Laura A. Wilson

Societal Complexity and Interest-Group Lobbying in the American States

An analysis of more than 39 thousand lobbying efforts reveals four dimensions of activity. In broad outline, the proportion of lobbyists is the same at the state and national levels. The factors are used to test the hypothesis that societal complexity is the fundamental cause of this interest-group activity. Surprisingly, no measure of complexity except state population is associated with any type of lobbying, and even population is not significantly related to two of the four factors.

Staying Connected: MPA Student Perceptions of Transactional Presence

Abstract Online education has increased exponentially in the past five years and is now considered part of mainstream higher education. It has significantly changed bricks and mortar institutions, but has the change been effective? One of the most common concerns regarding online education is the physical separation between teachers and students (Robertson, Grant, & Jackson, 2005; Moore, 1997). In order to bridge the physical distance of online education, Shin (2003, 2002) argues that universities should enhance transactional presence. However, little is known about transactional presence and online public administration courses. This study examines Master’s of Public Administration (MPA) student perceptions of transactional presence with two groups: faculty and peers. Findings support previous research of no significant difference between teaching mediums in regards to student perceptions. Contrary to previous studies, neither ethnicity nor gender appear to play a prominent role in whether students are satisfied with the contact they have with peers or with faculty.

Interest Groups and Criminal Behavior

The fundamental origins of legal codes are little understood. According to pluralists, laws are beneficial public goods that evolve from open political competition. An economic model sees laws as the product of selfish motivations and illegitimate lobbying pressures. These models make conflicting predictions about the role that interest groups play in promoting respect for law and the general level of criminal activity. When other obvious factors are controlled, we find that states with many interest groups have a higher level of personal crime, but a lower level of property crime. These findings suggest that the different political cultures which exist in the United States are related to how people act cooperatively and competitively in society. The findings also suggest that we should rethink our theories about the role that conflict and cooperation play in affecting popular support for legal systems.

Organizing for Public Policy Effect: Aggregate Affiliated Interests in the American States*

Recent advances in the study of organizations suggest that various environmental characteristics should affect the structural characteristics of interest groups. We explore this thesis using a data set of lobbying in the American states. We use OLS regression to determine the effect of variables to measure the concepts of societal system, political culture, lobbyist registration, and state expenditures. We find that the most important variable is the total number of state lobbying efforts. In addition, as the number of lobbying increases among the states we found that a larger proportion of lobbying has been conducted by interest groups acting on their own, instead of creating affiliated aggregates. In addition, adding more variables does not increase the explanative value of the model.