Theodore J. Eismeier

Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections: The Role of Political Action Committees

The spectacular growth in the number and spending of political action committees has made this new breed of political organization an increasingly important actor in congressional elections. Indeed, the strategic use of PAC resources is an important element in the developing theory of how rational political expectations affect congressional elections. The evidence about PACs adduced in support of this theory has thus far emphasized changes in aggregate spending. Using a merged data set of Federal Election Commission records from both the 1980 and 1982 elections, the authors are able for the first time to trace the tactical shifts of individual PACs between years. The analysis provides strong support for the theory of political expectations. Predictable strategic behavior is found for PACs with different contributor motivations. The different motives, furthermore, appear to be quite durable, despite generally convergent behavior by many PACs in 1982. Yet the data also suggest that intraorganizational considerations constrain the strategic choice for some PACs, especially labor committees. Thus, the analysis reveals large disparities in the malleability of pro-Republican and pro-Democratic resources.

Public preferences about government spending: Partisan, social, and attitudinal sources of policy differences

Although the causes and consequences of the growth of government have become the focus of increasing scholarly attention, relatively little empirical research has been done about the nature and determinants of individual fiscal preferences. The present study analyzes patterns of partisan, socioeconomic, and attitudinal differentiation in public spending preferences for a variety of government functions. Two important findings emerge from our analysis. First, attitudes about the adequacy of government spending for each of the functions considered are shown to have two dimensions—a support for spending dimension and a support for change dimension. Second, the patterns of partisan and socioeconomic cleavages about government spending are shown to vary significantly across policy domains. This fracturing of demand structures, it is argued, may be one of the root causes of the performance crisis of political institutions.

Politics and Markets: Corporate Money in American National Elections

The current American debate about the relationship between business and government represents the most significant reopening of that issue since the New Deal. The debate is in part about governments role in the economy, but the issue of businesss role in politics is being joined as well, joined in fact on several fronts. There are, of course, the polemics of corporations and their critics, in which business is cast alternately as victim and villain. The issue also divides more serious students of American politics and has fostered a wealth of theorizing about the role of the state. Finally, the issue of business influence pervades discussions about campaign finance.

An organizational analysis of political action committees

As the number and putative importance of political action committees have grown, so too has scholarly attention to this new breed of political organization. Yet this attention has been uneven. Although much is now known about the aggregate spending patterns of PACs, much less is known about their internal lives. The present study attempts to open the PAC black box to empirical inquiry. Drawing on interviews with the managers of 70 Washington-based political action committees, we suggest how theoretical perspectives about formal voluntary associations may be usefully applied in explaining the behavior of PACs. After examining the relationships among several variables — organizational goals, constituency relations and decision making, strategy, and interorganizational relations — we show how these forces affect the behavior of corporate, trade/membership, labor, and nonconnected PACS.

Business, Money, and the Rise of Corporate PACs in American Elections.

Business in American Politics Corporate PACs in Organizational Perspective PACs and the Politics of Regulation The Political Geography of Corporate PACs PACs and the Campaign Environment Looking Ahead Bibliography