While the allocation of interest group monies to specific politicians has been extensively studied, little is known about the factors that determine of the overall level of political activity across groups. We study total contributions by corporate political action committees at the industry level. We create a large data set on industry political activity, covering 124 industries across five election cycles from 1978 to 1986 and sketch out a simple benefit-cost model to predict total corporate PAC contributions in each industry. The few previous studies of this phenomenon use relatively small samples and employ statistical techniques that are either biased or impose untested restrictions. The selectivity-corrected regression technique used here solves these problems. We find that industries with greater potential benefits from government assistance contribute systematically more but that the ability to realize these benefits is constrained by collective action problems facing firms in each industry.

Jtuder, snts of elections have repeatedly found that the closeness of an election is modestly correlated with turnout. This may be due to a direct response of instrumentally motivated voters, but recent theoretical work casts doubt on the adequacy of this explanation. Another possibility is that elite actors respond to closeness with greater effort at mobilization. We explore the latter possibility by using FEC and state data on campaign expenditures in House, Senate, and gubernatorial races. Our results indicate that closeness has an effect at both the mass and elite levels. We also provide quantitative estimates of the effect of Senate and gubernatorial expenditure on House turnout.

This paper derives a supply price for public policy using a constrained maximization model. In the model, three sets of agents each have preferences over outcomes: organized interest groups offer campaign contributions to improve their own wealth, voters offer votes to obtain outcomes closer to their most preferred outcomes, and legislators seek both campaign contributions and votes to obtain reelection. A given legislator's supply price for policy is shown to depend on the productivity of his effort, as determined by committee assignments, priority and ability, and by the preferences of his unorganized constituency in the home district. Two extreme assumptions about the effectiveness of campaign spending in eliciting votes are used to illustrate the comparative statics properties of the model. The prediction of the model is that interest groups will, in general, seek out legislators whose voters are indifferent to the policy the interest group seeks. Thus, voters who do have preferences over policy are in effect represented, even though they are not organized.

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To 'analyse' means to break into components and understand. But new readers find modern mathematical theories of politics so inaccessible that analysis is difficult. Where does one start? Analytical Politics is an introduction to analytical theories of politics, explicitly designed both for the interested professional and students in political science. We cannot evaluate how well governments perform without some baseline for comparison: what should governments be doing? This book focuses on the role of the 'center' in politics, drawing from the classical political theories of Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, and others. The main questions in Analytical Politics involve the existence and stability of the center; when does it exist? When should the center guide policy? How do alternative voting rules help in discovering the center? An understanding of the work reviewed here is essential for anyone who hopes to evaluate the performance or predict the actions of democratic governments.

W e model the behavior of a vote-maximizing legislator in order to predict interest group campaign contributions to incumbent politicians. W e show that committee assignments and voter preferences affect the price a legislator requires to produce policies for any interest group. An econometric analysis of actual interest group contributions shows that these groups make significantly larger contributions to legislators on cornmittees with jurisdiction over especially relevant policy issues and to incumbents with non-hostile constituencies. These results support our the0 y; interest groups act as if committees matter in the determination of policy and voters' interests constrain interest group behavior. [1986] argue that even this narrowly focused approach misses important details, such as agency power to resist Congress, and other actors' (e.g., the executive) power to influence agency action. A further dissenting view, Krehbiel "901, has implications that extend beyond the present discussion. His analysis indicates that committee members are not "preference outliers" as measured by general roll-call voting data. Finally, Grier, Munger, and Torrent [1990] show that the model we advance here does not apply well to the Senate. Moe [1987] and Muris3. This argument, of course, turns on the applicability of the Coase [1960] theorem, which implies that the initial allocation of property rights may influence the wealth of the parties to a transaction, but not the allocation of output or, in this case, policy.

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