The Vulnerability Thesis: Interest Group Influence and Institutional Design

by Lorelei Moosbrugger

Overview

Where politics is dominated by two large parties, as in the United States, politicians should be relatively immune to the influence of small groups. Yet narrow interest groups often win private benefits against majority preferences and at great public expense. Why? The “vulnerability thesis” is that the electoral system is largely to blame, making politicians in two-party systems more vulnerable to interest group demands than politicians in multiparty systems. Political scientist Lorelei Moosbrugger ranks democracies on a continuum of political vulnerability and tests the thesis by examining agrochemical policy in Austria, Britain, Germany, Sweden, and the European Union.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300167580
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	06/19/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Lorelei Moosbrugger is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 Interest Group Influence and Institutional Design 1

2 The Vulnerability Thesis 21

3 Evidence from the Environment 37

4 The European Union 63

5 The United Kingdom: Minority Influence and Majority Rule 76

6 Germany: The Politics of Paying the Polluter 94

7 Austria: Political Cover and Policy Choice 110

8 Sweden: Minority Representation and the Majority Interest 121

9 Institutional Design and the Quality of Democracy 138

Notes 151

Bibliography 169

Index 185