Automated estimates of state interest group lobbying populations

Garlick, Alex; Cluverius, John

doi:10.1057/s41309-020-00091-z

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In an ideal scenario, these bills which have been coded could be used to build an automated procedure to deductively code the universe of state legislation. Similar efforts have been taken to code an annual census of the interest group population by their economic sector (Garlick and Cluverius, 2020). This paper shows that what happens in the states has national consequences, so researchers should observe the states as best as they can.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratories of Politics: There is Bottom-up Diffusion of Policy Attention in the American Federal System

Garlick

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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A persistent question in the study of American federalism is if the states actually serve as “laboratories of democracy” for the country as a whole. I argue that political attention to policy areas can diffuse upwards, from state legislatures to Congress. National and state legislators share a party brand and can learn from policy debates in other levels. In particular, we should expect to see the diffusion of messaging legislation, or bills that were introduced without the intention of becoming law, after members of Congress observe their political effects in the states. Using an original dataset of introduced bills in all 50 state legislatures in 22 policy areas since 1991 drawn from LexisNexis, I show a positive association between changes in the number of state legislative bills introduced in 12 policy areas and the number of Congressional bills introduced in the next session, which is taken as evidence of “bottom-up” diffusion. This relationship is more prevalent between Republican state legislators and members of Congress, within state delegations, and in issue areas where the interest group community lobbies before both the states and national government. To the extent that states are laboratories for the nation, they may be political laboratories.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratories of Politics: There is Bottom-up Diffusion of Policy Attention in the American Federal System

Garlick

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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“…Roe v. Wade is marked by a dotted line. Abortion-rights groups began to proliferate in the Scholars are currently examining ways to automate this process to reduce error (see especially, Garlick and Cluverius, 2020). However, the current method deals only with widespread sectors not granular enough to capture reproductive rights-specific groups.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

The population ecology of interest groups and counter-mobilization: reproductive rights organizations in the United States, 1920–1985

Hightower

2024

PSRM

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This research note builds upon a number of important articles published in a variety of outlets concerning the population ecology of interest groups. Importantly, Lowery and Gray (1995), Nownes (2004), and Nownes and Lipinski (2005) empirically demonstrated the dependence on the density of pre-existing, similar groups when predicting new group formations. In this letter, I add to this research by modeling the density of ideologically divergent reproductive rights groups as well as offer supporting evidence for the popular Energy-Stability-Area model. The former is a novel consideration in the field of population ecology which primarily examines ideologically similar groups. I show that density dependence is at play among these polarized groups. I also provide insight into counter-mobilization movements of group formation by empirically demonstrating which groups are initial movers versus reactionary formers. In doing so, I raise important questions for researchers concerned with the emergence, longevity, and impact of interest groups over long periods of time. Finally, this research provides some insight into the expectations of group formation behavior in light of the landmark Dobbs decision.

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“…In numerous publications, Lowery (1993, 1996) address this gap by collecting and analyzing an impressive body of data on state-level interest group populations, demonstrating their diversity and density. Recent work has also established automated methods to measure state interest group populations (Garlick and Cluverius 2020). These studies have enabled scholars to consider a range of questions regarding the population ecology of statelevel interest groups, including interest group mortality (Nownes and Lipinski 2005), the relationship between interest group density and strategies employed by groups (Lowery et al 2009), and their association with healthcare policy outcomes (Gray, Lowery, and Benz 2013).…”

Section: Data Challenge: the Problem Of Missing Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Industry categorizations such as SIC codes give one example (e.g., see their use in Box-Steffensmeier and Christenson 2014). Scholars often assume a priori that interest groups in the same industry or economic sector will fall on the same side of a given issue (Garlick and Cluverius 2020). Second, as opposed to studying individual policies, scholars often study interest group activity on "issues" which are taken to encompass many similar policies (Baumgartner et al 2009;Gilens and Page 2014).…”

Section: Conceptual Challenge: Defining Issues and Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CHORUS: A New Dataset of State Interest Group Policy Positions in the United States

Hall,

Basseches,

Bromley-Trujillo

et al. 2024

State Politics Policy Q.

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Research on the activities and influence of interest groups in state legislatures faces a data problem: we are missing a comprehensive, systematic dataset of interest groups’ policy preferences on state legislation. We address this gap by introducing the Dataset on Policy Choice and Organizational Representation in the United States (CHORUS). This dataset compiles over 13 million policy positions stated by tens of thousands of interest groups and individuals on bills in 17 state legislatures over the past 25 years. We describe the process used to construct CHORUS and present a new network science technique for analyzing policy position data from interest groups: the layered stochastic block model, which groups similar interest groups and bills together, respectively, based on patterns in the policy positions. Through two demonstrative applications, we show the utility of these data, combined with our novel analytical approach, for understanding interest group configurations in different state legislatures and policy areas.

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Automated estimates of state interest group lobbying populations

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

Laboratories of Politics: There is Bottom-up Diffusion of Policy Attention in the American Federal System

Laboratories of Politics: There is Bottom-up Diffusion of Policy Attention in the American Federal System

The population ecology of interest groups and counter-mobilization: reproductive rights organizations in the United States, 1920–1985

CHORUS: A New Dataset of State Interest Group Policy Positions in the United States

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