| dc.description.abstract | What determines a subnational government’s participation in lobbying the federal government? Why do some subnational governments invest more resources in lobbying the federal government than others? Given a multi-level federalist government structure in the United States, how do the lobbying decisions of local governments affect the lobbying decisions of state governments? Extant research in social science has widely discussed the dynamics of lobbying in the private sector. However, governments lobby governments, too. In the United States, intergovernmental lobbying is an important strategy for subnational governments to obtain resources from and influence policies in a higher-level government. Hundreds of subnational governments directly lobby the federal government and thousands of local governments choose to lobby their state governments each year. Yet, extant research offers little theoretical leverage and even less systematic empirical evidence on what happens when governments lobby governments. The major research goal of this dissertation is to identify and systematically test the determinants of subnational decisions regarding lobbying the federal government on the supply side of public goods.
The dissertation mainly consists of three quantitative essays that focus on the formal lobbying activities of subnational governments. The first essay, “Executive Institutions and Formal Lobbying Activities of American City Governments,” points out that, compared to city governments with political executives, city governments with professional executives are more likely to participate in and spend on hiring professional lobbyists to lobby the federal government. The second essay, “Legislative Professionalism and State Formal Lobbying Activities,” provides evidence that legislative professionalism contributes to state lobbying activities. The third essay, “Bottom-Up Federalism of Formal Lobbying Spending,” borrows the theory of bottom-up federalism in policy diffusion literature and shows when local governments within a state increase their investments in formally lobbying the federal government, the state government increases its investment in formally lobbying the federal government, too. This dissertation contributes to public administration, public policy, and political science literature by offering theoretical and empirical insights into the supply-side factors that influence subnational policymaking, intergovernmental relations, and democratic representation. | en |
