Competitive interests : competition and compromise in American interest group politics /

Holyoke (California State Univ., Fresno) sets out to develop a richer, more accurate portrait of how organized interests work to get what they want in Washington, DC. He argues that interest group theory over the past 40 years has deemphasized the role of competition so much that it no longer reflects the complex relations among interest groups in contemporary politics. Drawing from interviews with dozens of lobbyists, he succeeds in developing a robust theory of group behavior at the national level. Holyoke provides an important contribution to scholarship of group politics by bringing together literatures addressing collective action and legislative lobbying. Doing so yields important insights regarding the potentially competing incentives lobbyists may face. Foremost among those insights is his argument that the complex demands made by lobbyists make them not only important brokers of representation, but also work to produce more sanguine policy outcomes than critics of group behavior charge. Holyoke extends previous work and builds new lines of thought that future scholars will certainly explore. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduate collections and above. R. M. Alexander Ohio Northern University