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.

Issue Advocacy Groups and Think Tanks

Issue advocacy groups and think tanks

The term “think tank” was first used during World War II to describe secure environments where top secret matters could be discussed freely. Paul Dickson elegantly defines a think tank as a “bridge between knowledge and power”; Andrew Rich describes it as an “independent, non-interest-based, non-profit” institute that produces and relies on “expertise and ideas to obtain support and ...

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