Lesson 44 of 1524
Interest Groups and Lobbying
A group that seeks a benefit for many people must solve the problem that many people will let someone else do the work.
Practice this chapterA particularized benefit helps members only, such as a discount or a legal service. A collective good, such as cleaner air, helps members and nonmembers alike. The second kind is where free riding grows.
A political action committee gives money to candidates under contribution limits. After Citizens United, an independent-expenditure group may spend unlimited sums so long as it does not coordinate with the campaign.
Iron triangle
Committee + agency + interest group
Three corners, each giving the others information, access, or support.
Worked example
A clean-air rule would help every resident of a city, whether or not they joined the group that lobbied for it. Membership stays low. What problem is this, and why does a members-only newsletter not fully solve the same kind of problem for clean air?
- 1The benefit, cleaner air, cannot be kept from nonmembers. It is a collective good.
- 2A resident can breathe the cleaner air without paying dues. That temptation is the free-rider problem.
- 3A newsletter that only members receive is a particularized, material benefit. It can raise membership.
- 4It does not change the air itself. People who care only about the air still get that good without joining. The newsletter recruits people who want the newsletter.
Result: The free-rider problem. A selective benefit recruits members. It does not make the public good exclusive.
Why. Free riding happens when the policy good is shared. Selective benefits work by adding a private good on the side, not by fencing off the public one.
An interest group is not a party. Parties run candidates under their own label in order to hold office. Groups try to influence whoever holds office.
Practice margin
This chapter
A fresh set from this chapter only. Choose 10 or 20. Multiple choice and fill-in, with no repeat inside the set.