The Privatization of Political Influence: Professional Grassroots Lobbying in the United States
Open Access
- Author:
- Walker, Edward Thomas
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 02, 2007
- Committee Members:
- John David Mccarthy, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Alan M Sica, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Roger Kent Finke, Committee Member
Nancy Love, Committee Member
Lee Ann Banaszak, Committee Member - Keywords:
- political participation
lobbying
civil society
voluntary associations
business
trade associations
social movements
interest groups - Abstract:
- Institutional grassroots lobbying campaigns – attempts by corporations, industry groups, public interest groups, and government agencies to mobilize the public as a strategic force in efforts to shape legislative activity – became prevalent in the U.S. in the closing decades of the twentieth century. The growth and widespread encouragement and subsidization of citizen activism by large institutions suggests that dramatic changes have taken place in U.S. civil society, as citizens participate less in politics and in their communities, despite growth in the field of voluntary associations. In examining the rise of these campaigns, I build upon two literatures in the social sciences: (1) civic engagement and the changing means by which individuals participate in community and political life, and (2) the privatization of the modern public sphere. Using a unique data source on the private firms that provide grassroots political marketing services to institutional clients, this dissertation examines the rise of institutional campaigns to lobby the public and considers how institutional clients vary in their employment of such techniques. I find that declining participation in politics, an expanding field of advocacy associations, and increasing business advocacy have combined to spur the growth of institutional grassroots lobbying. For the corporations that use grassroots lobbying techniques, I find that the employment of grassroots lobbying is best understood as an expansion of their existing repertoire of lobbying techniques; industry groups, on the other hand, engage in grassroots campaigns mainly to mobilize the businesses and corporate leaders that comprise their organization. Public interest groups, by contrast, tend to hire lobbying firms very rarely, and those that do tend to be well-resourced and/or have an extensive member base. I conclude by considering how institutional grassroots lobbying campaigns are helping to privatize political influence not only in the sense that they assist private interests to express themselves in the public sphere, but in that the forms of civic participation that follow from such institutional campaigns are largely private and individualistic in how they mobilize participation. The results call attention to the necessary role of engagement in face-to-face tertiary associations in democratic life.