The Influence of Lobbying Activityin State Legislatures: Evidence from Wisconsin

This study attempts to assess the degree of influence interest groups can exert on the state policy process, specifically via their lobbying activities. The analysis uses data from the 2005–06 Wisconsin Legislative Session to assess the association between lobbying activity and legislative outcomes in one state legislature. The study finds a direct association between lobbying activities and bill outcomes, while also exploring the potential influences of both key political actors and public attention. Public attention is found to reduce the effects of lobbying efforts, suggesting that lobbying is most effective when focused on less salient issues.     

Barack and Slumdog Millionaire

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

The Value of Majority Status: The Effect of Jeffords's Switch on Asset Prices of Republican and Democratic Firms

Using the change in party control of the Senate that resulted from Jim Jeffords's 2001 change in party affiliation, we compare competing partisan and partyless legislative theories. We offer a reconceptualization of agenda control that provides a new and promising basis for studying parties and policymaking in the Senate. Also, we present a novel methodology—an “event study”—to test partisan and partyless hypotheses. Our results show that, when Jeffords switched, the stock prices of Republican‐supported energy firms dropped and prices for Democrat‐supported firms rose, supporting the hypothesis that the majority party influences Senate decisions.     

The Third Wave's Third Way

The profound consequences of the cultural revolution of the 1960s are still catching up with us decades later. Breaking free of the soft shackles of deadening bureaucratic institutions and the strangling confines of tradition has ended up leaving the liberated individual standing alone in the world, fodder for the flexible labor markets of the new economy and an easy target for the pervasive assaults of the consumer marketing machine.     

China: From Democracy Wall to the Shopping Mall and Back

Who would have thought that tainted pet food and toys would threaten to unravel the authoritarian export model of Chinese growth that the brutal Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 was meant to secure?     

From the Faith-Gap to Post-Liberalism

T he historian G ary W ills has aptly pointed out that, culturally speaking, the outcome of the recent A merican election may have taken us back to the time before the S copes M onkey T rial . M ore A mericans today believe in the immaculate conception than in evolution. F orty-three percent describe themselves as born-again C hristians . A arthur S chlesinger J r. argues there are today more evangelicals, a key constituency of the first faith-based presidency in A merican history, than mainline P rotestants .     

Electoral Strategy,Committee Membership,and Rent Seeking in the Taiwanese Legislature, 1992–2001

While the electoral system undoubtedly influences legislative behavior, it does not necessarily have a uniform effect on all legislators. In this article, I argue that the different strategies that candidates choose in the quest for office result in differing incentives once the candidates have been elected. In the Taiwanese context, candidates who adopt a campaign strategy based on organization will tend to engage in more rent‐seeking activities once in the legislature, in order to offset the heavy financial burden of this strategy. From 1992 to 2001, Taiwanese legislators whose votes were highly concentrated in a small number of precincts tended to serve significantly more time on committees with the most rent‐seeking opportunities than did legislators with far less concentrated support. Legislators whose votes were spread more evenly across the entire electoral district and legislators elected from the party lists tended to serve more time on committees with little rent‐seeking potential.