The Organization Ecology of Interest Communities: Assessment and Agenda

290 Pages·2015·2.16 MB·English

by  David Lowery

The Organization Ecology of Interest Communities
Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series
Series Editor
Darren Halpin, Australian National University, Australia
The study of interest groups and their role in political life has undergone some-
what of a renaissance in recent years. Long standing scholarly themes such as
interest groups influence, mobilization, formation, and ‘bias’, are being addressed
using new and novel data sets and methods. There are also new and exciting
themes, such as the role of ICTs in enabling collective action and the growth of
global advocacy networks, that are being added. Contemporary debates about
the role of commercial lobbyists and professionalized interest representation are
also highly salient. Together, they draw an ever larger and broader constituency
to the study of interest groups and advocacy. This series seeks to capture both
new generation studies addressing long standing themes in new ways and inno-
vate scholarship posing new and challenging questions that emerge in a rapidly
changing world.
The series encourages contributions from political science (but also abutting dis-
ciplines such as economics, law, history, international relations and sociology)
that speak to these themes. It welcomes work undertaken at the sub-national,
national and supra-national political systems, and particularly encourages com-
parative or longitudinal studies. The series is open to diverse methodologies and
theoretical approaches. The book series will sit alongside and complement the
new journal of the same name.
Titles include:
Darren Halpin and Grant Jordan (editors)
THE SCALE OF INTEREST ORGANIZATION IN DEMOCRATIC POLITICS
Data and Research Methods
Chris Pallas
TRANSNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE WORLD BANK
Investigating Civil Society’s Potential to Democratize Global Governance
Daniel Stockemer
THE MICRO AND MESO LEVELS OF ACTIVISM
A Comparative Case Study of Attac France and Germany
Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–02871–6 (hardback)
and 978–1–137–02839–6 (paperback)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a stand-
ing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the
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The Organization Ecology
of Interest Communities
Assessment and Agenda
Edited by
David Lowery
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Darren Halpin
Australian National University, Australia
Virginia Gray
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA
Selection and editorial © David Lowery, Darren Halpin and Virginia Gray 2015
All remaining chapters © the respective authors 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-0-230-51430-1
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be
made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued
by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable
to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21
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Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-57685-2 ISBN 978-1-137-51431-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137514318
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The organization ecology of interest communities : assessment and agenda / edited by
David Lowery, Pennsylvania State University, USA ; Darren Halpin, Professor, School of
Sociology, Australian National University ; Virginia Gray, University of North
Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA.
pages cm.—(Interest groups, advocacy and democracy series)
Summary: “The organization ecology approach to the study of interest
representation and lobbying is now almost two decades old, and a substantial body of
theoretical and empirical work in both the United States and Europe has developed
using this approach. Critically assessing this body of work, this collection summarises
the origins and development of this research program, grounding it more firmly in the
larger literature on organization ecology. It provides critical assessments of this
literature from those working outside of its theoretical and empirical confines to
respond to those critics and to outline an agenda for research for the future using the
organization ecology approach to interest representation. The contributions to the
book provide a review of the research program for those using organization ecology to
study interest representation, outlines how it contributes to the larger body of work
on both interest representation and organization ecology, and encourages future
research on interest representation from a community-level perspective.” — Provided
by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Pressure groups. 2. Organizational behavior. 3. Lobbying. 4. Representative
government and representation. I. Halpin, Darren, editor. II. Lowery, David, 1952–
editor. III. Gray, Virginia, 1945– editor.
JF529.O74 2015
322.4—dc23 2015019265
Contents
List of Tables vii
List of Figures viii
Notes on Contributors ix
1 An Introduction to the Population Ecology Approach 1
David Lowery and Virginia Gray
2 Organizational Demography Research in the United States 17
Anthony J. Nownes
3 Interest Organization Demography Research in Europe 37
Joost Berkhout
4 Toward a Population Ecology Approach to
Transnational Advocacy? An Emerging Research Field 61
Jan Beyers and Marcel Hanegraaff
5 Challenges of Integrating Levels of Analysis in
Interest Group Research 79
Thomas T. Holyoke
6 Organizational Populations: Professionalization,
Maintenance and Democratic Delivery 99
William A. Maloney
7 Case Study Approaches to Studying Organization Survival
and Adaptation 117
Christopher Witko
8 Lobbying as a Leveraged Act: On Resource Dependencies
and Lobby Presence 137
Caelesta B raun
9 Louder Chorus – Same Accent: The Representation of
Interests in Pressure Politics, 1981–2011 157
Kay Lehman Schlozman, Philip Edward Jones, Hye Young You,
Traci Burch, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady
vi Contents
10 Interest Community Influence: A Neopluralist Perspective 183
Beth L. Leech
11 Population Dynamics and Representation 203
Frank R. Baumgartner and Kelsey Shoub
12 The Influence of Organization Ecology Research on
Population Ecology of Interest Representation:
Present Practices and Future Prospects 225
Darren R. Halpin
13 Beyond Metaphor: Populations and Groups, Interests,
and Lobbyists 249
Burdett Loomis
14 The Future of Organization Ecology in Interest
Representation 263
David Lowery, Darren R. Halpin, and Virginia Gray
Index 275
List of Tables
4.1 Level where key resources originate from versus where
resources are invested at WTO MCs (N and percentages) 72
5.1 Lobbyist predicted responses given variation in
interests and issues affecting these interests 92
9.1 Organized interests in Washington politics and
growth in the pressure system, 1981–2011 161
9.2 Changing organizational capacity: manpower
and dollars, 1981–2011 168
9.3 The changing distribution of organized interests 171
9.4 The Changing distribution of organizational capacity 173
11.1 Associations by EA section, 1959–2012 211
11.2 Associations by PAP topics codes 212
vii
List of Figures
2.1 Density dependence in the founding rate 20
2.2 Density dependence in the death rate 21
2.3 Population size over time 21
5.1 Number of interest groups and state gross domestic
product in 2011 82
5.2 Size of state populations and interest group
communities in 2011 82
11.1 Total number of associations listed over time in the EA 208
11.2 Associations per section, 2nd to 51st editions, EA 209
11.3 The spread of government and the growth of associations 214
11.4 Number of associations and congressional hearings
over time 215
12.1 Population dynamics: stages 231
viii
Notes on Contributors
Frank R. Baumgartner is the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished
Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill. Prior to that, he was the Bruce R. Miller and Dean D. LaVigne
Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State
University. He is active in the areas of interest group and advocacy stud-
ies, public policy, agenda-setting, framing, and capital punishment, in
both US and comparative settings. Books include Basic Interests, Lobbying
and Policy Change, and Politics of Information.
Joost Berkhout is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the
University of Amsterdam. He conducts research and teaches in the field
of European and comparative politics, especially interest group politics.
In addition to having authored a number of articles in political science
and public administration journals, he is the author of Political Activities
of Interest Organizations: Conflicting Interests, Converging Strategies (2010).
Jan Beyers is Professor of Political Science at the University of Antwerp
and Director of the Antwerp Centre for Institutions and Multilevel
Politics (ACIM), Belgium. His current research and teaching covers insti-
tutional theories, comparative politics, interest groups, and research
methods. His research has been published in journals such as the
European Journal of Political Research, International Organization, European
Union Politics, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of European Public
Policy, and West European Politics.
Henry E. Brady is Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy and
Class of 1941 Monroe Deutsch Professor of Political Science and Public
Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written on elec-
toral politics and political participation, social welfare policy, political
polling, and statistical methodology. He is past president of the American
Political Science Association (APSA) and of the Political Methodology
Society of APSA. He is co-author of Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism
in American Politics (1995) which won the Philip Converse Award for
a book making a lasting contribution to public opinion research and
the AAPOR book award for influential books that have stimulated
theoretical and scientific research in public opinion. He is co-editor of
Rethinking Social Inquiry (2004) which won the Sartori Award for best
ix