Strength in Numbers : The Political Power of Weak Interests / Gunnar Trumbull.
2012
HC79.C63 T78 2012eb
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Title
Strength in Numbers : The Political Power of Weak Interests / Gunnar Trumbull.
Author
Trumbull, Gunnar, author.
ISBN
9780674067714
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2012]
Copyright
©2012
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (216 p.) : 2 line illustrations, 4 graphs, 5 tables
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/harvard.9780674067714 doi
Call Number
HC79.C63 T78 2012eb
Summary
Many consumers feel powerless in the face of big industry's interests. And the dominant view of economic regulators (influenced by Mancur Olson's book The Logic of Collective Action, published in 1965) agrees with them. According to this view, diffuse interests like those of consumers are too difficult to organize and too weak to influence public policy, which is determined by the concentrated interests of industrial-strength players. Gunnar Trumbull makes the case that this view represents a misreading of both the historical record and the core logic of interest representation. Weak interests, he reveals, quite often emerge the victors in policy battles. Based on a cross-national set of empirical case studies focused on the consumer, retail, credit, pharmaceutical, and agricultural sectors, Strength in Numbers develops an alternative model of interest representation. The central challenge in influencing public policy, Trumbull argues, is not organization but legitimation. How do diffuse consumer groups convince legislators that their aims are more legitimate than industry's? By forging unlikely alliances among the main actors in the process: activists, industry, and regulators. Trumbull explains how these "legitimacy coalitions" form around narratives that tie their agenda to a broader public interest, such as expanded access to goods or protection against harm. Successful legitimizing tactics explain why industry has been less powerful than is commonly thought in shaping agricultural policy in Europe and pharmaceutical policy in the United States. In both instances, weak interests carried the day.
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Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)
In
E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2012
E-BOOK PACKAGE HISTORY; POLITICAL SCIENCE, SOCIOLOGY 2012
E-BOOK PAKET GESCHICHTE, POLITIKWISS., SOZIOLOGIE 2012
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
E-BOOK PACKAGE HISTORY; POLITICAL SCIENCE, SOCIOLOGY 2012
E-BOOK PAKET GESCHICHTE, POLITIKWISS., SOZIOLOGIE 2012
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
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Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Chapter 1. The Political Power of Weak Interests
Chapter 2. Three Worlds of Consumer Protection
Chapter 3. Consumer Mobilization in Postwar France
Chapter 4. Interest Group Coalitions and Institutional Structures
Chapter 5. Policy Narratives and Diffuse Interest Representation
Chapter 6. The Limits of Regulatory Capture
Chapter 7. The Limits of Lobbying
Chapter 8. Coalitions and Collective Action
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Contents
Chapter 1. The Political Power of Weak Interests
Chapter 2. Three Worlds of Consumer Protection
Chapter 3. Consumer Mobilization in Postwar France
Chapter 4. Interest Group Coalitions and Institutional Structures
Chapter 5. Policy Narratives and Diffuse Interest Representation
Chapter 6. The Limits of Regulatory Capture
Chapter 7. The Limits of Lobbying
Chapter 8. Coalitions and Collective Action
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index