Organizational Strategies of Influence on American Environmental Policy, 1976-2006: A Network Exploration of Power Elitism versus Pluralism

• Main Author: Michel, Shaun Lucien
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2012
• Subjects: Pluralism; Climate Change Policy; Organizational Strategy; Congressional Hearings; Power Elite; Social Network Analysis; Politics and Social Change; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Sociology
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1437; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2630&context=etd

This thesis examines two organizational strategies employed for influencing American environmental policy with considerations to the "power elite" and "pluralist" models of policy control. Using a data set comprised of 379 organizations derived from US congressional hearings on climate change policy between 1976 and 2006, I find that industrial corporations conceal the public footprint of their involvement by financially encouraging "independent" research centers to provide favorable testimony. Meanwhile, nonprofit organizations are more likely to be co-represented by shared experts, a resource that is strategically shared for political gain. These findings provide some circumscribed support for both the power elite and pluralist models of organizational influence: the organization of power elites has a disproportionate amount of resources in a system that provides an arena for competing values and goals. Implications for understanding the organizational strategies towards congressional testimony as well as directions for future research are discussed based on these findings.