More of the Same: Washington Pressure Group Activity in a Decade of Change

Interviews with government affairs representatives in a random sample of 175 Washington lobbying organizations support the popular impression that the volume of pressure group activity has skyrocketed over the past decade. There are many more groups now active on the Washington scene. Moreover, nearly all of them have increased their use of many different kinds of lobbying techniques--not simply, as might be expected, those facilitated by the revolution in electronic technologies or those encouraged by closer representative/constituent relations, but also traditional forms of lobbying. Among the various factors responsible for this explosion in interest group activity are the internal changes in congressional organization since 1974.