INTEREST GROUP LITIGATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

During the past decade federal courts have become an important forum for many environmental conflicts. In the early 1970s environmental groups initiated many of these cases, putting government agencies charged with enforcing environmental regulation on the defensive. By the beginning of the 1980s business interests had assumed the offensive, especially at the appellate levels, placing government agencies squarely in the crossfire of the two groups. Federal judges tended to treat the opposing interests even-handedly, although the plaintiff in a case tended to have an advantage. It appears that environmental groups will be pressed into assuming the offensive once more as federal agencies reduce their enforcement efforts under the Reagan Administration.     

STRATEGIES OF SINGLE-ISSUE INTEREST GROUPS

Using traditional models of electoral behavior one would not expect single-issue interest groups to have the impact on the American electoral system evident in recent elections. The difficulty in understanding their success lies in the assumption that the rational voter merely maximizes utility by choosing between the positions offered by the candidates/ political parties. Single-issue interest group activity has demonstrated, to the contrary, that it is possible for an assertive rational voter to successfully force candidates/ parties to take specific positions on issues and to form winning coalitions.     

THE ORGANIZATION OF PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS

The topic here is whether broad public interests in consumer rights, a clean environment, and political reform have the organizational strength to be represented effectively when policy-making is the responsibility of bureaus and administrative agencies. The most persuasive explanation of why such interests could not be effective on a sustained basis is the collective action theory of Mancur Olson. The paper supports research arguing for modifications of Olson's theory by showing how public interests have been at least partially successful in maintaining effectiveness over time based on four concepts: the similarity of public interest groups to social movements, the use of purposive and solidary incentives, the use of material incentives to support lobbying as a by-product of other activities, and the role of organizational entrepreneurs supported by new technology, notably the computerized mailing list.     

TRUST IN THE TECHNICAL INFORMATION PROVIDED BY INTEREST GROUPS: THE VIEWS OF LEGISLATORS, ACTIVISTS, EXPERTS, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC

The timely provision of information is crucial to the success of interest groups seeking to influence policymakers, the public and their own members. This paper examines the extent to which legislators, citizens, and policy area experts and activists trust the information provided by specific interests in the water resources managment area. It is shown that citizens and policy area activists are less trusting than are legislators and experts, and that they also discriminate more among information sources than either of those types of actors. On the individual level, multiple regression analysis is employed to investigate the extent to which partisanship, ideology, environmentalism and degree of informedness influence the level of trust accorded particular interest groups among citizens, legislators, activists, and experts.     

THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, ANTITRUST LEGISLATION AND INTEREST GROUP COALITIONS

This article examines the testimonial behavior of the American Bar Association with respect to congressional hearings conducted to consider proposed changes in the antitrust laws during the 1970s. The ABA displayed a pattern of agreement in opposition to the proposed antitrust legislation with recurrently appearing business interest groups, and the Nixon and Ford Justice Departments. ABA testimony proved inconsistent with the views expressed by the Federal Trade Commission and a consumer lobby, the Consumer Union. Variable intergroup interaction levels, and data on the vested interests of ABA leaders are suggested as possessing explanatory power.     

DEFINING HISTORICAL MATERIAL TRENDS AND CONSUMPTION GROUPS THROUGH ARTIFACT DENSITY

Artifact density is a useful yet overlooked analysis variable in archaeology. Drawing upon a sample of sites in the middle Savannah River valley, artifact density is used to identify diachronic consumption trends between the 1700s and 1900s. Analysis results illustrate the development of consumerism over time in the study area indicated by increasing material deposition at archaeological sites. Artifact density is also used to define consumption groups for different time periods. Within cultural resource management studies, the methods discussed in this article could be used to aid in site evaluation and serve as a systematic framework to guide archaeological testing and excavation.     

MATTER(S) OF INTEREST: ARTEFACTS, SPACING AND TIMING

This paper argues that time‐geography can make a contribution to contemporary ‘rematerialized’ geographies, because the interconnections among social processes, human corporeality and inanimate material artefacts within the landscape were among Hägerstrand's central concerns. Time‐geography needs none the less to be extended in several ways to make it more reconcilable with current thinking about materiality in geography. The possibility of combining Hägerstrand's framework with notions from (post) actor‐network approaches is therefore explored. It is suggested that concepts and notions from the latter may contribute to the advancement of the conceptualization of action at a distance and agency in general in time‐geography, as well as the incorporation of the immaterial realm into space—time diagrams. The resulting materially heterogeneous time‐geography is a framework for studying the spacing and timing of different material entities that is sensitive to the role of artefacts and their local connectedness with other material forms. Some of its elements are illustrated briefly through an empirical study of the roles played by a few mundane artefacts in working parents ‘coping with child‐care responsibilities on working days. The case study suggest that these artefacts not only enable goal fulfilment and routinization but also result in further spacing and timing practices, and can introduce uncertainty and novelty to existing orders.