This research looks at the effectiveness of state lobbying in Florida. It evaluates effectiveness through the use of eight case studies: the sugar lobby and the cleanup in the Florida Everglades; the lobby for a raise for tomato pickers in the state; the lobby for increased advertising money for state tourism; the tourism lobby and offshore drilling; the lobby for more accessible healthcare on behalf of state insurance companies; the lobby for an increased tobacco tax; the high-speed rail lobby; and the red light camera lobby. The study concludes that lobbying in Florida is generally effective as groups achieved their desired goals in seven out of eight cases.

The purpose of this research is to examine the legislative process that led to the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act of 1988. This research will look at the original intent of the law, as well as its possible irrelevance today. This research will compare the environment that existed during its creation, and compare it to the drastically different landscape that exists now in the new car market. From this comparison, this paper will recommend a route for the United States to better open trade with other countries and allow more consumer freedom. This research will look at the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act from a political science viewpoint. This analysis will take into consideration the legislative process that led to this act and show that it is an example of the legislative process helping large companies while hurting ordinary consumers. The history of this legislation will show that the justification presented represents protecting consumers from a harmful product. However, the recent history will reveal a government that is quick to make assumptions without regard to facts that disprove the reasoning for this act. This research will seek to use the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act as example of a law that is in need of an update, but has not had any meaningful reform. The goal of this research will be to illustrate why laws that are no longer effective remain without reform.

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Network, organizational, and policy learning literatures indicate that when interest groups face failure they will seek out alternative ideas and strategies that will enhance their potential for future success. Research with regard to interest groups and legal change has found that interest groups, using arguments that were once accepted as the legal standard for Supreme Court decisions, were unwilling or unable to alter their arguments when the Court reversed its position on these legal standards. This research project examined the conflicting findings of these literatures. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework as a guide, this project studied the separationist advocacy coalition in cases regarding state aid to elementary and secondary sectarian schools from 1971 to 2002. The legal briefs filed by members of the separationist advocacy coalition with the Court were examined using content analysis to track changes in their legal arguments. Elite interviews were then conducted to gain an understanding of the rationale for results found in the content analysis. The research expectation was that the separationist advocacy coalition would seek out and incorporate into their briefs new and innovative legal arguments to promote their policy goals. The research results demonstrated that prior to legal change interest groups did seek out and incorporate new legal arguments borrowed from other fora and sought to expand or reinterpret established legal arguments to better aid their policy goals. The changes that seemed to have the potential for adoption by the Court were quickly incorporated into the briefs of the other members of the coalition. Following legal change interest groups continued to analyze the decisions of the Court in order to seek out the best possible legal arguments to use in their briefs; however, the main focus of legal arguments examined and used by the coalition narrowed to those cited by the swing justice in the funding cases. Two innovative arguments were developed, but were either ignored or considered unsuitable, and were not used by the other members of the coalition. Counter to this project's research expectations new and innovative legal arguments were not adopted by the coalition. As the Court discontinued the use of various legal arguments the coalition quickly responded to these changes and dropped those obsolete legal arguments. Therefore, contrary to prior research, the interest groups and the coalition altered their arguments following legal change. Only those interest groups who no longer participated in coalition discussions reverted back to using pre-legal change arguments. Learning continued to occur in the coalition following legal change; however, the focus of analysis and the pool of arguments deemed worthy of use narrowed considerably. / Ph. D.

Yeung Wang On. / Thesis submitted in: November 2006. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-117). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Abstract (Chinese)/ 摘要(中文) --- p.iii / Acknowledgement --- p.v / Contents --- p.vi / Figures and Tables --- p.vii / Abbreviations --- p.viii / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Literature Review --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Long Valley Case Study (1998-2003) --- p.41 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Victoria Harbour Reclamation Case Study (1994-2005) --- p.68 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- Conclusion --- p.99 / Bibliography --- p.106

Diploma thesis "Interest Groups, lobbying and it's regulation in the Czech Republic" deals with the phenomenon of lobbying and it's role in democratic political processes. First part of this thesis is aimed at political theories of interest groups, various definitions of lobbying and methods of regulating lobbyists. The second part containes a comparison of lobbying regulations in various western states. The third part containes an analysis of the present state of lobbying regulation in the Czech Republic. In the final fourth part, certain methods of lobbying regulation are proposed to take place in the Czech Republic and scrutinized for compliance with the oppinion of Czech political elites and professional lobbyists.

There is a great deal of work on campaign finance at the national level, however, state level research is sparse. My dissertation fills this void in the literature by examining the motivations of contributors to state legislators. The literature discusses two major motivations of contributors universalistic contributors, who hope to influence election outcomes, and particularistic contributors who hope to influence legislative votes. The primary hypothesis is that proximity to the general election is the primary factor in explaining contribution patterns in state legislatures; however, proximity to a legislative vote of interest to the contributor will also be significant in explaining contribution patterns. Additionally, the dissertation examines the impact of session limits on contribution patterns. I use campaign contribution data collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics and select twenty-five bills in nine states to test the primary hypothesis. I use a contributor fixed effects model to test for increased or decreased levels of contributions for each contributor, given the proximity to the election and legislative votes important to the contributor. The results indicate that contributions increase across all states in the two months prior to the general and primary elections, and that proximity to the election is the most important factor in explaining campaign contributions in state legislatures. In 32% of all cases in the study, there was direct evidence of interest groups attempting to influence the outcome of legislative votes. Additionally, an increase in contributions close to a major legislative vote occurred in 77% of the cases without session limits, indicating that interest groups are highly active in attempting to influence policy outcomes. An additional examination of contribution patterns indicates that PACs shift their contributions to the beginning of the legislative session when faced with session limits. My research contributes to our understanding of the motives of campaign contributors and their actions when faced with legal restrictions on their contributions. This research, therefore, allows campaign finance reformers to make better reform decisions.

The media has an important role to play in providing information to form the perceptions of media users on HIV/Aids. Furthermore, the media has an agenda setting function through which it determines what news consumers think about, and how they think about these topics they are presented with. Extensive media coverage has been given to the subject of HIV/Aids since the start of the pandemic. The nature of the coverage has, however, been widely criticised, mainly by interest groups actively involved in the fight against the disease. Few formal guidelines exist to guide journalists in this field. Moreover, the existing guidelines that originated mainly from the gaps interest groups identified in the coverage on HIV/Aids, are fairly fragmented. Many newspapers follow the general guidelines set by the media industry for ethical news reporting. These guidelines, such as the ethical code of the Press Ombudsman, are a result of self regulation, which is intrinsic to the social responsibility model that is seen as ideal for South Africa. There are several existing codes offering guidance regarding professional standards and general conduct. Only one - that of the now inactive South African Union of Journalists - includes criteria on HIV/Aids reporting. Through formulating guidelines, interest groups have an agenda setting function and a subsequent potential influence on the media and the public agenda. This paper endeavours to analyse and systematically summarise criteria set by the interest groups for ethically acceptable and accountable HIV/Aids reporting against the background of the agenda setting theory and the social responsibility model. In addition, HIV/Aids reporting in three Sunday papers (the Sunday Times, Sunday Sun and Rapport) is verified against these interest group criteria to ascertain how it measures up, and to determine whether a separate interest group code of ethics is desirable. It was found that the Sunday Times views HIV/Aids as a news priority, while the topic does not feature very high on the agenda of the other two papers. The analysis of news items created the impression that journalists have a basic knowledge of HIV/Aids. However, there is little evidence of deeper insight into the potential impact the media could have on the public's perception of the epidemic. Existing ethics codes compare well to interest group guidelines where general professional standards and ethical aspects are concerned. The interest group guidelines, however, focus on specific problems associated with the epidemic, such as stigma and a tendency to focus on the negative. It is within this applied context that such criteria could be useful. / Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

The understanding of Swedish lobbyism is so far insufficient and misguided. In order to understand Swedish lobbyism better this thesis calls for a shift to theory testing case studies of actors that are capable to lobby in an organized and recurring way. To do this it offers a theoretical framework developed from three established theories of lobbying strategy adjusted for a Swedish context. The purpose of this framework is to chart strategies for how Swedish lobbyists lobby against Members of Parliament (MPs) and if and how these strategies influence MPs’ attitudes towards a policy. The case is the lobbying campaign for a reduced restaurant sales tax from 2000 to 2014 ending with a reduction from 25% to 12%. The study concludes that Swedish lobbyism is built from alliances, trust, perceived seriousity, and public interest, more than actual expertize of a specific topic.

The current study examines the association of macro-level economic factors and the creation or enactment animal cruelty laws across the states at a fixed time. Criminologists have postulated that economic factors influence the legal system (Chambliss and Seidman, 1971). This thesis addresses whether state-level economic and related macro-level factors influences the amount and types of state animal cruelty legislation lawmakers enact. To do so, this thesis examined animal cruelty legislation and their association with measures of agricultural and farm production, Democratic Party, Republican Party, and pro-animal interest groups across all states of the United States for the time period (2012-2013). Findings suggested that three out of the four variables had significant relationships. The Democratic Party had the strongest relationship, but only Animal interests groups had a significant positive relationship. In all, this study explores how economic influence can influence the creation of animal cruelty legislation. Furthermore, the study opened up theoretical methods for more comprehensive analyses on the creation of law.