Choosing Battlegrounds: Interest Group Lobbying Across Multiple Venues

Most research on the lobbying strategies of organized interests is venue specific. Yet organized interests frequently lobby in many different kinds of institutional venues, often on a single issue. I develop and test a model of the decision to lobby in one venue over another on a specific issue. Included in the model is the impact of oppositions from opposing interests in a particular venue, a factor that has not been considered in past research. I test the model with data from interviews with lobbyists for groups that were active on the issue of financial modernization between 1997 and 1999. I find significant variation in the amount of lobbying performed by different organizations on this issue in different venues; expectations of opposition from other interests are a significant factor in the decision to lobby in a given venue.