Political action committees (PACs) are examined within the context of three dominant theories of governing in America and the attendant conflict in preferred campaign funding policy. The heart of the matter is whether or not PACs make a difference in interest group legislative effectiveness for if they don't, then concern for campaign funding reform can be refocused on more fruitful issues. / Easton's political systems model provides the basis for the research design. Inputs into the system are resources a group uses to affect legislation, including PACs. The dependent variable, legislative success, measured whether or not the group was able to get the desired outcome. Controlled are the effects of variables the literature suggests affect legislative behavior examined by interest group and legislation characteristics. / Probit analysis between PACs and success, controlling for group characteristics, revealed PACs to be strongly negative and significant at the.025 level. When controlled for legislative characteristics, PACs were mildly positive and insignificant. Overall, PACs were negative and significant at the.10 level. Primary contributors to the negative correlation are nonprofit organizations having PACs. PACs seem to increase profit group's effectiveness to a level roughly equal that of governmental agencies. Cross-tabs analysis of group and legislation variables with success produced a number of significant relationships showing contributions to legislative success. / This limited study suggests PAC's lack power to obtain interest group legislative success, questioning the need for PAC funding reform and uncritical PAC acceptance by group leaders. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 1064. / Major Professor: Douglas St. Angelo. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76360 |
| Contributors | McMichael, James Frederick., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 170 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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