In this lecture we will look more closely at Kevin Hula's book on interest group coalitions and their lobbying efforts in the United States Congress. Why lobbying? It's not focused on a single organization or within a single one but it seemed highly salient to those of you wanting to be leaders and social reformers. Most social reforms in the United States or any democracy requires legislative decisions. And much of that starts with lobbying and interest group coalitions that succeeded influencing and establishing various laws. So, in Kevin Hula's book. He uses an exchange model. Much like we discussed in the prior lecture. And similar to Richard Emerson's notion of social exchange theory. Participants here in this kind of exchange model engage in exchange for some benefit. With lobbyists free riding is less relevant than in other models because the lobbyists have already made the decision to be involved in a cause in some form. So, they're activists in many cases. Hence the issue is more about selecting a level and type of involvement, not whether they get involved or not. So, in this context of lobbyists, coalition brokers work incentives to get people to participate in different levels and types of ways, so as to effectively accomplish their interests. So, why do people join a coalition? Let's look at this a little more carefully through Hula's book. So, Hula gives multiple reasons why groups would join an organization or a coalition. First, he argues that groups benefit from being able to reference an explicit policy or goal to which they and others agree on. And they can say that they're for or against this policy. So, for example, in the Hula text, he discusses CEF, the Committee for Education Funding and CEF is a coalition with a broad goal and many of the member, groups, parochial interests can be subsumed under that broad goal and list it as specific programs. By subsuming a more particularistic goal under that of an umbrella goal. They can strive toward the larger one, partially accomplishing their narrow aims, right? Moreover, their narrow focus may turn off others, so in a broader coalition's goal they can hide that or use it to their own ends. So, in a way it protects their parochial interests. And gets them moving in a more legitimate broad umbrella goal. Second, by joining a coalition, early organizations can shape an agenda of the coalition and platform. So, most issues get ironed out earlier in a coalition's formation than later, and precedent exists for previously worked out conflicts of interest. So, people say why open this can of worms again, kind of thing. Third, information is a selective benefit of membership if it fits parochial interests. Members want to know of any future threats to their perceived interests. It's especially valuable to smaller groups with small staffs. Therefore it helps them to get on committees that make decisions, that deal with new issues. And know the latest bills going on at Capitol Hill. And finally there's symbolic benefits. Showing something is an important issue is not the same as making it one. Many organizations see something as important and join to show that, but they don't have their the resources to vote core membership activities to it. Plus it looks good to say you are involved and busy in something that is related. So, reasons for existing are reinforced. It servers higher ups in the organization who are more concerned with company affairs. And you can also claim credit when something goes well. You know, think about co-authoring papers, but you're the fifth author who doesn't do much. You can claim something of that. So, joining symbolically can be seen as paying of a debt, reciprocating something, setting an example, some kind of symbolic benefit of membership comes from it. Now, that we have some idea why members join a coalition, we can start to ask or explore, why members vary in their commitment. So, the incentives a particular group responds to in joining a coalition strongly influences the ultimate role the group will play in the coalition structure. So, understanding whether a group joins a coalition for strategic reasons or selective benefits helps determine whether it will become a core member, a specialist or a player or a peripheral tag-along member of that coalition. Keep in mind that peripheral groups aren't free writing because all groups have entered into a transaction and the other participants have agreed to the legitimacy of the exchange. So, here we have a coalition with three rings of concentric levels of commitment and different roles in bargaining. Let's look at the types of members and how Kevin Hula describes their level of interest, goals resources and commitments to the coalition. First, let's look at the core members in the first column of the table on my right or left here. Coalition members view the issue as very important and they're interested in a broad range of issues concerning it. Their goal is an overall strategic victory on this issue. And they bring to the coalition a high level of time, money, reputation, expertise and membership. And they commit to the coalition more than any other member. By contrast, if you go to the second column, we see the players and specialist and these individuals or these members of the coalition care about their specific goals and attempt to hone issues toward that. They usually bring enough resources to get a sit at the negotiating table. So, they often bring expertise on a specific issue as their political capital, so they kind of piggy back their effort. So, in so long as there's specific issues at stake, they stay involved. Then there's the tag alongs, the kind of peripheral members. They have the least interest. And their goal is to acquire coalition byproducts. They brig few resources, but are willing to let others use their name. So, notably, this model of coalitions end in almost a Hobbesian view. Only the most central, powerful actors invest most into the coalition, while other less powerful actors invest much less. So, this is kind of like on the Leviathan cover of that book for Penguin Press. You'll see the king as a body composed of citizens, where the king invests far more. So, the point is that core players are interested in getting the bill passed. The players want a paragraph and the peripheral groups want a picture for their newsletter. Each lobbyist defines his or her essential interest and a symbiotic relationship forms to hold this coalition together. And it's funny, when I think about this in my own research studying academic departments and research centers here at Stanford and other universities, I see many of the same distinctions. Large interdisciplinary research centers seem to have core members held bent on addressing a broad goal and specific issues within it and they invest everything they have into it. But in building the center they need to draw in other adherents, many of whom have only specific interests, like players. And they perform a particular research project that relies on expertise or some subset of faculty in the center because it's a joined, they lend their name and reputation. And even expertise on issues related to that, but they do not attend all the events, and work hard to forge the larger research community. And then there are the tag alongs, or affiliates, who are tangential to the center and not dependent on it for much of anything. But they have related projects and here the center invites them to be an affiliate and uses their name, and in some cases this can result in some minor research funds going their way. An article in their work and the website or some kind of recognition. But these members seldom attend or do much of anything to promote that community. Nevertheless, they give the impression of a larger respectable collective effort. And an interesting similar process arises when forging a new academic department, but even more so as a variety of goals and interests are accomplished, to fund faculty positions and develop student programs. So, we see this kind of coalition formation in a variety of, kind of, organizations that form as a social movement of sorts that has kind of an interest group basis in it's beginnings.
