Lobbying and Policymaking: The Public Pursuit of Private Interests

Spurred by the disconnect between what was being taught in the classroom and actual practice, Godwin, Ainsworth, and Godwin set out to answer the question, ôWas political science missing some key aspects of the interactions between lobbyists and policy makers?ö Built on interviews with over 100 lobbyists, these authors show that much of the research on organized interests overlooks the lobbying of regulatory agencies even though it accounts for almost half of all lobbyingùeven though bureaucratic agencies have considerable leeway in the how they choose to implement law. This groundbreaking new book argues that lobbying activity is not mainly a struggle among competing interests over highly collective goods; rather, itÆs the public provision of private goods. And more to the point, this shift in understanding ...