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Abstract

The inflow of money into politics and the influence of interest groups on policies are well-documented, but the monetary value of accessing policymakers is less wellunderstood. As a result, it is unclear what inferences researchers can draw from lobbying expenditures about interest groups’ strategies and their ideological alignment with policymakers. We study a model of informational lobbying with a collective decisionmaking body and endogenous reforms to investigate the determinants of the value of access. We show that the funds flowing to a given policymaker depend not only on this policymaker’s ideology and procedural power, but also on the overall distribution of preferences and power among other policymakers. Two policymakers with the same ideology and procedural power might therefore attract different amounts of contributions, depending on the preferences of fellow policymakers. Our results help clarify empirical research linking lobbying expenditures by interest groups to politicians’ ideologies and power.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Awad, E. & Minaudier, C. (2025). Persuasive Lobbying and the Value of Connections. American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), which is to be published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12965. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited
Publisher Keywords:	Lobbying, Access, Special interest groups, Campaign contributions, Persuasion, Strategic Information Transmission
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Economics
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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