Interest Group Politics in America
Interest Group Politics in America

Author: Ronald J. Hrebenar

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9781563247033

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Interest Group Politics in America is a concise, readable, and up-to-date introduction to the study of group power. This third edition of the book gives expanded attention to the changing dynamics of power politics in America; new media venues and grassroots organizing techniques; the role of PACs, referenda, and direct action; and the perennial issue of reform.

Regulation and Public Interests
Regulation and Public Interests

Author: Steven P. Croley

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-01-10

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1400828147

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Not since the 1960s have U.S. politicians, Republican or Democrat, campaigned on platforms defending big government, much less the use of regulation to help solve social ills. And since the late 1970s, "deregulation" has become perhaps the most ubiquitous political catchword of all. This book takes on the critics of government regulation. Providing the first major alternative to conventional arguments grounded in public choice theory, it demonstrates that regulatory government can, and on important occasions does, advance general interests. Unlike previous accounts, Regulation and Public Interests takes agencies' decision-making rules rather than legislative incentives as a central determinant of regulatory outcomes. Drawing from both political science and law, Steven Croley argues that such rules, together with agencies' larger decision-making environments, enhance agency autonomy. Agency personnel inclined to undertake regulatory initiatives that generate large but diffuse benefits (while imposing smaller but more concentrated costs) can use decision-making rules to develop socially beneficial regulations even over the objections of Congress and influential interest groups. This book thus provides a qualified defense of regulatory government. Its illustrative case studies include the development of tobacco rulemaking by the Food and Drug Administration, ozone and particulate matter rules by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service's "roadless" policy for national forests, and regulatory initiatives by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public
The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public

Author: Rena Steinzor

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-06-15

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0226772047

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Reasonable people disagree about the reach of the federal government, but there is near-universal consensus that it should protect us from such dangers as bacteria-infested food, harmful drugs, toxic pollution, crumbling bridges, and unsafe toys. And yet, the agencies that shoulder these responsibilities are in shambles; if they continue to decline, lives will be lost and natural resources will be squandered. In this timely book, Rena Steinzor and Sidney Shapiro take a hard look at the tangled web of problems that have led to this dire state of affairs. It turns out that the agencies are not primarily to blame and that regulatory failure actually stems from a host of overlooked causes. Steinzor and Shapiro discover that unrelenting funding cuts, a breakdown of the legislative process, an increase in the number of political appointees, a concurrent loss of experienced personnel, chaotic White House oversight, and ceaseless political attacks on the bureaucracy all have contributed to the broken system. But while the news is troubling, the authors also propose a host of reforms, including a new model for measuring the success of the agencies and a revitalization of the civil service. The People’s Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public is an urgent and compelling appeal to renew America’s best traditions of public service.

I Guarantee It
I Guarantee It

Author: George Zimmer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1582708436

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America knew George Zimmer for one of the most famous slogans in television advertising history: “I guarantee it.” Zimmer rode his promise to lead the Men’s Wearhouse to unimagined success as a retail giant. Now, years removed from his stunning dismissal as leader of the company he founded, I Guarantee It recounts the journey of Zimmer’s rise, the fall of the Men’s Wearhouse, and his personal renewal. For forty-one years, George Zimmer forged a relationship with American men who wanted to like the way they looked without getting too fussy about it. He made them a promise that came straight from the shoulder: “I guarantee it,” he said, and it was ironclad. By the millions, customers walked into The Men’s Wearhouse stores in all fifty states and Canada, where they received “quality, service, and a good price,” where they bought suits, ties, sports coats, and slacks by the tens of billions of dollars. Then a backstabbing — the handpicked board of directors fired Zimmer from the company he had created and developed into the most successful men’s specialty store in world history. Eight years later, Zimmer is back to tell his story: a man raised by a prosperous and loving family, a fun-loving son of the sixties, a merchant, an entrepreneur, a pitchman for the ages. Zimmer’s ouster devastated but did not destroy him. His is a story of hard work and resilience, about a life in business that succeeded beyond belief and followed the Golden Rule. It’s a story that will teach and inspire. He guarantees it.

Pesticides And Politics
Pesticides And Politics

Author: Christopher J. Bosso

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2010-11-23

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0822974436

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Winner of the 1988 Policy Studies Organization Book Award Among the more dramatic changes brought by World War II was the widespread introduction of new synthetic chemical pesticides - products welcomed as technological answers to a whole host of agricultural problems. The dangers posed by these products were often ignored in the rush to get them onto the market. Federal policy primarily reflected the interests of those promoting the new technologies. The risks associated with pesticides, as yet ill-understood, continued to be played down during the 1950s, despite their sudden emergence as a public problem as a result of health scares and fish and wildlife deaths following massive pest eradication campaigns. These events, together with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, spawned the environmental movement of the 1960s.Dramatic changes came in the early 1970s as environmental values permeated the institutions and dynamics of American politics. Such changes produced new priorities, and - in part - a redirection in federal policy on chemical pesticides. The National Environmental Policy Act, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, congressional reforms, and broad popular support opened opportunities for those seeking to alter pesticides policy. But by the mid-1980s, after more than a decade of conflict, that policy is in limbo, caught between powerful environmental, economic, and political forces.How did this happen?Pesticides and Politics traces the long battle over control of pesticides through an analytical framework that is at the same time historical, comparative, and theoretical. Christopher J. Bosso's account analyzes the responses to this complex problem by commercial interests, government, the media, and the public, and shows how the issue evolved over forty years of technological and political change.Bosso's research leads to a number of insights about the U.S. structure of governance. It shows how the system itself determines who gains access to decision making and who is excluded, and how conflicts are redefined as the range of interests attached to them grows. Bosso concludes that for fundamental institutional reasons, as well as political ones, federal pesticides policy lies stalled and impotent in the mid-1980s.Relying heavily on government documents, the sizable literature on environmental politics, and interviews with relevant policy actors, Pesticides and Politics will enlighten students of the public policy process, and also be useful in courses in policy making and policy analysis.