What is lobbying and how does it affect outcomes? Analyse using different conceptualisations of lobbying.

Question 1

Conception 1: Lobbying as an exchange - PIV

Answer 1

Groseclose and Snyder (1996) - politicans have a PRICE…exchange bribes for votes (intuitive understanding of vote-buying)
Supermajority coalitions occur because the savings from preventing opposition lobies from INVADING the coalition are lower than what would be paid to retake MWC once invaded
Conceptualizes lobbying as VOTE-buying

Question 2

Conception 2: informational lobbying - ITC

Answer 2

Grossman and Helpman (2001) - lobbying is a form of INFORMATION transfer; everybody wants credible, truthful information to be shared, but ‘cheap talk’ prevents officials from TRUSTING lobbies, as they are incentivized to only share information that benefits them; contingent on misrerepresentation being WORSE for the lobby
Potter and van Winden (1992) - cheap talk can be avoided by COSTLY information transfer; SIGs have private information that could be beneficial to politicians, but cheap talk problem again must be avoid. Transferring information has a cost, i.e. time/effort/research to find and transmit information; only good/truthful SIGs transmit info because bad SIGs don’t have the resources to obtain valuable private information

Question 3

Conception 3: lobbying as a subsidy - AAS

Answer 3

Hall and Deardorff (2006) - Why do SIGs focus on ALLIES as opposed to convincing undecided/opposition officials? Maybe lobbying, i.e. grants/information, is used to support already ALIGNED groups, i.e. assist natural allies in achieving SHARED objectives