Interest group participation in rule making: A decade of change

Abstract

Ten years ago we completed a survey that examined interest group participation in the rule-making process. At the time, it was the first major study to examine the role of interest groups in one of the most important policy-making venues in our democratic system. This article reexamines interest group participation in rule making a decade later. We focus most of the study on comparisons in how organizations access rule-making agencies, what techniques are used to lobby agencies, and the perceived effectiveness of these techniques by the organizations themselves. In addition, given the relatively new phenomenon of e-rule making and the increase of other electronic communication techniques, we open an examination of interest groups use of these forms of communications and their implications. We find that rule making continues to be a primary concern of organizations trying to influence federal public policy, even as they have focused more on campaign and grassroots activities. In some ways, these efforts are more important now than they were ten years ago. © 2005 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc.; all rights reserved.