We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Trust, Coordination, and the Industrial Organization of Political Activism.
- Authors
Battaglini, Marco; Bénabou, Roland
- Abstract
We study political activism by several interest groups with private signals. When their ideological distance to the policymaker is small, a "low-trust" regime prevails: agents frequently lobby even when it is unwarranted, taking advantage of the confirmation provided by others' activism; conversely, the policymaker responds only to generalized pressure. When ideological distance is large, a "high-trust" regime prevails: lobbying behavior is disciplined by the potential contradiction from abstainers, and the policymaker's response threshold is correspondingly lower. Within some intermediate range, both equilibria coexist. We then study the optimal organization of influence activities, contrasting welfare levels when interest groups act independently and when they coordinate.
- Subjects
POLITICAL participation; LOBBYING; PRESSURE groups; ACTIVISM; POLITICAL science
- Publication
Journal of the European Economic Association, 2003, Vol 1, Issue 4, p851
- ISSN
1542-4766
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1162/154247603322493177