Centralization, access, and influence: The Reagan administration and the semiconductor industry's trade complaints

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cortell, AP
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/0952-1895.421997042
• 发表日期: 1997
• 关键词: ECONOMIC-POLICY; state; institutions; britain

摘要

This article explores how the relative centralization of decisionmaking authority can affect a societal group's ability to achieve its interests. It examines the LIS semiconductor industry's efforts to persuade the Reagan administration to press Japan on its import barriers and its firms' trade practices. I find that the industry's eventual success was facilitated by an institutional change that centralized the structure of decisionmaking authority. Centralization proved more favourable to the industry's influence in this erase because it reduced the number of competing state interests involved in policymaking and concentrated authority in state units that shaved the industry's preferences. To account for the change in this structure I focus on the interplay between government officials and policy windows. The analysis suggests that centralization may under some conditions be more conducive than decentralized structures to societal influence, and that modest institutional changes can have significant policy implications.