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Abstract
With a sample of nearly 900 voluntary associations, we give a detailed account of what membership benefits are provided by interest groups, and we place these results in the context of a typology of groups. Using a multivariate analysis of membership inducements, we show that the pursuit of collective goods by groups is not always a mere "by-product" made possible by the provision of selective material incentives, as Olson (1965) contended. Three things help groups overcome the collective goods dilemma: (1) members representing institutions are more likely than autonomous individuals to value the pursuit of collective goods; (2) group patrons and large donors who subsidize associations place a high value upon representation before government and are not interested in paying for benefits that are distributed to individual group members; and (3) once a threatening environment of policy conflict emerges, autonomous individuals are more likely to realize that cherished rights, programs, or group goals are threatened, and they are increasingly willing to join and support groups in exchange for only collective benefits. We also show that about half of the groups in Washington, DC, count institutions--not autonomous individuals--among their members, and we call for a theory of group membership that accounts for the differences among members.
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Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue. Established in 1939 and published for the Southern Political Science Association, The Journal of Politics is a leading general-interest journal of political science and the oldest regional political science journal in the United States. The scholarship published in The Journal of Politics is theoretically innovative and methodologically diverse, and comprises a blend of the various intellectual approaches that make up the discipline. The Journal of Politics features balanced treatments of research from scholars around the world, in all subfields of political science including American politics, comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and political methodology.
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Since its origins in 1890 as one of the three main divisions of the University of Chicago, The University of Chicago Press has embraced as its mission the obligation to disseminate scholarship of the highest standard and to publish serious works that promote education, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. Today, the Journals Division publishes more than 70 journals and hardcover serials, in a wide range of academic disciplines, including the social sciences, the humanities, education, the biological and medical sciences, and the physical sciences.
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The Journal of Politics © 1992
The University of Chicago Press
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journal article
Benefits and Membership: A Reappraisal of Interest Group ActivityThe Western Political Quarterly
Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1976)
, pp. 258-273 (16 pages)
Published By: University of Utah
//doi.org/10.2307/448108
//www.jstor.org/stable/448108
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Abstract
This is an empirical study of interest group activity. Staff and members of several voluntary municipal associations were interviewed in an attempt to ascertain what, and how, services account for organizational membership and maintenance. The analysis focuses on political behavior as an exchange process.
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The Western Political Quarterly © 1976 Sage Publications, Inc.
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