Special Interest Politics [Paperback]

Gene M. Grossman (Author), Elhanan Helpman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0262571676 | ISBN-13: 978-0262571678

This landmark theoretical book is about the mechanisms by which special interest groups affect policy in modern democracies. Defining a special interest group as any organization that takes action on behalf of an identifiable group of voters, Gene Grossman and Elhanan Helpman ask: How do special interest groups derive their power and influence? What determines the extent to which they are able to affect policy outcomes? What happens when groups with differing objectives compete for influence?The authors develop important theoretical tools for studying the interactions among voters, interest groups, and politicians. They assume that individuals, groups, and parties act in their own self-interest and that political outcomes can be identified with the game-theoretic concept of an equilibrium. Throughout, they progress from the simple to the more complex. When analyzing campaign giving, for example, they begin with a model of a single interest group and a single, incumbent policy maker. They proceed to add additional interest groups, a legislature with several independent politicians, and electoral competition between rival political parties. The book is organized in three parts. Part I focuses on voting and elections. Part II examines the use of information as a tool for political influence. Part III deals with campaign contributions, which interest groups may use either to influence policy makers' positions and actions or to help preferred candidates to win election.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Grossman and Helpman have produced an elegant theoretical foundation for understanding the interactions between groups and politicians in the political economy of a liberal democracy. It should be of 'special interest' to political scientists and economists alike."--Kenneth A. Shepsle, George D. Markham Professor of Government, Harvard University

"The authors succeed brilliantly in producing a self-contained monograph that lays out a coherent theoretical framework that allows them to tackle a large number of important substantive issues. What I find most impressive is that the book is very focused and yet covers a lot of ground."--Antonio Merlo, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

"An excellent theoretical book on special interest politics. Special Interest Politics would be a good book for scholars as well as for students in introductory graduate courses in political economy that deal with the influence of money and interest groups on political outcomes."--Thomas Stratmann, Professor of Economics, Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University

"The authors bring a sophisticated game theory perspective to special interest groups in modern democracies. The book is smart, thorough, and well organized around questions of voting, lobbying, and campaign contributions. It brings a fresh viewpoint to a continuing topic in modern political life."--Darrell M. West, Taubman Center for Public Policy, Brown University

"Special Interest Politics is a major work in which economic analysis confronts politics. Grossman and Helpman synthesize and extend the body of political-economic work on interest groups, lobbying, and government with remarkable consistency and clarity. Chapter after chapter, their analyses and insights will put researchers into the fast lane en route to continued advances in this crucial area."--Keith Krehbiel, Edward B. Rust Professor of Political Science, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

"Grossman and Helpman have produced a book that is both substantively important and theoretically accessible. The theoretical aspirations of this book are breathtaking: the goal is to make a contribution to democratic theory, based on technically rigorous models. _Special Interest Politics_ is the most important book on interest groups in at least a decade."--Michael Munger, Professor and Chairman, Department of Political Science, Duke University

About the Author

Gene M. Grossman is Jacob Viner Professor of International Economics and Director of the International Economics Section at Princeton University. Elhanan Helpman is Professor of Economics at Harvard University, the Archie Sherman Chair Professor of International Economic Relations in the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel-Aviv University, and a Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Product Details

• Paperback: 380 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (August 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262571676
• ISBN-13: 978-0262571678
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ambitious and Successful Work on Interest-Group Politics, September 3, 2003

By 

From The Independent Review (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Special Interest Politics (Paperback)

Gene M. Grossman and Elhanan Helpman astutely note "in their new book "Special Interest Politics" that "special-interest groups" (SIGs) admit of no easy definition. Grossman and Helpman sensibly adopt a definition with some empirical referents. An organization is something we can look for, and an identifiable group is a collection of individuals who resemble one another in some important respect, not just a collection of people with enough shared beliefs to have the potential to share goals and act on them."

"For Grossman and Helpman, "membership" in a group is defined functionally. Members of a group are those people whose preferences are taken into account by the leader(s) of the group. So, the main question they raise is: How do SIGs change the policymaking process? Do lobbyists improve or distort the process by providing information? The largest question is also the most difficult: How and why does money affect the policy process? What form of regulation of campaign finance, if any, would constitute an improvement over the present system?"

To capture the intricacies of group competition, Grossman and Helpman draw on nearly one hundred years of hindsight and a very precise model. "Their main results offer both some standard conclusions and some more surprising ones."

"First, SIGs can distort the process, sometimes dramatically, compared to what happens in a full-information world. Because that world is not the world of modern politics, however, it is not clear that this "distortion" should be a focus for policy."

"Second, the effects of lobbying may be counterintuitive. If two well-organized groups contest a policy, the information provided by lobbyists may result in a "distortion" that actually improves policy by moving it closer to the full-information ideal, in contrast to what happens in a world in which lobbying is outlawed. Further, lobbying organizations themselves may be made worse off by the availability of a lobbying strategy. More precisely, if members of interest groups must pay the lobbying costs and the net result is worse for them, they might well prefer an equilibrium where lobbying was outlawed. Something close to an "invisible hand" result may be lurking here: lobbyists pay to provide information that improves the quality of legislative debate and choice because competition forces them to participate to avoid and even worse outcome."

"Some of the other interesting discussions involve "access fees" for legislators, the information content of lobbyists who bias is known, and the value of grassroots lobbying of voters by interest groups (through direct contact)."

"The depth and scope of the literature Grossman and Helpman review and the range of topics they consider in this book are impressive. Much of the exposition is accessible, although the meat of the work is in the model developed in chapters 4-10. Grossman and Helpman's book may be the most ambitious and successful work on interest group politics in the past decade."

-From "The Independent Review," Spring 2003