Cultivating small business influence in the UK: the federation of small businesses' journey from outsider to insider

This case study charts the classic transformation of a small business organisation from being a vehicle of protest that attracted a reasonable but transient membership into a much larger group with a more stable membership and a group with an effective insider policy style. The paper asserts that the change in style and the change in recruiting success are not causally linked, and, indeed, it claims that an insider style may harm recruiting. In the case of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), however, any potential damage through adopting an insider style was more than offset by the separate decision to market the group door to door with a package of selective material incentives (Olson 1965). The paper describes the predominant insider politics style of political representation and finds that while the FSB has moved in that direction, it does not fully fit the stereotype. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Defining Interests: Disambiguation and the Need for New Distinctions?

This article notes the systemic lack of conceptual clarity in the social sciences and attempts to illustrate the adverse consequences by closer examination of the particular example of the interest group field. It indicates the significant ambiguities implicit in the term. Not all policy-influencing organisations are interest groups as normally understood, but because there is a lack of an appropriate label the term interest group is used by default. The article seeks to distinguish between interest groups and other policy relevant bodies—often corporations or institutions. It finds disadvantages in adopting a functional interpretation of the interest group term (i.e. any organisation trying to influence public policy). While the wider range of organisations are crucial in understanding the making of public policy, it is confusing to assume that this wider population are all interest groups. The article instead advances the complementary notions of pressure participant, policy participant and interest group. This slightly expanded repertoire of terms avoids conflating important distinctions, and, in Sartori's term permits 'disambiguation'. The core assumption is that the search for comparative data and exploration of normative questions implies some harmonisation in the interest group currency.     

Assessing the Composition and Diversity of the Australian Interest Group System

Any democratic society requires mechanisms for citizens to have effective political voice. Clearly, political parties provide a key channel for expressing views and preferences. However, organised interests provide another important mechanism for such representation. A crucial question in this regard is whether the interest group system is capable of ensuring the representation of a variety of public and private interests. Resolving these debates requires data that map the terrain and also are attentive to organisational diversity. This article takes up this challenge through exploring the composition and diversity of the Australian system of organised interests, using a new data set based on the Directory of Australian Associations. This system‐level approach delivers important insights into the nature of the Australian interest group system, as well as provides a framework for subsequent work interpreting and contextualising advocacy activities of particular groups, or lobbying dynamics in specific policy domains.     

Outfoxing leviathan: campaigning down Mexico way

This paper is concerned with the end of 71 years of single party government in Mexico. The paper explores the ways in which the opposition harnessed modern campaign techniques to the opportunities presented by democratisation to secure regime transition. A number of campaign features, such as the stress on personality and negative campaigning, have attracted considerable criticism, but the author argues that there are grounds for believing the 2000 election to have been a unique election, and that competition should be more clearly structured around parties and issues in the future. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Interactivity and Branding: Public Political Communication as a Marketing Tool

Online platforms are increasingly used as a means to present brand characteristics to key target groups. Within a political context, websites can act as a shop front from which parties or candidates can advertise their policies and personnel. The increasing use of more interactive forms of communication informs visitors about the overall brand character of the host. This article explores the impact on branding of interactivity by analyzing the online activities undertaken by UK parties and their members elected to the House of Commons during the period 2007 to 2010. Through a process of creating narratives for each of the brands analyzed, based upon a content analysis of the websites and other online presences, this article identifies what characteristics the online shop front is designed to project. This article finds overall that interactivity within online environments is becoming one aspect of the branding of parties, though this is in limited forms and linked more to a marketing communication strategy than seeking to involve or understand site visitors. Members of Parliament who use social networking sites or weblogs, in contrast, have a developed i-branding strategy that enables them to present a strongly interactive brand personality to visitors to their online presences, offering impressions of them as accessible and effective representatives.     

The results of a randomized controlled trial of police body-worn video in Australia

Journal of Experimental Criminology - We report the results of a randomized controlled trial of police body-worn video (BWV) cameras in an Australian context, with a focus on how cameras influence...     

The ballot order effect is huge: evidence from Texas

Primary and runoff elections in Texas provide an ideal test of the ballot order hypothesis, because ballot order is randomized within each county and the state offers many counties and contests to analyze. Doing so for all statewide offices contested in the 2014 Democratic and Republican primaries and runoffs yields precise estimates of the ballot order effect across 24 different contests, including several not studied previously. Except for a few high-profile, high-information races, the ballot order effect is large, especially in down-ballot races for judicial positions. There, the empirical results indicate that going from last to first on the ballot raises a candidate’s vote share by nearly ten percentage points. The magnitude of this effect is not sensitive to demographic and economic factors.