decision of Interest Groups to Join Coalitions in the US and EU.” Journal of European Public Policy 14 (3): 366–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, Christine, and Baumgartner, Frank R.. 2004. “The Determinants and Effects of Interest-Group Coalitions” Working Paper.Google Scholar
Marchetti, Kathleen. 2014. “Crossing the Intersection: The Representation of Disadvantaged Identities in Advocacy.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 2 (1): 104–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marquez, Benjamin. 2003. LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Martinez, Dierdre. 2009. Who Speaks for Hispanics? Hispanic Interest Groups in Washington. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Mason, Dale W. 1998. “Tribes and States: A New Era in Intergovernmental Affairs.” Publius 28 (1): 111–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, Dale W. 2000. Indian Gaming. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McConnaughy, Corrine M. 2013. The Woman Suffrage Movement in America: A Reassessment. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCubbins, Matthew D., Noll, Roger G., and Weingast, Barry R.. 1987. “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 3: 243–77.Google Scholar
McCubbins, Matthew D., Noll, Roger G., and Weingast, Barry R.. 1989. “Structure and Process as Solutions to the Politician’s Principal Agency Problem.” Virginia Law Review 74: 431–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCubbins, Mathew D., and Schwartz, Thomas. 1984. “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms.” American Journal of Political Science 28 (1): 165–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGarity, Thomas O. 1992. “Some Thoughts on ‘Deossifying’ the Rulemaking Process.” Duke Law Journal 41 (6): 13851462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGarity, Thomas O. 1997. “The Courts and the Ossification of Rulemaking: A Response to Professor Seidenfeld.” Texas Law Review 75 (3): 525–58.Google Scholar
McKay, Amy, and Yackee, Susan Webb. 2007. “Interest Group Competition on Federal Agency Rules.” American Politics Research 35 (3): 336–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, David, and Yackee, Susan Webb. 2012. “Lobbying Coalitions and Government Policy Change: An Analysis of Federal Agency Rulemaking.” Journal of Politics 74 (2): 339–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nixon, David C., Howard, Robert M., and DeWitt, Jeff R.. 2002. “With Friends Like These: Rule-Making Comment Submissions to the Securities and Exchange Commission.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 12 (1): 5976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nownes, Anthony J. 2007. Total Lobbying: What Lobbyists Want (and How They Try to Get It). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Helene H. 2013. “Is Measuring Interest Group Influence a Mission Impossible? The Case of Interest Group Influence in the Danish Parliament.” Interest Groups & Advocacy 2 (1): 2647.Google Scholar
Phinney, Robin. 2017. Strange Bedfellows: Interest Group Coalitions, Diverse Partners, and Influence in American Social Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinderhughes, Diane. 1995. “Black Interest Groups and the 1982 Extension of the Voting Rights Act.” In Blacks and the American Political System, eds. Perry, Huey L. and Parent, Wayne, 203–24. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Porter, Martin F. 1980. “An Algorithm for Suffix Stripping.” Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems 14 (3): 130–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, Rachel A. 2019. Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie, and Eibach, Richard P.. 2008. “Intersectional Invisibility: The Distinctive Advantages and Disadvantages of Multiple Subordinate-Group Identities.” Sex Roles 59 (5–6): 377–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabin, Robert L. 1986. “Federal Regulation in Historical Perspective.” Stanford Law Review 38 (5): 11891326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redford, Emmette S. 1969. Democracy in the Administrative State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Reingold, Beth, Widner, Kirsten, and Harmon, Rachel. 2019. “Legislating at the Intersections: Race, Gender, and Representation.” Political Research Quarterly 73 (4): 819–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rourke, Francis E. 1984. Bureaucrats, Politics, and Public Policy. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Tierney, John T.. 1986. Organized Interests and American Democracy. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Verba, Sidney, and Brady, Henry E.. 2012. The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Anne, and Ingram, Helen. 1993. “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy.” American Political Science Review 87 (2): 334–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seidenfeld, Mark. 1997. “Demystifying Deossification: Rethinking Recent Proposals to Modify Judicial Review of Notice and Comment Rulemaking.” Texas Law Review 41 (6): 13851462.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin. 1988. Who Guards the Guardians? Judicial Control of Administration. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Shugerman, Emily. 2020. “‘Don’t Forget the White Women!’: Members Say Racism Ran Rampant at NOW.” The Daily Beast, June 6.Google Scholar
Skrentny, John David. 2002. The Minority Rights Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staggenborg, Suzann. 1986. “Coalition Work in the Pro-Choice Movement: Organizational and Environmental Opportunities and Obstacles.” Social Problems 33 (5): 374–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinman, Erich. 2004. “American Federalism and Intergovernmental Innovation in State-Tribal Relations.” Publius 34 (1): 95114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strolovitch, Dara Z. 2006. “Do Interest Groups Represent the Disadvantaged? Advocacy at the Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender.” Journal of Politics 68 (4): 894910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strolovitch, Dara Z. 2007. Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strolovitch, Dara Z. 2018. “Intersectional Advocacy and Activism in Time.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.Google Scholar
Truth, Sojourner. 1851. “Ain’t I a Woman?Women’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio.Google Scholar
Warren, Kenneth F. 2018. Administrative Law in the Political System. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werner, Timothy, and Coleman, John J.. 2014. “Citizens United, Independent Expenditures, and Agency Costs: Reexamining the Political Economy of State Antitakeover Statutes.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 31 (1): 127–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, William F. 1984. “Structuring Administrative Discretion: The Pursuit of Rationality and Responsiveness.” American Journal of Political Science 28 (2): 340–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, William F. 2004. “Formal Procedures, Informal Processes, Accountability, and Responsiveness in Bureaucratic Policy Making: An Institutional Policy Analysis.” Public Administration Review 64 (1): 6680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witmer, Richard, and Boehmke, Frederick. 2007. “American Indian Political Incorporation in the Post–Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.” Social Science Journal 44 (1): 127–45.Google Scholar
Witmer, Richard, Johnson, Joshua, and Boehmke, Frederick. 2014. “American Indian Policy in the States.” Social Science Quarterly 95 (4): 1043–63.Google Scholar
Workman, Samuel. 2015. The Dynamics of Bureaucracy in the U.S. Government. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yackee, Jason Webb, and Yackee, Susan Webb. 2006. “A Bias Towards Business? Assessing Interest Group Influence on the U.S. Bureaucracy.” Journal of Politics 68 (1): 128–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yackee, Susan Webb. 2006. “Sweet-Talking the Fourth Branch: The Influence of Interest Group Comments on Federal Agency Rulemaking.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16 (1): 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yackee, Susan Webb. 2012. “The Politics of Ex Parte Lobbying: Pre-Proposal Agenda Building and Blocking During Agency Rulemaking.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 22 (2): 373–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Dwidar supplementary material

Appendices

Download Dwidar supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 164.4 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Dwidar Dataset

Link
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.