Populists in the Pluralist Heaven:

1 Introduction
The bias in the interest group system is a well documented phenomenon: every systematic
study of group populations has con rmed the skew towards business groups and corporations. 1
This is a result of the collective action problem inherent in mobilizing groups where the ben-
e ts of their actions can be enjoyed by anyone but the costs are borne solely by the members
(Olson 1965). While scholars have concentrated on how groups o er a mix of selective and
purposive bene ts to induce individuals to join (Rothenberg 1992; Chong 1991), little work
has been done on political institutions' role in mobilization decisions. By changing the ability
to in uence policy they create a corresponding shift in the incentive to be active.
Instead of focusing on the costs of mobilization | including the ways in which particular
groups overcome the collective action problem | this paper examines how altering the ability
to achieve the bene ts of it a ects interest group formation. While the cost of overcoming
the collective action problem is relatively constant for any particular type of group in the
United States, the bene ts of doing so vary according to which political tools it has at its
disposal. By studying state interest group populations this paper shows the cumulative
e ects of shifts in these incentives for individual groups. In particular, I focus on the role of
direct democracy in increasing the incentives for group mobilization and show that groups
react to the ability to utilize this political institution by forming in greater numbers. This
is to be expected since work on the initiative has shown both formally and empirically that
it is easier for groups to in uence policy when they have the option of circumventing the
1 The rst such study is Schlozman and Tierney (1986) and their ndings have been repeated by Walker
(1991) and Heinz, Laumann, Nelson and Salisbury (1994), among others.
1