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One of the most important demonstrations of power in Washington is the ability to recruit sitting government officials to become active proponents of one’s position. Many have suggested money is the key: Campaign contributions buy friends, access, and perhaps even policy activism. We provide an alternative view based on a deceptively simple observation: Lobbyists rarely lobby alone. We show empirically that government policymakers respond to the overall structure of conflict, not the resources of individual lobbying groups. Our project is based on in-depth interviews with over 300 policy advocates and systematic information on each of more than 2,000 advocates playing a significant role in a random sample of 98 policy issues in the United States federal government from 1999 to 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from more than 19,000 reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, we analyze the distribution of lobbying on a random sample of 137 issues and find a tremendous skewness. The median issue involved only 15 interest groups, whereas 8 of the issues involved more than 300 interest groups. The top 5% of the issues accounted for more than 45% of the lobbying, whereas the bottom 50% of the issues accounted for less than 3% of the total. This distribution makes generalizations about interest group conflict difficult and helps explain why many scholars have disagreed about the abilities of lobbyists to get what they want. We also confirm and expand upon previous findings regarding the tremendous predominance of business firms in the Washington lobbying population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined the clarity of the jurisdictions of the committees of the United States Congress over the entire post-war period. Model of jurisdictional clarity; Results from a new dataset on all congressional hearings between 1947 and 1994; Implications of the findings for models of legislative behavior and government decision-making.

Provides information on research carried out which examined the validity of a process of punctuated equilibrium of policymaking with the use of a dataset that tabulates congressional budget authority at the Office of Management and Budget. How government spending is characterized; Findings of the research.