Bureaucratic Revolving Doors and Interest Group Participation in Policy Making

Lee, Kyuwon; You, Hye Young

doi:10.1086/722340

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Path dependencies in the American and comparative politics subfields have shaped the direction of research on external influences, but these dependencies should not be considered determinative for future work. Further research on US lobbying, for example, could move beyond rulemaking and consider other venues for influence peddling, such as the revolving door in and out of the bureaucracy (Lee & You 2022) and the federal guidance process (Yackee 2020), as well as other ways lobbying may occur-for instance, when legislators lobby bureaucracies (Ritchie & You 2019). There are ample opportunities to explore bureaucratic lobbying beyond the US context, including research on the revolving door and its effects (e.g., Peci et al 2022).…”

Section: External Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

Bureaucratic Politics: Blind Spots and Opportunities in Political Science

Brierley

Lowande

Potter

et al. 2023

Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci.

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Bureaucracy is everywhere. Unelected bureaucrats are a key link between government and citizens, between policy and implementation. Bureaucratic politics constitutes a growing share of research in political science. But the way bureaucracy is studied varies widely, permitting theoretical and empirical blind spots as well as opportunities for innovation. Scholars of American politics tend to focus on bureaucratic policy making at the national level, while comparativists often home in on local implementation by street-level bureaucrats. Data availability and professional incentives have reinforced these subfield-specific blind spots over time. We highlight these divides in three prominent research areas: the selection and retention of bureaucratic personnel, oversight of bureaucratic activities, and opportunities for influence by actors external to the bureaucracy. Our survey reveals how scholars from the American and comparative politics traditions can learn from one another.

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Section: External Influencementioning

confidence: 99%

Bureaucratic Politics: Blind Spots and Opportunities in Political Science

Brierley

Lowande

Potter

et al. 2023

Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci.

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“…In a recent survey of U.S. federal executives, the majority reported that they could not recruit the best employees and almost 40% said that an inadequately skilled workforce impedes their agency's mission (Lewis and Richardson 2017). Much like knowledge of government processes can be useful for regulated industries, insider knowledge of regulated industries can be useful for government regulatory agencies (Lee and You n.d.). Indeed, expertise is often located outside of government, and a major dilemma facing policy makers is how to make good policy when private interests have information and technical capacity that government lacks; this is a huge area of research, see Baron and Myerson (1982), Laffont and Tirole (1993), Gailmard and Patty (2013), Hirsch and Shotts (2015), Hirsch and Shotts (2018), Schnakenberg and Turner (2019), among many others.…”

Section: The Revolving Doormentioning

confidence: 99%

Going into Government: How Hiring from Special Interests Reduces Their Influence

Hübert

Rezaee

Colner

2022

American J Political Sci

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Governments routinely decide to involve special interests in the development of public policy, a practice that can distort policy outcomes away from the public interest. Many are concerned that these policy distortions increase when special interest aligned individuals—such as lobbyists, activists or industry insiders—go into government. Using a formal model that centers the role of policymaking capacity in the development of policy, we demonstrate this is not always what happens. Our analysis provides two core insights. First, when an individual from a special interest group goes into government, this can paradoxically reduce the special interest's influence over public policy. Second, this individual has an endogenous incentive to enter government even though doing so weakens the special interest, whose preferences the individual shares. The model suggests that politicians' efforts to stop the practice of hiring individuals from special interest groups can counterintuitively increase special interest influence over politics.

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“…The revolving door phenomenon is commonly defined as the movement of individuals from the public sector to interest groups (Gormley 1979). This definition has been sourced from a body of literature emphasizing the importance of individual lobbyists' career trajectories, highlighting their personal incentives and motivations to enter the revolving door (Shepherd and You 2020;Bolton and McCrain 2023;Halpin and Lotric 2023;Lee and You 2023). For instance, scholars have demonstrated that these individuals can leverage their public sector experience to increase their earnings, receiving higher salaries compared to regular lobbyists (Blanes i Vidal et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revolving doors in Europe: does hiring from the public sector facilitate access?

Belli,

Stevens

2024

J. Pub. Pol.

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In recent years, the movement of personnel from the public sector to interest groups has garnered considerable attention throughout Europe. Consequently, there has been an increased focus on the phenomenon of revolving door lobbyists within academic literature. This research contributes to this scholarly discussion by examining how the employment of such lobbyists facilitates access. We argue that interest groups gain advantages by recruiting individuals from the public sector in policy domains with limited mobilization, but this benefit decreases as more interest groups mobilize. Our analysis of survey data from seven European political systems supports these expectations, indicating that recruiting professionals with experience in the public sector enhances access, especially in policy areas with minimal lobbying activity. This highlights the potential for interest mobilization to counterbalance the advantages of hiring revolving door lobbyists.

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Bureaucratic Revolving Doors and Interest Group Participation in Policy Making

Cited by 4 publications

References 29 publications

Bureaucratic Politics: Blind Spots and Opportunities in Political Science

Bureaucratic Politics: Blind Spots and Opportunities in Political Science

Going into Government: How Hiring from Special Interests Reduces Their Influence

Revolving doors in Europe: does hiring from the public sector facilitate access?

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