What are interest groups? 347amounted to $3 billion every year. That’s a lot of money, but it’s still only about one-
tenth of 1 percent of total federal spending. This difference raises a critical question: If
interest groups can control policy choices by spending money on lobbying, why aren’t
they spending more?Organizational Structures
There are two main models of interest group structure. Most large, well-known
organizations like the AARP and the NR A are centralized groups, which means
the organization’s leadership is concentrated in its headquarters. These national
organizations typically have headquarters in Washington, D.C., field offices in large
state capitals, and members nationwide. Their leaders have the responsibility to
determine the group’s lobbying goals and tactics. The other structural model is a
confederation, which is composed of largely independent, local organizations. For
example, the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association (NIADA) is made
up of 50 state-level organizations that provide membership benefits to car dealers who
join the organization and that raise much of the money that NIADA contributes to
candidates running for political office (several million dollars in recent elections).
Both organizational structures have advantages and disadvantages. A centralized
organization controls all of the group’s resources and can deploy them efficiently,
but it can be challenging for these groups to find out what their members want.
Confederations have the advantage of maintaining independent chapters at the state
and local levels, so it is easier for the national headquarters to learn what their members
want—all they have to do is contact their local groups. But this strength is closely related
to a weakness: confederated groups are often beset with conflict. Since state and local
chapters attract members and raise money largely on their own, they mostly function
independently of the national headquarters. However, the national headquarters
depends on the local organizations for funds to pay its staff and make campaign
contributions. In return, it allows the locals to direct contributions to their preferred
candidates, and different local chapters may disagree over what to lobby for and which
candidates to support.
Some organizations are hard to categorize, such as the Indivisible grassroots
progressive movement that started in 2016 in reaction to the election of Donald Trump.
The organizations that make up this movement are very diverse. Some hold meetings
or public protests, some endorse candidates, and some simply consist of a website
run by one or two people. The issues that motivate each Indivisible organization
also vary widely, from opposition to President Trump’s policies to calls for radical
changes in government. Virtually all the groups lack formal dues-paying members,
a headquarters, and a formal organizational structure, and few engage in the wide
range of lobbying activities that we describe later in this chapter. For all these reasons,
very few of the organizations that identify themselves as part of Indivisible are interest
groups as we describe them here, although some may evolve into formal interest groups
in the future.Staff
Interest group staff fall into two categories: experts on the group’s main policy areas
and people with useful government connections and knowledge of procedures.
The first group includes scientists, engineers, and others with advanced degrees;
the second is dominated by people who have worked inside government as electedcentralized groups
Interest groups that have a
headquarters, usually in Washington,
D.C., as well as members and field
offices throughout the country. In
general, these groups’ lobbying
decisions are made at headquarters
by the group leaders.confederations
Interest groups made up of several
independent, local organizations that
provide much of their funding and
hold most of the power.Full_11_APT_64431_ch10_340-373.indd 347 16/11/18 10:25 AM