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Information as Lobbying, or Lobbying as Information? Argument Quality, Group Credibility, and Heuristic Processing in Congress
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Abstract:
Do legislators� cognitive limitations affect which lobbyists they listen to and which advocacy arguments they accept or reject? In this paper I report my findings from an original experiment that simulates how lobbyists communicate with members of Congress. I recruited 139 Washington-based staff in House and Senate personal and committee offices to participate in an �in-box� simulation that asked them to learn about several policy issues and recommend a hypothetical health care policy agenda for the 110th Congress. The experiment is a 2 x 2 repeated-measures design with four experimental conditions. The experiment includes two within-subjects factors: (1) Advocacy Argument Quality and (2) Interest Group Credibility. The first factor is the qualitative nature of the advocacy argument�normative or instrumental�conveyed by a hypothetical interest group coalition. The second factor is the homogeneity of organizations that comprise the coalitions, with homogeneous coalitions being credible and heterogeneous coalitions non-credible. The point of the repeated-measures design was to nullify the alternative hypothesis that policy decisions are based entirely on pre-existing issue preferences. I am able to reject the null hypotheses and support my theory that legislative policymakers use argument quality and interest group credibility as cognitive heuristics when making decisions about policy priorities. I discuss the implications of my findings for the lobbying as legislative subsidy model and the deliberative theory of interest representation.
Most Common Document Word Stems: inform (112), interest (90), group (89), legisl (89), credibl (87), polici (85), argument (85), issu (66), lobbyist (55), polit (54), lobbi (49), sourc (49), coalit (46), decis (43), la (38), pira (38), instrument (37), advocaci (37), congress (37), make (36), qualiti (34),

Author's Keywords: interest groups, lobbying, Congress, decision making	Convention Need a solution for abstract management? All Academic can help! Contact us today to find out how our system can help your annual meeting. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: MPSA Annual National Conference URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~mpsa/
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p266203_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

La Pira, Timothy. "Information as Lobbying, or Lobbying as Information? Argument Quality, Group Credibility, and Heuristic Processing in Congress" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the MPSA Annual National Conference, Palmer House Hotel, Hilton, Chicago, IL, Apr 03, 2008 Online <APPLICATION/PDF>. 2008-06-25 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p266203_index.html>

La Pira, T. M. (2008, Apr) "Information as Lobbying, or Lobbying as Information? Argument Quality, Group Credibility, and Heuristic Processing in Congress" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the MPSA Annual National Conference, Palmer House Hotel, Hilton, Chicago, IL Online <APPLICATION/PDF> Retrieved 2008-06-25 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p266203_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Abstract: Do legislators� cognitive limitations affect which lobbyists they listen to and which advocacy arguments they accept or reject? In this paper I report my findings from an original experiment that simulates how lobbyists communicate with members of Congress. I recruited 139 Washington-based staff in House and Senate personal and committee offices to participate in an �in-box� simulation that asked them to learn about several policy issues and recommend a hypothetical health care policy agenda for the 110th Congress. The experiment is a 2 x 2 repeated-measures design with four experimental conditions. The experiment includes two within-subjects factors: (1) Advocacy Argument Quality and (2) Interest Group Credibility. The first factor is the qualitative nature of the advocacy argument�normative or instrumental�conveyed by a hypothetical interest group coalition. The second factor is the homogeneity of organizations that comprise the coalitions, with homogeneous coalitions being credible and heterogeneous coalitions non-credible. The point of the repeated-measures design was to nullify the alternative hypothesis that policy decisions are based entirely on pre-existing issue preferences. I am able to reject the null hypotheses and support my theory that legislative policymakers use argument quality and interest group credibility as cognitive heuristics when making decisions about policy priorities. I discuss the implications of my findings for the lobbying as legislative subsidy model and the deliberative theory of interest representation.

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