Societal Complexity and Interest-Group Lobbying in the American States

Abstract

An analysis of more than 39 thousand lobbying efforts reveals four dimensions of activity. In broad outline, the proportion of lobbyists is the same at the state and national levels. The factors are used to test the hypothesis that societal complexity is the fundamental cause of this interest-group activity. Surprisingly, no measure of complexity except state population is associated with any type of lobbying, and even population is not significantly related to two of the four factors.