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This article analyses the founding rate of nationally active homosexual rights interest groups in the United States for the period 1950–98. Drawing upon the extensive organizational ecology literature, we test the hypothesis that the founding rate of homosexual rights interest groups is related non-monotonically to the number of groups in the population. Our statistical analyses support the hypothesis that as population density rises from very low to high, the founding rate first rises but eventually decreases. This pattern holds when we control for a number of contextual variables. In all, the data provide a great deal of support for the theory of density dependence – a novel approach to the study of interest group formation.

An event-history analysis of the disbandings of nationally active gay and lesbian rights advocacy groups in the United States for the period 1945-98 is presented. Specifically, the hypothesis (which comes from population-ecology theory) is tested that the survival prospects of gay and lesbian rights interest groups are related non-monotonically to the number of groups in the population (i.e., density). The statistical analyses presented support the hypothesis: as density rises from near zero to high, the death rate first decreases but eventually increases. Several other hypotheses are also tested, and among the findings is the following: the survival prospects of gay and lesbian rights interest groups are related non-monotonically to group age -as group age increases, a group's probability of death first rises but then decreases.

Interest groups are important intermediaries in Western democracies, with the potential to offer political linkage and form a bridge between the concerns of citizens and the agendas of political elites. While we know an increasing amount about the issue-based activity of groups, we only have a limited understanding about how they selected these issues to work on. In this article, we examine the process of agenda setting within groups. In particular, we address challenges of conceptualization and measurement. Through a thorough review of the group literature, we identify five main factors that are hypothesized to drive issue prioritization. We operationalize items to tap these factors and then empirically assess this theoretical model relying on data from a survey of national interest groups in Australia. Our findings, from a confirmatory factor analysis, provide support for the multidimensional nature of agenda setting. We discuss how this provides a firm conceptual and methodological foundation for future work examining how groups establish their policy agenda. | I N T R O D U C T I O NStudents of political science have invested heavily in enumerating the observable lobbying activity of interest groups. Many studies chart the instances of evidence giving to legislative committees (e.g., Berry, 1999), participation in administrative consultations (e.g., Yackee & Yackee, 2006), and even the lodgement of amicus briefs (e.g., Box-Steffensmeier & Christenson, 2014). Such research has provided compelling evidence that underpins important findings in the field. For instance, such work leads to the consistent finding of mobilization "bias," with the largest volume of lobby activity accounted for by business interests (Baumgartner, Berry, Hojnacki, Kimball, & Leech, 2009;Schlozman, Verba, & Brady, 2012;Walker, 1991). It has also led to findings of skewed mobilization across policy issueswith most issues garnering little lobbying activity, but a small number attracting very high levels and demonstrating patterns of bandwagoning (Baumgartner & Leech, 2001 population-level analysis of the demographics of lobbying (Gray & Lowery, 1996). In short, this work has enabled the discipline to draw important conclusions regarding the nature of interest group activity in contemporary political systems. What this work cannot reveal, however, are the drivers that catalyze groups into the policy action we readily observe. We know that individual agents, political parties, parliaments, and bureaucracies, when faced with numerous calls on their attention, engage in a process of prioritization (Simon, 1957(Simon, , 1985 see Jones, 1999, for a detailed overview). They decide what to act on, and what to leave to one side for the moment. For instance, recent work in this journal demonstrates how elite politicians rely on organizational procedures, heuristics, and self-confidence to deal with information overload (Walgrave & Dejaeghere, 2016). They are extremely selective in identifying the pieces of information that are of relevance to them....

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Drawing on data from a survey of 595 state interest representatives this article asks: Is policy conflict widespread in state interest communities or is it rare due to the isolation of interest organizations in relatively placid niches? Two contending perspectives frame the current debate on this issue. Whereas Browne maintains that balkanization characterizes interest communities, Salisbury and his colleagues suggest that many policy domains feature substantial intergroup interaction, conflict, and cooperation. In all, the data witness relatively high levels of conflict among groups and between groups and other political actors and thus confound the expectations of Browne's niche theory. Nevertheless, the data do not invalidate niche theory. Rather, they suggest that some policy domains are more likely to be characterized by niche politics than others and that the federal government provides more incentives than state governments for groups to seek niches.

In this study, I report the results of a pretest-posttest, control group experiment in which some of my more than 500 respondents were exposed to factual information about celebrity support for political parties and some were not. I proceed from the assumption that celebrity political activity is more likely to influence citizens’ views of political parties than it is to affect either citizens’ vote choices or views of individual candidates. I make this assumption based on the work of Green, Palmquist, and Schickler, who posit that party identification is a social identity. The results provide support for this notion. Specifically, they show that celebrity political activity can indeed influence some citizens’ views of political parties. The results show also that celebrity political activity can affect citizens’ views of politically active celebrities.