Interest Groups (American Politics)

Encyclopedia article for Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Organizations that Shaped America. Citizens for Health is an American advocacy group that lobbies the government on behalf of dietary, nutritional, and holistic health concerns.

Little empirical attention has been paid to state capital expenditures for higher education. While some anecdotal evidence exists that the process of appropriating capital dollars to higher education institutions is a particularly political process, no study has systematically examined the determinants of higher education state capital spending. This study counters this scholarly oversight by employing a longitudinal analysis of the factors associated with state capital expenditures for higher education. Panel data is used including political, higher education sector, and economic and demographic variables from 1988-2004 on all 50 states. Our fixed effects analysis reveals that the process is indeed political. Numerous political factors were significantly associated with capital expenditures for higher education, including political culture, electoral competition, budgetary powers of the governor, higher education governance structures, interest groups, legislative professionalism, and voter turnout. Although some higher education sector factors, such as private giving and tuition rates, proved to have a significant influence on state capital expenditures for higher education, the results provide substantial evidence that politics matters in the appropriation of these capital dollars. These findings suggest that more research is needed to understand how the determinants of state capital spending differ from other state expenditures on higher education.

Planung und Evaluation im Public-Affairs-Management (PA) erfordern eine strategische Vorstellung von Ziel-Mittel-Relationen sowie Verlaufs- und Ergebnisinformationen über Veränderungen. Der Beitrag gibt in drei Teilen einen Überblick über Probleme und Lösungsideen dieser Aufgabe, die weniger der schematischen Kontrolle als der Strategiekompetenz und Lernkultur dienen sollte. Der erste Abschnitt umreißt die Ambivalenzen und Grenzen der PA-Metrie und legt dar, wie Werttreiber und Wirkungsmodelle einen Planungs- und Evaluationsrahmen für einzelne Messkonzepte bilden. Die zwei folgenden Abschnitte erläutern praktische Anwendungen: Bewertungstechniken für dauerhafte Verbandsmitgliedschaften von Unternehmen und stärker projektbezogen für das Lobbying bei Einzelvorhaben.

Since the early 1990s, the federal role in education—exemplified by the controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)—has expanded dramatically. Yet states and localities have retained a central role in education policy, leading to a growing struggle for control over the direction of the nation's schools. In An Education in Politics, Jesse H. Rhodes explains the uneven development of federal involvement in education. While supporters of expanded federal involvement enjoyed some success in bringing new ideas to the federal policy agenda, Rhodes argues, they also encountered stiff resistance from proponents of local control. Built atop existing decentralized policies, new federal reforms raised difficult questions about which level of government bore ultimate responsibility for improving schools.
Rhodes's argument focuses on the role played by civil rights activists, business leaders, and education experts in promoting the reforms that would be enacted with federal policies such as NCLB. It also underscores the constraints on federal involvement imposed by existing education policies, hostile interest groups, and, above all, the nation’s federal system. Indeed, the federal system, which left specific policy formation and implementation to the states and localities, repeatedly frustrated efforts to effect changes: national reforms lost their force as policies passed through iterations at the state, county, and municipal levels. Ironically, state and local resistance only encouraged civil rights activists, business leaders, and their political allies to advocate even more stringent reforms that imposed heavier burdens on state and local governments. Through it all, the nation’s education system made only incremental steps toward the goal of providing a quality education for every child.

In attempting to explain state support of public higher education, this study develops a theory-driven, comprehensive conceptualization of the state political system within a larger theoretical framework that consists of state economic and demographic factors and higher education system attributes. Furthermore, although the higher education policy and finance literature has largely ignored the impact of interest groups on state policy and state support of higher education, they play a central role in the model presented here. The inclusion of politics in the explanatory model results in a more robust and pragmatically useful model.

В статье проведен обзор лоббистских практик, распространенных в США. Проведен анализ официальных данных о финансировании лоббизма: объем лоббистских трат, объем трат крупнейших лоббистских клиентов и доходы самых высокооплачиваемых лоббистов. Произведен краткий экскурс в историю лоббизма, который показывает, что до введения регулирования была весьма распространена практика прямого поощрения законодателей, а во второй половине XX в. наметилась тенденция усложнения лоббистских практик. Особое внимание в статье уделяется корпоративному лоббизму. Анализ количественных данных показывает, что за последние 30 лет в США наблюдается рост корпоративного представительства. Другая наблюдаемая корреляция состоит в связи роста парламентских слушаний и роста представительства кампаний в отдельных отраслях экономики США. Основной же лоббистской стратегией корпораций является, так называемое member-to-member лоббирование (внутрипарламентский лоббизм). В рамках рассмотрения корпоративного лоббизма уделяется внимание явлению, получившему название «вращающейся двери» (revolving door), когда бывшие конгрессмены или чиновники устраиваются на работу в лоббистские фирмы. Также в статье рассматривается и противоположный метод – grassroots lobbying – и его побочный эффект, получивший название astroturf.

The article observes lobbying practices in the USA and presents the analysis of official data of the financing of lobbying: the amount of lobbying spending, the amount of the largest lobbying clients spending, and the incomes of the highly paid lobbyists. Brief history of lobbying is presented. It shows that the bribing of lawmakers was a common practice before regulation of lobbying was introduced, and describes the
cy of complicating of lobbying practices in the second half of the 20th century. The article pays particular attention to the corporate lobbying. Quantitative analysis of the data proves the rise of corporate lobbying in the United States in last 30 years. Another served trend is the link between the rise of parliamentary hearings and the growth of lobbying campaigns in particular sectors of US economy. The basic strategy of rate lobbying is so-called ‘member-to-member’ lobbying. The article considers the phenomenon of ‘revolving door’ (when former congressional representatives and bureaucrats are hired by lobbyist firms) as part of corporate lobbying. The methods of ‘grassroots lobbying’ and ‘astroturf’ are also regarded. The article contains comparative analysis of lobbying in the US and EU.

State support of public higher education has rapidly declined relative to total state spending. Much of this decline in support is due to the rapid growth in spending on such things as Medicaid. However, relative support of public higher education varies significantly between states. This study applies Tandberg's (2009) fiscal policy framework created to explain state support of public higher education in order to evaluate the relationship between various factors and states' relative support of higher education. While Tandberg's fiscal policy framework accounts for traditional economic and demographic factors in explaining state support for higher education, it also draws attention to political influences as well including the impact of state-level interest groups. Using cross-sectional time-series analysis these relationships are explored over a 19-year period. The findings provide evidence of the significant impact of interest groups and politics on state fiscal policy in regard to higher education.

En mis escritos y publicaciones, me refiero frecuentemente a la estructura real que permite al poder plutocrático operar su férreo dominio sobre los habitantes del planeta tierra.  Pero... ¿Quienes la componen?  ¿Como funciona?  En otras palabras  (importando conceptos de la ciencia de la física y usándolos en el terreno de la sociología política) ¿cuál es la estática y la dinámica de esta estructura del pode?
Para responder a estas interrogantes, durante 2012-2013 coordiné un estudio exploratorio, de ciencia aplicada a describir e interpretar el funcionamiento de la estructura mundial del poder oligárquico.  La respuesta a la primera de las señaladas interrogantes, la he puesto a puesto a acceso libre y gratuito, en la presente publicación.
Son de mencionar, cuatro consideraciones: 
1)Los resultados que se exponen, están libres de polvo y paja; de ahí que su forma sea la de un paradigma.   
2) Es un documento organizado según nivel jerárquico ocupado en la estructura de poder plutocrático-mundial.
3)Toda la información aquí contenida se identificó, accesó y recopiló en fuentes PUBLICAS, de internet abierto.
4)Los nombres de organizaciones y personas se refieren al 2013; ojalá  que quienes se animen a aplicar el mismo método de abordaje, puedan actualizarlas, por ejemplo, para 2018 o el año en que resulte que esté recopilándose la información empírica.

Introduction

I argue that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) engages in gay mainstream
lobbying, which is designed to reward heterosexual institutions over LGBTQ
interests. The Human Rights Campaign’s lobbying is considered gay mainstream
lobbying in three ways:

1. The Human Rights Campaign is not intersectional because its lobbying priorities
place one set of issues over another, highlighting some and diminishing others;
2. The Human Rights Campaign’s political “ask” can demand less than full
equality immediately, because asking for equality would upset the powerful; and
3. In both the issues selected (or not selected) and the “ask,” power is returned to
the powerful—heterosexual institutions.

This dissertation examines the role of external experts in local agenda setting. The study conducts on archival research on three components of Oklahoma City’s Metropolitan Area Projects programs, specifically education, indoor arenas, and convention centers. The decline in local leadership (especially regimes), an increased demand for complex amenities, and the emergence of a trans-urban policy network provide outside actors with agenda setting power. Evidence suggests that agenda setting for urban revitalization has shifted from “inside-out” to an “outside-in” model since the 1980s. Formerly urban leaders would request assistance for specific tactics aimed at urban revitalization; contemporary urban leaders articulate larger objectives to consultants but rely on advice to determine specific programs. A constellation of advocacy coalitions fill niches within the city building policy network, but no central actor organizes their activity. Although urban leaders may rely on outside actors for agenda items, local leaders retain the ability to determine the physical distribution and interaction of infrastructure, which impacts the efficacy of urban revitalization projects.

DOĞU PERİNÇEK ABD nereye gidiyor 3 ALEKSANDR DUGİN Büyük Yeniden Başlatma ve Büyük Uyanış 11 PROF. DR. SEMİH KORAY ABD hakkında dört tez 29 DR. MEHMET PERİNÇEK ABD üzerine tezler 32 PROF. DR. CÜNEYT AKALIN ABD'nin Musaddık Darbesi 37 HAKAN TOPKURULU ABD ekonomisinde yolun sonu göründü mü 47 Trump'ın 1776 Danışma Komisyonu Raporu (Ocak 2021) 55 Şİ JİNPİNG Asıl hedefimize ve ÇKP'nin kuruluş amaçlarına sadık kalmak 59 DİMİTRİS KONSTANTAKOPOULOS Enformasyon devrimleri ve karşı devrimler 68

Interests play an important role in all modern political systems. But the forms in which interests are articulated very much depend on the context of the particular case. Accordingly, this chapter reviews at the outset various definitions of interest associations that have been used by comparativists across the globe. Comparative studies of interest associations have also been inspired by different theories of interest politics. Therefore, the chapter also includes a review of the origins and legacies of competing theoretical traditions in the field, namely republicanism, pluralism, and neo-corporatism. At last, the final sections of the chapter discuss the role of interest associations in practice, distinguishing different types of action that are available to different interest associations, namely direct lobbying, political exchange, contentious politics, and private interest government.

Iklim budaya masyarakat di Amerika Serikat yang sangat konservatif telah menunjukkan ketidaksiapan negara ini menerima adanya hubungan resmi (pernikahan) pasangan gay bahkan cenderung mengintimidasinya tanpa ada perjuangan dari kaum ini sampai pada tahun 1983. Tulisan ini bertujuan menjelaskan signifikansi dari suatu interest group dalam mempengaruhi proses pembuatan kebijakan di Amerika Serikat dengan studi kasus kelompok Freedom to Marry yang memperjuangkan legalisasi same sex marriage bagi kaum LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender). Dengan menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif yang berusaha menggambarkan semua esensi dari keterlibatan interest group dalam perpolitikan Amerika Serikat berdasarkan fakta-fakta yang ada. Argumen utamanya bahwa strategi yang digunakan oleh kelompok Freedom to Marry dalam upayanya mempengaruhi pembentukan kebijakan dipenuhi dengan aksi direct lobbying dan central campaign. Salah satu pilar yang dipegang oleh kelompok ini dalam memperjuangkan legalisasi same sex marriage dan mendapat dukungan dari masyarakat luas bahwa semua rakyat berhak untuk mendapatkan perlakuan sama yaitu untuk menikah.

Current developments in the world geopolitical arena indicate that U.S. foreign policy substantially impacts the global and regional scene. At the same time, interest representation or lobbying is legally based and professionally legitimized under the regulatory observation of authorities and the general public. In this paper, the author discusses organizational forms of political interest representation and the models of lobbying in U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, the results of the organized influence on the U.S. foreign policy decisions through the participation of Albanian interest groups in support of the implementation of the so-called "Republic of Kosovo" project are presented in the paper. The methodology of content analysis and synthesis of conclusions induced the resultant indicators of the effective implementation of the interest representation strategy. Conclusions point to the potentials of organized and strategically planned lobbying activities toward the U.S. institutions to achieve national interest in foreign policy.

Why are US labor unions so weak? Union decline has had important consequences for politics, inequality, and social policy. Common explanations cite employment shifts, public opinion, labor laws, and differences in working class culture and organization. But comparing the United States with Canada challenges those explanations. After following US unionization rates for decades, Canadian rates diverged in the 1960s, and are now nearly three times higher. This divergence was due to different processes of working class political incorporation. In the United States, labor was incorporated as an interest group into a labor regime governed by a pluralist idea. In Canada, labor was incorporated as a class representative into a labor regime governed by a class idea. This led to a relatively stronger Canadian labor regime that better held employers in check and protected workers’ collective bargaining rights. As a result, union density stabilized in Canada while plummeting in the United States.

Contemporaneously, the study of EU lobbying appears somewhat disconnected from other sub-areas within the study of EU-politics. Research tends to be focused on single issues – either particularistic or directional – and concentrates on communicative interaction modes that emphasize network governance, ignoring the electoral side of politics. This essay’s main objective is to make the politics component of interest group politics more intelligible. The core argument is that interest groups strategies, as well as potential influence, are not adequately explained by resources only. In response to this, a framework is built that links different interaction modes (arguing, bargaining and voting) with political strategies (inside and outside), organizational formats and the nature of political issues.

The whole matter of compensation for unjust convictions for felonies and lesser crimes is well worth further study, to the end that within measurable time remedial legislation may cure this defect in our social institutions. (1) I. INTRODUCTION One of the fascinating findings from interviews with the wrongly convicted is that they harbor little or no anger--or more accurately, that "joy overrides the anger"--towards the State following their release from imprisonment. (2) At the same time, they imagine and wish for compensation for their wrongful convictions, especially when it resulted in their incarceration and particularly when they faced the death penalty. (3) Too often, however, recompense remains a mirage. In an age when state governments willingly spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to try to positively reintegrate the justly convicted back into society, the unjustly convicted must scrape, toil, and fight for arguably paltry portions of state dollars to p...

Previously published research suggested that the typical manager may be expected to harm others in his role as a manager. Further support for this was drawn from the Panalba role-playing case. None of the 57 control groups in this case were willing to remove a dangerous drug from the market. In fact, 79% of these groups took active steps to prevent its removal. This decision was classified as irresponsible by 97% of the respondents to a questionnaire. Because the role exerts such powerful effects, an attempt was made to modify subject’s perceptions of their role so that managers would feel responsible to all of the firm’s interest groups. Some subjects were told that board members should represent all interest groups; other subjects were placed on boards of directors where the different groups were represented. Subjects in both groups also received information on the impact of the decisions upon stockholders, employees, and customers. The percentage of irresponsible decisions was reduced under these conditions as only 22% of the 116 groups selected the highly irresponsible decision.

This final paper discusses the role of a private corporation in the United States which runs the private prison industry, Correction Corporation of America (CCA), against the passage of an SB1070 policy on illegal immigrants in Arizona in 2010. This research refers to Theodore Lowi's theory, interest-group liberalism in the United States. The results of this study shows that through American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an interest group thence, allowing the CCA to acquire unprecedented access to legislators in Arizona and furthermore to lobby. The CCA as a company with high profits is proven to have contributed to campaigns for legislators whom sponsored SB1070 six months after it was passed. This research shows one of a form of Theodore Lowi’s theory about interest-group liberalism.

This dissertation advances the state of knowledge on interest group influence in congressional committees. Portions of this work have been delivered at the American Political Science Association Annual Meetings. In 2015, this dissertation received the Joseph L. Fisher Award for best dissertation in public policy.

Scholars of political campaigns have focused on traditional mobilization efforts where a political party or interest group targets core supporters and undecided independents. Yet campaigns are increasingly targeting persuadable members of the opposition. If people are merely responding to the message, then nontraditional strategies could be effective despite the fact that it is delivered by an opposition political group. However, there are strong theoretical reasons to expect that people consider the source of a message in addition to the content of the message (e.g., Druckman 2001; Lau and Redlawsk 2001; Lupia 1994). We study the competing effects of message and source cues with a field experiment conducted during the 2006 election in two highly competitive Pennsylvania statehouse races where a well-known liberal activist group endorsed Democratic candidates and canvassed both core supporters and Republicans they thought to be persuadable. The group allowed us to randomly assign individuals to receive a door-to-door contact or phone call from its campaign workers. After the election, we measured the political preferences of subjects in the treatment and control groups with a telephone survey.

This is Chapter 8 of my dissertation. It examines why unionization rates in the U.S. and Canada diverged sharply in the mid-1960s, after tracking each other closely for several decades, to the point where Canadian unionization rates are now nearly three times higher than in the U.S. In previous chapters, I show that the proximate cause of the divergence was the combination of an eroding labor regime in the U.S. and a more resilient labor regime in Canada. However, I also demonstrate that labor regime strength is largely a function of working class organizational power, and the ability to embed that power within state institutions. The key challenge for this chapter then is to explain why the Canadian working class was better able to exert its organizational power and institutionalize it over time. I argue that this was the outcome of political battles in the 1930s and 40s, which left Canadian labor better able to act as—and be recognized as—a class representative. By contrast, those political battles in the U.S. undermined labor’s ability to identify itself and act in class terms. Rather, U.S. labor identified as an interest group, and was recognized as such within the political and administrative spheres. While Canadian labor’s role as a class representative fit into a "class idea" that broadened and legitimated its scope of action, U.S. labor’s role as an interest group fit into a "market idea" that narrowed and delegitimized its scope of action.

What are the primary factions within the Democratic and Republican parties, and to what extent do rival factions cooperate? We address these questions using a unique data set of information sharing between party organizations, media outlets, 527s, and interest groups. Using social network methods, we identify two major information-sharing clusters, or expanded party networks; these networks correspond to a liberal/Democratic grouping and a conservative/Republican grouping. We further identify factions within each party network, but we find a high degree of cooperation between party factions. That is, our data suggest that beneath the intraparty disagreements we observe in primary elections and policy debates there is a subterranean pattern of organizational cooperation.

"ADVOCACY ORGANIZATIONS IN THE U.S. POLITICAL
PROCESS
Kenneth T. Andrews
Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3210; email: [email protected]

and

Bob Edwards
Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858;email: [email protected]

Key Words
social movements, interest groups, nonprofit, organizations, policy

Abstract
We examine scholarship on the role and influence of advocacy organizations in the U.S. political process. We identify common theoretical questions in the disconnected literatures on social movements, interest groups, and nonprofits, and we propose a unifying conceptual framework for examining advocacy organizations.Focusing on the post-1960s growth in advocacy organizations, we examine major organizational characteristics including organizational structures, membership and participation, resources, and inter-organizational networks and coalitions. Our analysis of organizational influence focuses on five dimensions of the policy process: (a) agenda setting,(b) access to decision-making arenas,(c) achieving favorable policies,(d) monitoring and shaping implementation, and (e) shifting the long-term priorities and resources of political institutions. Finally,we identify recurrent theoretical and methodological problems, including the compartmentalization of research within disciplines,an over reliance on studies of large national organizations, a disproportionate focus on recruitment and selective incentives, and limited research on the influence of advocacy organizations. We conclude by highlighting productive pathways for future scholarship."

This course is the introductory course to American Politics at the undergraduate level, and is often considered the introductory course in Political Science for students Majoring or Minoring in the Discipline, and for some, a General Social Science course. The goal here is to provide a basic understanding of the foundations of American government including the U.S. Constitution, the history behind it, different branches of the national government, the political process, and aspects of American Politics such as political parties, elections & voting, public opinion, media, etc. However, an important course objective for me is that some of what you learn will help in any career or Advanced Degree level you pursue, and also daily life in society. The course will be split up into three sections, but they are overlapping in nature, and are the following: Section 1) Foundations of American Government, 2) American Political Behavior, and 3) American Political Institutions.

Revolving door lobbyists sit at the intersection of two communications networks, one connected to Capitol Hill actors, the other to fellow lobbyists. A growing body of research has investigated revolvers’ success in gaining access to legislators, but we know less about whether congressional experience improves lobbyists’ position in interest group networks. We provide an informational rationale for why revolvers will be better connected in communications among lobbyists, arguing that this comparative advantage will be structured by prior partisan alignments. Using a new dataset on the self-reported communications among lobbyists active on the Affordable Care Act, we test our hypotheses recently developed techniques of inferential network analysis. We find that revolvers do enjoy an advantage in lobbyist communications, and that the advantage is particularly strong among copartisan lobbyists.

The Cuban-American lobby successfully influenced Congress and various presidential administrations from the early 1980s until nearly the end of the century on U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba. Although two major events, the passage of the Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, and the Elián González affair of the same year, dramatically reduced the power of this conservative ethnic interest group, its influence continued during the George W. Bush presidency. Despite the lobby’s active role, since 2008 the opposition of several political actors towards the sanctions regime, such as the agribusiness lobby, the administration of Barack Obama, and a significant number of Congressmen from both major parties, created an environment of major competition between two camps with distinct policy agendas. With the focus on the parallelism between the economic reforms on the island, and the changing American interest group politics, this paper seeks to study the determinants of the embargoes continuity in the 21st century, and the conditions that shape the new policy announced by the Obama administration in late 2014.

This study asks: Do higher education institutions form lobbying alliances and if so why, when, and how do they function within those alliances? The study employs the conceptual framework developed by Hojnacki and finds her framework useful in understanding state higher education interest group alliances. Institutions form alliances for specific strategic reasons; most importantly to increase the potential influence institutions have on state governments. The study found that in trying to understand state higher education interest group activity, scholars must take into consideration the context within which the interest groups and institutions operate. Tandberg, D. A. (2006). State-level higher education interest group alliances. Higher Education in Review, 3, 25-49.

In attempting to explain state support of public higher education, this study develops a theory-driven, comprehensive conceptualization of the state political system within a larger theoretical framework that consists of state economic and demographic factors and higher education system attributes. Furthermore, although the higher education policy and finance literature has largely ignored the impact of interest groups on state policy and state support of higher education, they play a central role in the model presented here. The inclusion of politics in the explanatory model results in a more robust and pragmatically useful model.

"An examination of the fundamental institutions and political processes of the American system of government. Students are also given an overview of Georgia's Constitution, state politics, and state government institutions. POLS 1101 satisfies legislative requirements for the study of U.S. and Georgia Constitutions." (2014-2015 Undergraduate Catalog, Valdosta State University, 427).

Over the course of the semester, we will be concerned with several major themes. First, we will consider the basic structural and theoretical underpinnings of the American system of government-notably the U.S. Constitution and the principles it contains. Second, we will be analyzing the major governing institutions in the United States-Congress, the Presidency and the Executive Bureaucracy, and the Courts; attention will also be given to our state's government and constitution. Finally, we will examine the key components of political behavior in the American system. In examining that behavior, we will discuss the role of such concepts as public opinion, the mass media, political parties, interest groups, civil liberties, civil rights, and electoral participation in the workings of the American national government.

The United States of America leads the world in imprisonment of citizens (and perhaps noncitizens, too). Seven million Americans (1 of every 31 adults) are under "correctional control"in prison and jail or on probation and parole. Why? Rising crime rates make for a popular explanation, albeit a faulty one: Generally, crime rates were falling while imprisonment was rising. Therefore, something else is responsible. What? Politics-contests over the distribution of benefits and burdens and the allocation of prizes and penalties.

Um 1920 war Lobbying in den USA allzu aufdringlich geworden. Der Ruf nach Regulierung wurde unüberhörbar. / In the 1920s, lobbying in the USA had become overly obtrusive. The call for regulation became too loud to ignore.
KEYWORDS • Schlagwörter: Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act, Georgia, Interessenvertretung, Lobby, Lobbying, Lobbyist, Lobbyregister, Lobbyregulierung, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio Gang, Progressivismus, Skandal, Teapot Dome, USA, Wisconsin
• Organisationen: Congress, Kongress, Weißes Haus
• Personen: Ulysses S. Grant, Robert M. La Follette Sr., Warren Harding, James Pollock, Woodrow Wilson

This paper argues that an interest group’s networking skills in micro-states may be as important, if not more important than other variables discussed in the interest group influence literature. This argument is based on the recent literature on democratisation in micro-states which shows that politics in these states is personalistic in nature. The argument is supported by expert interviews undertaken in the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Der moderne Medienwahlkampf und die permanente Kampagne in der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Regierung, Opposition und Lobbies haben einen neuen Typ von Politprofi hervorgebracht: den Political Consultant. Er bringt die politische Maschine auf Hochtouren, manchmal baut er sie erst auf. Er ist ein politischer Unternehmer, der zwischen Parlamenten, Parteien, dem Wahlgeschehen und auch dem Lobbying agiert und damit seine Firma unterhält. Seine Autorität beruht nicht nur auf Kommunikations-Know-how wie bei Werbeleuten, sondern auch auf Fachwissen über Wahlverhalten, über Macht und die teils harten, teils sensiblen Spielregeln der staatlich-öffentlichen Bühne.

The federal Constitution of the United States has repeatedly been praised for its brevity and clarity. It is the first federal Constitution and has been a model for the constitutions of several other federal countries, “the noblest fabric of government, ever devised by man”. Nonetheless, when it comes to the distribution of powers between states and federal government its wording is still subject to polarising interpretations and therefore the battleground of political struggle. The recent debate over President Obama’s Health Care reform is an outstanding example of this conflict. Specifically, the intervention of the federal government in reform of the private insurance market has been criticised as beyond Congress’ powers (the argument is that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to enact the individual mandate) and has been challenged before the Supreme Court. Despite the Sebelius ruling upholding the reform as constitutional, the debate over the constitutionality of the ...

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) is an interest group that lobbies officeholders as well as the general public for the promotion of enforcing the separation of church and state within the United States. Encyclopedia article for Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Organizations that Shaped America.

CAP is an American liberal think tank that promotes research and policies which advance the ideas of the modern progressive movement within and outside of the Democratic Party. Encyclopedia article for Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Organizations that Shaped America.