Download or read book Lobbying for Change written by Alberto Alemanno and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'We need effective citizen-lobbyists – not just likers, followers or even marchers – more than ever. I have no hesitation in lobbying you to read this book.' Bill Emmott, former editor in chief, the Economist Many democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. Citizens are making clear their frustration with their supposedly representative governments, which instead seem driven by the interests of big business, powerful individuals and wealthy lobby groups. What can we do about it? How do we fix democracy and get our voices heard? The answer, argues Alberto Alemanno, is to become change-makers – citizen lobbyists. By using our skills and talents and mobilizing others, we can bring about social and political change. Whoever you are, you've got power, and this book will show you how to unleash it. From successfully challenging Facebook's use of private data to abolishing EU mobile phone roaming charges, Alberto highlights the stories of those who have lobbied for change, and shows how you can follow in their footsteps, whether you want to influence immigration policy, put pressure on big business or protect your local community.
Download or read book Lobbying and Society written by John C. Scott and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-11-02 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lobbying and political interest groups occupy an ambivalent place in advanced democracies. Lobbying is viewed with suspicion, but is also a critical avenue for voices in policy debates. This insightful book injects a new sociological understanding of politics and policy. Interest groups help set political agendas, provide support to policymakers, and mobilize resources around issues. They are also the means by which individuals and organizations achieve advantage over others in social and economic life. John C. Scott incorporates theory and research about interest groups into political sociology’s approach to issues of power, inequality, and public policy. As he convincingly reveals, a sociological understanding of lobbying and interest groups illustrates the edges and boundaries of representative democracy itself. Using case studies and data, and organized by topics such as influence, collective action, representation, and inequality, the book is a critical resource for students of policymaking and political sociology.
Download or read book Lobbying America written by Benjamin C. Waterhouse and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lobbying America tells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. Benjamin Waterhouse traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business community and promote a fiscally conservative, antiregulatory, and market-oriented policy agenda to Congress and the country at large. Arguing that business's political involvement was historically distinctive during this period, Waterhouse illustrates the changing power and goals of America's top corporate leaders. Examining the rise of the Business Roundtable and the revitalization of older business associations such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Waterhouse takes readers inside the mind-set of the powerful CEOs who responded to the crises of inflation, recession, and declining industrial productivity by organizing an effective and disciplined lobbying force. By the mid-1970s, that coalition transformed the economic power of the capitalist class into a broad-reaching political movement with real policy consequences. Ironically, the cohesion that characterized organized business failed to survive the ascent of conservative politics during the 1980s, and many of the coalition's top goals on regulatory and fiscal policies remained unfulfilled. The industrial CEOs who fancied themselves the "voice of business" found themselves one voice among many vying for influence in an increasingly turbulent and unsettled economic landscape. Complicating assumptions that wealthy business leaders naturally get their way in Washington, Lobbying America shows how economic and political powers interact in the American democratic system.
Download or read book The Interest Group Society written by Jeffrey M Berry and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes a great change in the interest groups in American politics and includes analysis of the legal limits of non-profit politics. It examines the effects of the new Democratic majorities on partisan lobbying, political action committee spending.
Download or read book The Business of Lobbying in China written by Scott KENNEDY and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on over 300 in-depth interviews with company executives, business association representatives, and government officials, this study identifies a wide range of national economic policies influenced by lobbying, including taxes, technical standards, and intellectual property rights. These findings have significant implications for how we think about Chinese politics and economics, as well as government-business relations in general.
Download or read book Lobbying for Higher Education written by Constance Ewing Cook and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historically, many faculty and administrators in higher education have regarded themselves as above the fray--part of the national interest, not a special interest--and considered lobbying a dirty business unworthy of their lofty enterprise. Now that academia no longer enjoys all the respect and good will that federal policy makers once afforded it, that attitude has changed. The Republican sweep of the 1994 Congressional elections served as a wake-up call for the higher education community. In response, it made a spirited effort to gain attention for its own policy preferences. Lobbying for Higher Education is about how the major higher education associations and the constituent American colleges and universities try to influence federal policy, especially congressional policy. In clear prose Cook explains how the higher education community organizes itself in Washington, how it lobbies, and how its major interest groups are perceived both by their own members and by public officials. The book focuses on the crucial development in 1995-1996 of a new lobbying paradigm, which included the greater use of campus-based resources and ad hoc coalitions. The most engrossing part of its story is higher education's creative response to the policy turmoil and disruption of the status quo that resulted from the shift in congressional party control. The author, Constance Cook, uses sources unique to this project: over 1,500 survey responses from college and university presidents (a 62% return rate) and nearly 150 interviews with institutional and association leaders. Fortuitously, the 1994 electoral upheaval provided her with an opportunity to capture, analyze, and interpret the responses of her subjects in a period of unusually sweeping change. Lobbying for Higher Education is a timely book with an interesting and important story at its core.
Download or read book Lobbying for Social Change written by Willard C. Richan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This step-by-step guide to lobbying covers it all—from the basics for beginners to specific techniques for experienced lobbyists “You and I may never achieve major public office, but we do not need to in order to affect public policy.” —Author Willard C. Richan To effect social change, any lobbyist’s case must be presented with skill, knowledge, and confidence. This reader-friendly book shows the way. It assumes no prior knowledge of the subject and provides the nuts and bolts of public policy advocacy (lobbying) in non-technical language. Lobbying for Social Change, Third Edition is organized in a way that easily lends itself to use in the classroom as well as by individual or group advocates, and it is packed with clearly presented case material that illustrates the lobbying process in action. This new edition provides updated case material, expanded coverage of electronic media, and two new chapters; one focusing on direct action for fundamental change, and the other presenting a case history of a grassroots lobbying campaign. Part I of Lobbying for Social Change, Third Edition, entitled “The Basics,” will show you how to: assess your political resources set an agenda for action understand whom to lobby—and how to gauge their power, motivation, and ability to effect or impede social change gather and use evidence to support your position Part II, “Practical Applications,” gives you nuts-and-bolts information about how lobbying is done. You’ll learn: how to work directly with policymakers-face-to-face, by mail, by telephone, etc. effective rules for to testifying in a public hearing how to make use of the mass media-writing news releases, participating in panel discussions, what to do when being interviewed (and how to increase your chances of being a repeat guest on talk and news shows), and how to effectively work with print and electronic media, including the Internet ways to take on the system through direct action Part III, “Case History of a Grassroots Lobbying Campaign,” takes you inside an actual campaign (in this case, to amend the impending—at the time—welfare reform bill). You’ll see how a group of five Philadelphia area social workers and one feminist activist started the Delaware County Coalition to Save Our Safety Net—a coalition that would make a substantial impact on the specifics of welfare in the state of Pennsylvania. This new edition of the classic manual for lobbyists is packed with vital information for lobbying in the new millennium. We urge you to consider making it a part of your personal or teaching collection today!
Download or read book The Business of America is Lobbying written by Lee Drutman and published by Studies in Postwar American Po. This book was released on 2015 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corporate lobbyists are everywhere in Washington. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 represent business. The largest companies now have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them. How did American businesses become so invested in politics? And what does all their money buy? Drawing on extensive data and original interviews with corporate lobbyists, The Business of America is Lobbying provides a fascinating and detailed picture of what corporations do in Washington, why they do it, and why it matters. Prior to the 1970s, very few corporations had Washington offices. But a wave of new government regulations and declining economic conditions mobilized business leaders. Companies developed new political capacities, and managers soon began to see public policy as an opportunity, not just a threat. Ever since, corporate lobbying has become increasingly more pervasive, more proactive, and more particularistic. Lee Drutman argues that lobbyists drove this development, helping managers to see why politics mattered, and how proactive and aggressive engagement could help companies' bottom lines. All this lobbying doesn't guarantee influence. Politics is a messy and unpredictable bazaar, and it is more competitive than ever. But the growth of lobbying has driven several important changes that make business more powerful. The status quo is harder to dislodge; policy is more complex; and, as Congress increasingly becomes a farm league for K Street, more and more of Washington's policy expertise now resides in the private sector. These and other changes increasingly raise the costs of effective lobbying to a level only businesses can typically afford. Lively and engaging, rigorous and nuanced, The Business of America is Lobbying will change how we think about lobbying-and how we might reform it.
Download or read book The Social Process of Lobbying written by John C. Scott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite a wealth of theorizing and research about each concept, lobbying and norms still raise a number of interesting issues. Why do lobbyists and politicians engage in cooperative behavior? How does cooperative behavior in lobbying affect policy making? If democratic participation is good, why do we view lobbying as bad? Lobbying engenders debate about its effects on the political process and on policy development. Sociologists and other social scientists remain concerned about how norms emerge, the content of norms, how widely they are distributed, and how they are enforced. Political scientists study how interest groups work together and influence the political process. Based on the experience of the author, a former lobbyist, this book looks at the social norms of lobbying and how such norms work in a general framework of other norms and legal institutions in the political process. In developing this argument, John C. Scott claims that: Embedded social relationships and trust-based social norms underpin everyday interactions among policy actors. These relationships and norms have concrete impacts on the policy making process. Social relationships and norms inhibit participation in the political process by outside actors. The investigation is conducted through an innovative theoretical framework, combining existing theoretical perspectives from different disciplines, and using a variety of data and methods, including longitudinal quantitative and social network data, interviews with lobbyists, activists, and policymakers, and anecdotal and historical examples. The Social Process of Lobbying provides refreshingly new empirical evidence and theoretical analysis on how networks of trust are neither all good nor all bad but are ambivalent: they can both improve policy and fuel collusion.
Download or read book Lobbying for Libraries and the Public s Access to Government Information written by Bernadine E. Abbott-Hoduski and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Structured like a memoir, with tips about lobbying interwoven throughout, Lobbying for Libraries is a lively account of one woman's 21-year mission to get funding for libraries to establish systems that improve the way information is distributed nationwide. She offers valuable guidelines on how to lobby as an individual or group, design a bill, communicate with policy makers through traditional and new technologies, and how to influence the legislative process. Hoduski has quilted the fabric of her experiences in policy making into an insightful book that is as entertaining as it is useful.
Download or read book The People s Lobby written by Elisabeth S. Clemens and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1997-09-02 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clemens sheds new light on how farmers, workers, and women invented strategies to circumvent the parties. Voters learned to monitor legislative processes, to hold their representatives accountable at the polls, and to institutionalize their ongoing participation in shaping policy. Closely analyzing the organizational politics in three states -- California, Washington, and Wisconsin -- she demonstrates how the political opportunity structure of federalism allowed regional innovations to exert leverage on national political institutions.
Download or read book Lobbying for Social Change written by Willard C. Richan and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book King of the Lobby written by Kathryn Allamong Jacob and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles the lobbyist known for his deployment of alcohol, fine meals, and stirring conversation at parties, where he shaped the face of Gilded Age America.
Download or read book Lobbying and Government Relations written by Charles S. Mack and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1989-06-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ... a comprehensive, `insider's view' of the array of techniques that can be used to influence governmental policies and decisions. The text describes the origins of lobbying and illustrates the resources and tactics that are used by state and federal lobbyists. The reader learns `the ins and outs' of coalitions, grassroots strategy and political action committees. Mack concludes with a visionary look at lobbying in the future and presents a very useful summary of `Sources and Resources' that are useful in government relations work. Corporate Public Issues Written for executives of corporations, trade associations, labor unions, and other organizations interested in influencing legislation and regulations, this book is a comprehensive handbook on the array of techniques and technologies that can be used to influence governmental policies and decisions. Mack describes how to start or revitalize government relations programs at the federal, state, or local levels and presents a variety of tools designed to maximize the reader's understanding of how particular processes can be applied in practice, including step-by-step guidance and several models. Thorough coverage of issues such as planning, organization, and analysis as well as detailed information about specific government relations techniques, particularly direct lobbying, make this an invaluable resource that belongs on the bookshelf of every corporate executive with a need to start, reassess, or revitalize government relations programs in their companies; executives and leaders of trade associations, labor unions, public interest groups, and other organizations with a similar need; government officials, including legislators and their staffs, with an interest in exploring how the private sector approaches government relations; civic and community leaders wishing to learn how the lobbying process operates; and political science students, both graduate and undergraduate, with a need for a practical book on the lobbying arts to supplement the many scholarly works on interest group analysis. Mack emphasizes the importance of sound advance planning and mobilization of resources and explains how to analyze needs, how to research and evaluate the importance of issues, how to develop lobbying strategies, and how to manage a government relations staff. A special section on Sources and Resources lists a variety of publications, periodicals, information services, and organizations that can aid in the research process. Specific techniques are covered in-depth including different forms of direct lobbying, lobbying at the federal and state levels, the utilization of coalitions and trade associations, grass-roots lobbying, and the use of political action committees. Mack concludes with a look at the future, exploring the new forces and issues confronting government relations practitioners and the new technologies drawn from marketing and politics that will revolutionize the field by the end of the century.
Download or read book Lobbying and Policy Change written by Frank R. Baumgartner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 2008 election season, politicians from both sides of the aisle promised to rid government of lobbyists’ undue influence. For the authors of Lobbying and Policy Change, the most extensive study ever done on the topic, these promises ring hollow—not because politicians fail to keep them but because lobbies are far less influential than political rhetoric suggests. Based on a comprehensive examination of ninety-eight issues, this volume demonstrates that sixty percent of recent lobbying campaigns failed to change policy despite millions of dollars spent trying. Why? The authors find that resources explain less than five percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts. Moreover, they show, these attempts must overcome an entrenched Washington system with a tremendous bias in favor of the status quo. Though elected officials and existing policies carry more weight, lobbies have an impact too, and when advocates for a given issue finally succeed, policy tends to change significantly. The authors argue, however, that the lobbying community so strongly reflects elite interests that it will not fundamentally alter the balance of power unless its makeup shifts dramatically in favor of average Americans’ concerns.
Download or read book Lobbying and Advocacy written by Deanna Gelak and published by TheCapitol.Net Inc. This book was released on 2008 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gelak offers a comprehensive guide for lobbyists and Washington advocates that reveals top strategies for winning as an effective lobbyist or advocate, practical resources and methods for maintaining compliance, and extensive lists of resources.
Download or read book Lobbying in the new Europe written by Klemens Joos and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-05-06 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Treaty of Lisbon came into effect on 1 December 2009. It gives the EU a new primary law framework and has significantly enhanced its competence and importance, thereby causing a remarkable increase in the EU's influence. Certain changes in the voting procedures should be particularly significant for companies: alongside the double majority rule in Council decisions, under the Lisbon Treaty, only a majority is now required in many areas previously governed by the principle of unanimity. Foremost examples here are justice and internal affairs, foreign trade and agriculture. Persuading its own national government that its concerns are legitimate is, therefore, only of limited benefit to a company as individual Member States can easily be outvoted in Brussels. A strong position in the company's "home Member State" only can rapidly become an insignificant minority position. Nevertheless, European actions and procedures remain obscure and inaccessible for many company heads. Companies, for this reason, often fail to see many opportunities and chances which a deeper understanding of and a strong presence in the European capital can offer a business. It is not simply the underlying conditions for companies in one Member State which are at stake, but rather the conditions governing an internal market with around 500 million consumers. The need for effective and efficient lobbying has increased due to the recent renaissance of the State observed in the crisis: in the context of partial nationalisation, far-reaching regulation of entire sectors and a general increase in state control of company decisions, good channels of communication to legislative and executive decision-makers are more important than ever. The publication helps to guide companies through the intricacies of Brussels and offers an insight into the complex but diverse and interesting service of lobbying. It is designed as a practical tool especially for decision-makers and executives in companies. Numerous figures and tables illustrate the text. Main topics include the characteristics of lobbying at the European level, taking account of the changes brought about by the Treaty of Lisbon, the notion of a lobbyist's "practical tools" and finally suggestions for a company's strategic positioning vis-a-vis decision makers in the European legislature and executive.
