capital intensive Capital intensive describes productive activity in which high value is placed on non-human resources or technologies that cost money but reduce human interactions and enhance or replace human labor. The oil industry, for example, is highly capital intensive. Modern presidential and gubernatorial campaigning has become quite capital intensive with expensive television advertising, direct mail advertising and fund raising, polling, and internet mobilization taking the place of traditional labor intensive campaigning.

civil disobedience The tradition of civil disobedience in the United States as practiced by Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr., and others involves the use of non-violent resistance to laws perceived to be unjust to bring about changes in the laws and accompanying social practices and attitudes. Disobedience in this tradition is carried out publicly with prior commitment to accepting whatever punishment may follow.

collective action Most of the kinds of goods, services, policies, and goals we care about socially, economically, and politically require that people work together to produce, provide, implement, or achieve them. The problem of collective action is the problem of organizing collective efforts in pursuit of jointly desired ends. Market mechanisms are an important type of collective action providing us with a great many of the things we value. But markets cannot provide everything we collectively value, particularly things best characterized as public goods like clean air or democratic government. These require different approaches to organizing collective action than market mechanisms alone provide.

concentrated benefits Some public policy decisions allocate substantial benefits to only a few individuals or small groups. Such benefits are termed concentrated, typically in contrast to costs which are widely borne. Stadium construction projects at taxpayer expense or with substantial public subsidies, for example, typically produce large wealth gains for a few managers and share-holders while taxpayers collectively foot the bulk of the construction bill and associated risks.

contract lobbyist Contract lobbyists are temporary employees of a group hired specifically to present a group's concerns and proposals to legislators, bureaucrats, and other government officials during a legislative session or for a contractually arranged period of time. Typically, these are individuals with a background in government and a network of governmental connections which they can market to private groups willing to pay for help with getting their concerns and proposals heard by key government decision makers. The ranks of contract lobbyists are full of former legislators, legislative staffers, bureaucrats, party operatives, and lawyers with reputations for expertise in particular policy areas and hefty rolodexes.

excludible A key characteristic of private goods and services is that individuals can be prevented from using, consuming, or enjoying them by pricing mechanisms, the costliness of production, and scarcity. The ability to restrict usage, consumption, or enjoyment of private goods both creates value and allocates power.

free riders Public goods are often spoiled or not provided at all because people can use, consume, or enjoy them without paying the associated costs. This free rider problem makes it difficult to do things of great value to everyone but of little value to any one person. Examples include the difficulties of maintaining a clean environment or a working democracy with high levels of citizen participation.

grass roots The term grass roots implies that a group or organization originates from or maintains close connections with significant numbers of ordinary citizens or citizen leaders. A grass roots campaign, for instance, seeks to mobilize ordinary citizens to take part in an election campaign or a cause involving an important issue. In a democratic system, grass roots support is an essential legitimizing force so political and corporate economic campaigns often subsidize or even manufacture the appearance of grass roots activity to advance particular interests. Indeed, the creation of the appearance of grass roots support has its own label: astro turfing.

in-house lobbyist In-house lobbyists are permanent employees of a group or organization who present the group's concerns and policy proposals to legislators, bureaucrats and other government officials. These include full-time lobbyists in the permanent employ of a group as well as managers, executives and other employees of the group or organization who perform other tasks in addition to lobbying government.

issue ads Political advertising that does not specifically call for the election or defeat of a named candidate but focuses on matters of public concern is called issue advertising. Issue advertising itself has become an issue in recent years since it affords interest groups and parties a way to skirt campaign finance laws in support of their preferred candidates and policies.

labor intensive Labor intensive describes productive activity in which high value is placed on human resources, human interactions, and human labor. The retail industry, for example, is labor intensive. Traditional party politics was quite labor intensive with door-to-door canvassing to get out the vote, caucuses to nominate candidates, political conventions, and public rallies to hear candidates.

pluralism Pluralism describes an ideal-theoretical arrangement of society and representative government according to which many different groups with competing interests use their varying but not grossly unequal resources to shape election outcomes and public policy.

political action committee A political action committee (PAC) is an entity other than a political party regulated under federal and state law that raises and spends money to elect or defeat candidates. Compared with the maximum individual contribution of $2,000, PACs qualified and registered to participate in federal elections may contribute up to $5,000 per candidate per election.

private goods Private goods are those we normally think of as subject to market forces and laws of supply and demand. Use, consumption, or enjoyment of such goods is competitive due to relative scarcity, pricing mechanisms, and related restrictions on availability. Moreover, use by one person or group reduces what is available to others.

public goods A pure public good, like a private good, is something people may use, consume, or enjoy. But a public good is non-excludible: no person can restrict the use, consumption or enjoyment of a public good by another. A public good is also non-rival: one person's usage does not meaningfully affect what is available to others. Examples include clean air, public parks, and internet reliability.

quid pro quo This Latin phrase meaning something for something describes exchange relationships. Where government policies, decisions, or public resources are concerned, quid pro quo exchanges are generally considered contrary to the public interest. Some specific forms such as bribery are explicitly forbidden by law. Unlike bribery, many types of exchanges are much harder to demonstrate according to accepted rules of evidence but nonetheless raise public concerns. Lobbying, for instance, is viewed as an unsavory activity to the extent it is associated with quid pro quo exchanges between private interests and public officials intended to shape public policy to favor special interests.

soft money Soft money refers to funds raised in unlimited amounts by national party organizations outside the limits and restrictions of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Though now banned, national parties used soft money through 2002 to pay for party building activities in state and local elections and to help defray party organizational overhead, e.g., administrative costs and fundraising expenses.

subgovernments The concept of subgovernments -- sometimes referred to as iron triangles -- implies that government policy is largely made by well-defined networks of legislators, government bureaucrats, and private sector interests internally tied together by specific policy matters with which they are all concerned and externally insulated to a significant degree from other subgovernments and from oversight by other parts of government or other groups. For example, key players involved in setting prison policy in Texas includethe Senate Criminal Justice committee, the House Corrections committee, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and private interests such as private prison corporations. For the most part, the public knows or seems to care little about the detail or broad outlines of policy in this area leaving the relatively few government and private sector representatives involved with policy making considerable discretion.

watchdog groups A watchdog group is any part of government or an interest group whose job, formally or informally, is to review and publicize what other parts of government and groups are doing, raising a public alarm when something is amiss. Though some government agencies are specifically created to serve as watchdogs (e.g., public auditors, the Texas Sunset Commission, special governmental investigative committees), in the world of interest groups watchdogs are self-appointed. The mass media is often seen as a governmental or corporate watchdog when it investigates and reports, but its watchdog role is informal and haphazard. Other groups such as Texans for Public Justice, the Consumers Union, Judicial Watch, MediaWatch, or the Center for Responsive Politics scrutinize parts of the political, economic, or social system and disseminate their findings to the public, often with calls for action.

Texas Politics: © 2009, Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services University of Texas at Austin 1st Edition - Revision 92