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This chapter introduces the concepts and the structure employed by this book to address three questions on corruption: Why do some developing democracies experience much higher levels of corruption than others? How does the behavior of business interest groups relate to political corruption? How do legislative institutions governing the policy process promote or restrain corruption through the rules of engagement they provide to political and business actors? It first defines the meaning of the terms “political corruption,” “corruption,” and “lobbying”, since these terms have been used to describe a wide range of behaviors. It then discusses the problem scholars face in measuring corruption, and its ramifications for any research on the topic. The second section presents the puzzle motivating this book: the wide variation in the levels of corruption experienced by countries. It analyzes the most prominent theories that have been used to explain corruption and business lobbying. This is followed by a discussion of some of the limitations faced by current theoretical and empirical approaches in understanding these phenomena. It then previews the argument that legislative institutions drive variation in corruption levels by motivating specific patterns of behavior among special interest groups. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

The purpose of this chapter is to assess who are the actors leading the charge for and against affirmative action in the most recent U.S. Supreme Court cases on affirmative action in the 21^st century. We are interested in the primary “lobbyist” of the Court during cases dealing with higher education and affirmative action (Gratz/Grutter and Fisher I and II) who make use of amicus briefs to make their cases for and against the policy. Amicus briefs are often described as “friends of the court” because they provide unique information to the court as well as elucidate broader social and political implications of the case's potential decision. However, scholars also argue that such briefs act to lobby the court for a specific resolution. While we look at all variation in authorship (e.g., individuals, civic organizations; universities, etc.), we pay particular attention to advocacy groups who have joined the fight for and against affirmative action in the public arena. Concerning opponents of affirmative action, scholars have stated that the backlash in the U.S. over policies and initiatives associated with the Civil Rights Movement has been led by elite-backed advocacy organizations, including special interest groups and think tanks.

This chapter reviews trade policy in services, which serves to introduce the reader not only to the peculiar role of domestic regulations in services trade, but also to the need to tackle the adverse trade effects of non-discriminatory domestic policy instruments when seeking to establish a framework of rules for the liberalization of services trade. It reviews the intricacy and ubiquity of the remaining barriers to trade in services, and demonstrates that in services, domestic regulations constitute the most onerous trade barriers in the absence of any trade impediments at the borders. Theoretically, there is a bundle of genuine reasons that may lead governments to regulate services, depending on the services sector involved. While inherent in services trade, regulatory diversity can be trade-distortive if it is not the result of legitimate regulatory intervention, but rather an attempt to protect few domestic interests.

This chapter suggests that the American political system is a factocracy, a democracy not of individuals but of competing interest groups or factions. Using their collective resources, factions are able to influence politicians and government officials, thus shaping legislation and policy in accordance with their special interests. In the case of foreign policy formulation, the effectiveness of special interests is helped along by the normal indifference the general public shows toward events abroad, in effect making the process privatized. The final part of this chapter provides a brief look at how factocracy emerged in the US and how it has helped shape the country's foreign policy in events dating back to the time of the founding fathers until the nineteenth and early twentieth century, including the Mexican War and the Spanish-American War.

History has shown that American foreign policy influenced by the power of special interest groups has often lead to disaster, as in the case of the Vietnam War and the invasion of Iraq. Yet the general manner by which much of American foreign policy is formulated is expected to continue because of natural localism that make Americans tend to be indifferent to international affairs and susceptible to media manipulation, leaving the process in the hands of competing factions with parochial interests. Under such circumstances, it should come as no surprise that the general population never demands structural change. Thus, interest group politics will continue to define how political business is done in the US, and this would appear to be the case for the foreseeable future.

This chapter examines whether tax reform is good for business and whether a tax reform that is good for business is also good for the country. It looks at official positions of various business organizations (big business, small business, and special interest groups) and how different businesses view various reforms compared with most academic economists. It suggests that fundamental tax reform cannot be realized unless there is significant support from the business community, and that tax policies that encourage businesses to invest and employ new workers are good for the citizenry at large. The chapter also considers the theory of tax incidence, along with the administrative and compliance costs that accompany a complex tax system.

The local wireless environment has been the setting for the co-existence of licensed mobile communications operators and unlicensed WiFi Internet access providers. The IEEE802.11 family of standards, developed for WiFi services in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), has dominated standards-setting. However, the burgeoning demand for mobile access to the Internet has led to competition for space on the spectrum. Left unaddressed, this co-existence has created practical issues of potential territorial incursion, technical interference, and, ultimately, device underperformance and service degradation. The chapter focuses on the IEEE’s efforts to create a co-existence standard in a crowded and highly contested standards-making space. It shows how alternative standards-making organizational contexts, based on licensed spectrum standards traditions, were able to develop and insert co-existence standards for WiFi ahead of the IEEE initiative. The chapter explains how the IEEE developed its 802.11ax co-existence standard in this environment.

Formal policy analysis including cost-benefit analysis and quantitative policy equation system such as macroeconomic simulation model can be expected to be a strong and high performing analytical tool for a long time in developed countries. Cost-benefit analysis has been widely utilized with minor importance, but other formal approaches especially macroeconomic modelling and simulation have only had a narrow role for policy formation or policy making process in Japan. This paper considers the reasons why such formal analysis has been only restricted to exploit in policy making process from economic, political and historical points of view, and suggests making use of formal policy analysis more especially macroeconomic model approach with the Cabinet real coordination and international practical cooperation in order to fix public finance failure and to increase transparency of policy formation process in Japan.

This chapter discusses how political decisions made by baby boomers in powerful special interest groups destroyed the lives of those with less power. Guided by ignorance, fear, apathy, or a quest for power, baby boomers developed the systemic social structures of a drug war that left a bleak social landscape of desolate communities, broken families, and ruined lives. They transformed the American Dream into an American nightmare for many. They sucked the humanity out of medical, health, and social services that were created to relieve the suffering of vulnerable lives. The War on Drugs spread to become omnipresent in every facet of social life, corrupting the fabric of society and the social contract with authority. Not all baby boomers supported it, but their silence was interpreted as consent. This chapter argues that it is their war. It is their legacy. It is up to them to end the war and begin social reconstruction of a devastated society and social recovery for those who are hurting.