Who Gets What Now? Interest Groups under Obama
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Matt Grossmann
President Obama, like countless politicians before him, has pledged to cleanse Washington of the unseemly influence of interest groups on the policymaking process. His plan is to expand the scope of group participation and eliminate quid pro quo exchanges. Yet early signals indicate that he has brought the same previously prominent interest groups (both conservatives and liberals) into policy discussions over the stimulus bill, children's health insurance, health care reform, and entitlement control. Early policy changes also appear to offer substantial benefits to interest groups and constituencies associated with the Democratic Party.I argue that these patterns are typical and should be expected to continue. The involvement of various interest groups and constituencies in Washington policymaking is governed by their relative organizational mobilization, independent of ideology. Yet the extent to which party leaders heed their advice follows largely from their ties to partisan coalitions and their views. Despite campaign claims that interest group influence must be hindered before policy proposals can move forward, policy change comes much more easily to Washington than changes in the role of interest groups in the policymaking process.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction
- The Obama Administration: Setting Up a Government
- Article
- Presidential Voting and the Local Variability of Economic Hardship
- The Legitimacy of Inexperience: Leadership from Outside
- Cautionary Tales from the Clinton Administration: First Year Lessons the New Democratic President Can Learn from the Last One
- Mandates, Honeymoons, and the Obama Administration
- Who Gets What Now? Interest Groups under Obama
- The Leadership Style of Barack Obama: An Early Assessment
- Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Future of the "New American Party System"
- Obama's Ethics Agenda: The Challenge of Coordinated Change
- Obama and the Federal Judiciary: Great Expectations but Will He Have a Dickens of a Time Living up to Them?
- Understanding the Obama Presidency
- Turning the Tables: Individual Contributions, Member Contributions, and the Changing Campaign Finance Environment
- Review
- Review of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do
- Review of Congressional Travels: Places, Connections, and Authenticity
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction
- The Obama Administration: Setting Up a Government
- Article
- Presidential Voting and the Local Variability of Economic Hardship
- The Legitimacy of Inexperience: Leadership from Outside
- Cautionary Tales from the Clinton Administration: First Year Lessons the New Democratic President Can Learn from the Last One
- Mandates, Honeymoons, and the Obama Administration
- Who Gets What Now? Interest Groups under Obama
- The Leadership Style of Barack Obama: An Early Assessment
- Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Future of the "New American Party System"
- Obama's Ethics Agenda: The Challenge of Coordinated Change
- Obama and the Federal Judiciary: Great Expectations but Will He Have a Dickens of a Time Living up to Them?
- Understanding the Obama Presidency
- Turning the Tables: Individual Contributions, Member Contributions, and the Changing Campaign Finance Environment
- Review
- Review of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do
- Review of Congressional Travels: Places, Connections, and Authenticity
