Recent interpretations of the changing diversity of state interest communities
emphasize the distinctive ways that the numbers of organizations representing
different kinds of substantive interests grow in response to economic growth. Some
guilds readily add new lobbying organizations as economies become larger, while many
others grow hardly at all. As economies become larger, then, the relative
composition of interest communities can change in ways having little to do with the
distribution of interests in society. We develop and test four explanations of the
changing diversity of interest communities using the first derivatives of the gross
state product (GSP) response functions of 17 guilds of state interest organizations
in 1997 as a dependent variable. Our results suggest that some guilds - including
several major traditional economic interests - have a demographic advantage over
social and public organizations that will make it very difficult for the latter to
keep pace with the former as state economies grow.
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15.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(1993a)
‘State Interest Group System Diversity’
, Political Research Quarterly46(1):
81-97
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16.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(1993b)
‘Stability and Change in State Interest Systems: 1975 to 1990’
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17.
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and
David Lowery
(1994)
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18.
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(1995a)
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(1995b)
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20.
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(1996a)
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21.
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and
David Lowery
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Lobbying Communities in the American States.
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22.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(1996c)
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23.
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David Lowery
(1997a)
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the American States’
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.
24.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(1997b)
‘Reconceptualizing PAC Formation: It’s Not a Collective
Action Problem, and It May Be an Arms Race’
, American Politics Quarterly25(3):
319-346
.
25.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(1998a)
‘State Lobbying Regulations and Their Enforcement: Implications
for the Diversity of State Interest Communities’
, State and Local Government Review30(2):
78-91
.
26.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(1998b)
‘To Lobby Alone or in a Flock: Foraging Behavior Among Organized Interests’
, American Politics Quarterly26(1):
5-34
.
27.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(2001a)
‘Bias in the Heavenly Chorus: Interests in Society and Before Government’
, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political
Science Association, San Francisco, September.
28.
Gray, Virginia
and
David Lowery
(2001b)
‘The Institutionalization of State Communities of Organized Intersts’
, Political Research Quarterly54(2):
265-284
.
29.
Gray, Virginia
,
David Lowery
,
Matthew Fellowes
and
Andrea McAtee
(2002)
‘The Opinion-Policy Linkage in the American States: Professional
Legislatures, Organized Interests, and Policy Responsiveness’
, paper presented at the Second Annual State Politics and Policy
Conference, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, May.
30.
Gray, Virginia
,
David Lowery
and
Jenny Wolak
(2001)
’Demographic Opportunities, Collective Action, Competitive
Exclusion, and the Crowded Room: Lobbying Forms Among Institutions’
, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political
Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April.
31.
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and
Glenn R. Carroll
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.
32.
Heinz, John P.
,
Edward O. Laumann
,
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and
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.
33.
Hojnacki, Marie
(1997)
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, American Journal of Political Science41(1):
61-87
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34.
King, David C.
and
Jack L. Walker, Jr
(1992)
‘The Provision of Benefits by Interest Groups in the United States’
, Journal of Politics54:
394-426
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35.
Leech, Beth L.
,
Frank R. Baumgartner
,
Timothy La Pira
and
Nicholas A. Semanko
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‘Drawing Lobbyists to Washington: Government Activity and the
Demand for Advocacy’
, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political
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36.
Lowery, David
and
Virginia Gray
(1994a)
‘The Nationalization of State Interest Group System Density and Diversity’
, Social Science Quarterly75(2):
368-377
.
37.
Lowery, David
and
Virginia Gray
(1994b)
‘Do Lobbying Regulations Influence Lobbying Registrations?’
, Social Science Quarterly75(2):
382-384
.
38.
Lowery, David
and
Virginia Gray
(1995)
‘The Population Ecology of Gucci Gulch, or the Natural Regulation
of Interest Group Numbers in the American States’
, American Journal of Political Science39(Feb.):
1-29
.
39.
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and
Virginia Gray
(1996)
‘How Similar are State and National Interest Organizations?’
, Comparative State Politics18 (Feb.):
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40.
Lowery, David
and
Virginia Gray
(1997)
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, Public Choice91:
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.
41.
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and
Virginia Gray
(1998a)
‘Representational Concentration and Interest Community Size: A
Population Ecology Interpretation’
, Political Research Quarterly51(4):
919-944
.
42.
Lowery, David
and
Virginia Gray
(1998b)
‘The Dominance of Institutions in Interest Representation: A Test
of Seven Explanations’
, American Journal of Political Science42(1):
231-255
.
43.
Lowery, David
and
Virginia Gray
(2001)
‘The Expression of Density Dependence in State Communities of
Organized Interests’
, American Politics Research29(4):
374-391
.
44.
Lowery, David
,
Virginia Gray
,
Jennifer Anderson
and
Adam J. Newmark
(2002)
‘Collective Action and the Mobilization of Institutions’
, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political
Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April.
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56.
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‘California Dreaming: Outliers, Leverage, and Influence in
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, State Politics and Policy Quarterly1(3):
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.
