Lobbying as legislative subsidy.

The essay examines lobbying as a sort of legislative subsidy, in which policy intelligence and legislative effort are offered to selected politicians to encourage the fulfillment of specific goals. The article examines lobbying theories and offers an alternative perspective on lobbying as a technique of accomplishing political goals.
What is the major point or question that this author is attempting to answer?
Is lobbying a type of legislative bribery?
What is the major point of the author's argument?
The author’s main argument is that lobbying should be viewed as a legislative subsidy and not persuasion or a form of exchange to better explain previous puzzles on lobbying and fit previous research.

What important concepts and theories are presented?

The author provides a clear understanding of lobbying as a legislative subsidy with five assumptions on legislators behavior and their implications on lobbying. Lobbying theories including persuasion and exchange theories are also well articulated.

What relevance does this text have to the other readings for the week, or themes presented in this course?

The text provides an understanding of the behavior of legislators and the role lobbyists play in achieving certain outcomes in the legislative process. The text also offers a different viewpoint on understanding the role of lobbyists, which is an important aspect in governance.

Does the author discuss an explicit methodology to answer their questions? If so, what?

The author discusses the methodology used which is the consumer choice theory modeling preferences of legislators against budget constraint with subsidy from lobbyists improving the budget constraint.

Does the author effectively convey their argument? What are the weaknesses of the article/chapter? What are its strengths?

The author effectively conveys the argument. The weakness of the article is that it is based on assumptions that may not reflect reality. The strengths of the article include a clear analysis of other models and using the weaknesses of these models as a basis for the new model and utilization of previous research. The article offers in-depth research, provides a succinct and clear model development, and conclusions are based on the model.

Identify 2 questions for a class discussion

Do the five assumptions made in the model reflect the behavior of legislators in congress?

Can the argument of lobbying as legislative subsidy be supported by empirical evidence?



Part Two: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America

My favorite argument in the reading is that the passing of multicultural reform in Colombia and Brazil occurred without much attention or consideration. The fact that the rights of blacks were under consideration makes for an important constitution reform agenda and would call for much scrutiny, but this seems not to have been the case. According to Paschel (81), “nobody, not even those in the black movement, had a real sense of the dimension of the quilombo issue at the time of the constitutional reform.” That the constituents were tired when the provisions were included and that the law was approved because of the very ignorance of the legislators makes for an interesting argument. Paschel (81) states what is evident is that the political elites did not understand what was at stake from recognizing such rights. The article argues that the lack of much attention may have been because of the “global field in which these ethno-racial reforms emerged” providing pressure to pass laws that offered blacks more rights (Paschel. 81).

My question for discussion from reading the section is, what role did the international community play in the achievement of multicultural alignment in Brazil and Colombia?





Works Cite

Hall, Richard L., and Alan V. Deardorff. "Lobbying as legislative subsidy." American Political Science Review 100.01 (2006): 69-84.

Paschel, Tianna S. Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil. Princeton University Press, 2016.