Summary
Contents
Guide to Interest Groups and Lobbying in the United States offers a thematic analysis of interest groups and lobbying in American politics over the course of American political history. It explores how interest groups have organized and articulated their support for numerous issues, and how they have they grown – both in numbers and range of activities – to become an integral part of the U.S. political system. Beginning with the foundations of interest groups during the late 19th-century Gilded Age, to the contemporary explosive growth of lobbying, Political Action Committees, and new forms of interest group cyberpolitics, readers are provided with multiple approaches to understanding the complex and changing interest advocacy sphere. This authoritative work will find an audience not only with students and scholars, but also with policy advocates.
Lobbying and Legislative Strategy
Lobbying and Legislative Strategy
Lobbyists are not well regarded by the American public. In a 2006 CBS News/New York Times poll, 77 percent of registered voters said that lobbyists bribing legislators is just “the way things work in Congress,” and 57 percent believed that “at least half of all members of Congress accept bribes or gifts that influence their votes.” 1 These are astonishing numbers, not only for the consensus they ...