Lobbying and Legislative Organization: The Effect of the Vote of Confidence Procedure

Sven Feldmann, University of Chicago
Morten Bennedsen, Copenhagen Business School

Abstract

This paper analyzes how the structure of the legislature affects interest groups' incentives to lobby. Lobbying is modelled as the strategic provision of information by an interest group to a multi-member legislature, and the effectiveness of lobbying lies in the ability of information to change the winning policy coalitions. We show that with a long enough time horizon for policymakers, the distinguishing feature between the U.S. Congress and European parliamentary systems--the vote of confidence procedure--reduces an agenda setter's willingness to change policy coalitions, and thus significantly lowers the incentives for interest group lobbying.