What explains contemporary numbers of interest groups in America? To answer this question and help address conflicting narratives in research, I examine the rise of interest groups in the states. Assembling an original dataset based on archival and secondary sources, I find that relatively few groups lobbied legislators prior to the 1960s or 1970s. During those decades, numbers of interest groups began to grow rapidly. I find that increases in lawmaking activities present inconsistent effects on the political mobilization of groups but increases in spending are strongly correlated with mobilization. In additional tests, I find that the effects of spending on group numbers vary by state and are not discernible in most states. In general, a historic transformation of state governments helps to account for the growth of state lobbying. Interest groups have remained active in state capitols ever since.
BaumgartnerFrank F.BerryJeffrey M.HojnackiMarieKimballDavid C.LeechBeth L.2009. Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
BaumgartnerFrank R.LeechBeth L.1998. Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
3.
BerkmanMichael B.2001. “Legislative Professionalism and the Demand for Groups: The Institutional Context of Interest Population Density.” Legislative Studies Quarterly26 (4): 661–79.
4.
BevanShaun. 2013. “Continuing the Collective Action Dilemma: The Survival of Voluntary Associations in the United States.” Political Research Quarterly66 (3): 545–58.
5.
BoehmkeFrederick K.2005. The Indirect Effect of Direct Legislation: How Institutions Shape Interest Group Systems. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
6.
BoehmkeFrederick K.SkinnerPaul. 2012. “State Policy Innovativeness Revisited.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly12 (3): 303–29.
7.
BohteJohnMeierKenneth J.2000. “The Marble Cake: Introducing Federalism to the Government Growth Equation.” Publius30 (3): 35–46.
8.
Box-SteffensmeierJanet M.FreemanJohn R.HittMatthew P.PevehouseJoc C. W.2014. Time Series Analysis for the Social Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.
9.
BrasherHollyLoweryDavidGrayVirginia. 1999. “State Lobby Registration Data: The Anomalous Case of Florida (and Minnesota Too!).” Legislative Studies Quarterly24 (2): 303–14.
10.
BuchananJames M.1965. “An Economic Theory of Clubs.” Economica32 (125): 1–14.
11.
BuchananJames M.TullockGordon. 1962. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
12.
CaugheyDevinWarshawChristopher. 2015. “The Dynamics of State Policy Liberalism, 1936–2014.” American Journal of Political Science60 (4): 899–913.
13.
ChamberlainAdamYanusAlixandra B.PyeattNicholas. 2019. “Revisiting the ESA Model: A Historical Test.” Interest Groups and Advocacy8:23–43.
14.
Citizens Conference on State Legislatures. 1971. State Legislatures: An Evaluation of Their Effectiveness. New York: Praeger.
15.
DenzauArthur T.MungerMichael C.1986. “Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented.”American Political Science Review80 (1): 89–106.
16.
DickeyDavidFullerWayne A.1979. “Distribution of the Estimates for Autoregressive Times Series with a Unit Root.” Journal of the American Statistical Association74 (366): 427–31.
17.
DrutmanLee. 2015. The Business of America Is Lobbying: How Corporations became Politicized and Politics became More Corporate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
18.
ElazarDaniel J.1974. “The New Federalism: Can the States Be Trusted?” The Public Interest35:89–102.
19.
GrayVirginiaLoweryDavid. 1996. The Population Ecology of Interest Representation: Lobbying Communities in the American States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
20.
GrayVirginiaLoweryDavid. 1999. “The Underpopulated Interest Communities of the South: Partially Decomposing a Dummy Variable.” Southeastern Political Review27 (4): 747–62.
21.
GrayVirginiaLoweryDavid. 2001. “The Institutionalization of State Communities of Organized Interests.” Political Research Quarterly54 (2): 265–84.
22.
GrayVirginiaLoweryDavidFellowesMatthewAndersonJennifer L.2005. “Legislative Agendas and Interest Advocacy: Understanding the Demand Side of Lobbying.” American Politics Research33 (3): 404–34.
23.
GrayVirginiaCluveriusJohnHardenJeffrey J.ShorBorisLoweryDavid. 2015. “Party Competition, Party Polarization, and the Changing Demand for Lobbying in the American States.”American Political Research43 (2): 175–204.
24.
GreenwaldCarol. 1974. “Post-Watergate Lobbying Laws: Tokenism vs. Real Reform.” National Civic Review470 (9): 467–71.
25.
HeinzJohn P.LaumannEdward O.NelsonRobert L.SalisburyRobert H.1993. The Hollow Core: Private Interests in National Policy Making. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
26.
Hertel-FernandezAlexander. 2019. State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States—and the Nation. New York: Oxford University Press.
27.
HolyokeThomas R.2015. “Challenges of Integrating Levels of Analysis in Interest Group Research.” In The Organization Ecology of Interest Communities: Assessment and Agenda, edited by LoweryDavidHalpinDarrenGrayVirginia, 79–97. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
28.
HolyokeThomas R.2019. “Dynamic State Interest Group Systems: A New Look with New Data.” Interest Groups and Advocacy8:499–518.
29.
HolyokeThomas R.CumminsJeff. 2020. “Interest Group and Political Party Influence on Growth in State Spending and Debt.” American Politics Research48 (4): 455–66.
30.
HrebenerRonald J.ThomasClive S.1992. Interest Group Politics in the Southern States. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
31.
HrebenerRonald J.ThomasClive S.1993a. Interest Group Politics in the Midwestern States. Ames: Iowa State University Press.
32.
HrebenerRonald J.ThomasClive S.1993b. Interest Group Politics in the Northeastern States. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
33.
JacobyWilliam G.SchneiderSaundra K.2009. “A New Measure of Policy Spending Priorities in the American States.” Political Analysis17 (1): 1–24.
34.
JonesBryan D.TheriaultSean M.WhymanMichelle. 2019. The Great Broadening: How the Vast Expansion of the Policymaking Agenda Transformed American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
35.
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. 1955. The Legislative Process in Kentucky. Frankfort: Legislative Research Commission.
KlarnerCarl. 2015. “State Economic and Government Finance Data.” Harvard Dataverse, V1. doi:10.7910/DVN/CJBTGD.
38.
KwiatkowskiDenisPhillipsPeter C. B.SchmidtPeterShinYongcheol. 1992. “Testing the Null Hypothesis of Stationarity against the Alternative of a Unit Root: How Sure Are We that Economic Times Series Have a Unit Root?” Journal of Econometrics54 (1): 159–78.
39.
LaneEdgar. 1964. Lobbying and the Law. Berkeley: University of California Press.
40.
LeechBeth L.BaumgartnerFrank R.LaPiraTimothy M.SemankoNicholas A.2005. “Drawing Lobbyists to Washington: Government Activity and the Demand for Advocacy.” Political Research Quarterly58 (1): 19–30.
41.
Les BenedictMichael. 2010. “Constitutional Politics in the Gilded Age.” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era9 (1): 7–35.
42.
LoweryDavid. 2007. “Why Do Organized Interests Lobby? A Multi-goal, Multi-context Theory of Lobbying.” Polity39 (1): 29–54.
43.
LoweryDavidGrayVirginia. 1995. “The Population Ecology of Gucci Gulch, or the Natural Regulation of Interest Group Numbers in the American States.” American Political Science Review39:1–29.
44.
LoweryDavidGrayVirginia. 1998. “Representational Concentration and Interest Community Size: A Population Ecology Interpretation.” Political Research Quarterly51:919–44.
45.
LoweryDavidGrayVirginiaKirklandJustinHardenJeffrey J.2012. “Generalist Interest Organizations and Interest System Density: A Test of the Competitive Exclusion Hypothesis.” Social Science Quarterly93 (1): 21–41.
46.
McCrawThomas K.1984. Prophets of Regulation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
47.
MuellerDennisMurrellPeter. 1986. “Interest Groups and the Size of Government.” Public Choice48 (2): 125–45.
48.
MummoloJonathanPetersonErik. 2018. “Improving the Interpretation of Fixed Effects Regression Results.” Political Science Research and Methods6 (4): 829–35.
49.
OlsonMancur. 1965. The Logic of Collection Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
50.
OlsonMancur. 1982. The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities. New Haven: Yale University Press.
51.
OpheimCynthia. 1991. “Explaining the Differences in State Lobby Regulation.” Political Research Quarterly44 (2): 405–21.
52.
PeltzmanSam. 1976. “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation.” Journal of Law and Economics19:211–40.
53.
PierceMelvin. 1951. “The ‘Third’ House in Indiana.” National Municipal Review40:473–79.
54.
RanneyAustin J.1976. “Parties in State Politics.” In Politics in the American States, edited by JacobHerbertVinesKenneth, 3rd ed., 51–94. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
55.
RauchJonathan. 1994. Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government. New York: Times Books.
56.
SchlozmanKay LehmanTierneyJohn T.1986. Organized Interests and American Democracy. New York: Harper & Row.
57.
SobelRussell S.ClarkJ. R.2016. “Interest Group Activity and Government Growth: A Causality Analysis.” CATO Journal36 (3): 507–33.
58.
SquirePeverill. 2012. The Evolution of American Legislatures: Colonies, Territories, and States, 1619–2009. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
59.
StiglerGeorge J.1971. “The Theory of Economic Regulation.” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science3 (1): 3–18.
60.
StricklandJames M.2019a. “A Paradox of Political Reform: Shadow Interests in the U.S. States.” American Politics Research47 (4): 887–914.
61.
StricklandJames M.2019b. “America’s Crowded Statehouses: Measuring and Explaining Lobbying in the U.S. States.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly19 (3): 351–74.
62.
StricklandJames M.2020. “The Declining Value of Revolving-Door Lobbyists: Evidence from the American States.” American Journal of Political Science64 (1): 67–81.
TeafordJohn C.2002. The Rise of the States: Evolution of American State Government. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
65.
TrumanDavid B.1951. The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
66.
ZellerBelle. 1954. “Pressure Group Influences and Their Control.” In American State Legislatures: Report of the Committee on American Legislatures, American Political Science Association, edited by ZellerBelle, 214–39. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
