Introduction to the special issue on data sources for interest group research

Abstract

Technological advances, increasing amounts of online governmental records, and transparency efforts by nonprofit organizations have led to a new abundance of data sources for studying the political activities of interest groups. In this special issue, fourteen sets of authors review these data sources and offer advice on how best to make use of them. The data sources discussed include reports filed as required by the Administrative Procedures Act, the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and the Lobbying Disclosure Act, as well as data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, the Comparative Agendas Project, the Comparative Interest Groups survey project, INTERARENA, INTEREURO, MapLight, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, the Political Group Communication Database, and the Wesleyan Media Project.