How Does Import Competition Affect the Interest Groups'Political Participation
The U.S.is one of the most important trade partners of China and abundant evidence indicates that U.S.policy is profoundly affected by interest groups.In this article,we focus on the political behav-ior of PACs supported by labor unions,who are faithful supporters of Democrats and often take a firm stand against free trade.Based on the political contribution data from FEC and international trade informa-tion from UN Comtrade Database,we explore the impact of import competition on interest groups'politi-cal participation during 2000-2008.Our empirical results show that union-related PACs make more politi-cal contributions to Democrats in districts more exposed to foreign import competition.Import competition reduces the number of union-related PACs as well as contribution that unions received from individuals,and hence weaken unions'ability in mobilizing resources.Meanwhile,foreign competition may also make unions change their resource-allocation behavior,motivate them to express demands to legislators and use more money to show their attitude towards legislators'voting behavior.These two mechanisms may coun-teract each other and the latter has a stronger effect,since we find a positive relationship between import competition and political contribution made by union-related PACs.We also find unions offer contributions to candidates with an influence motive,and legislators who receive more political contribution from unions will propose more bills related to China,which makes people in the U.S.pay more attention to China is-sue.In addition,empirical results show that the relationship between import competition shock and politi-cal contribution varies among sectors and industries.Our findings propose a new idea to understand the de-velopment of Sino-U.S.relation from the perspective of interest groups'behavior.
political contributionimport competitioninterest grouplabor union
万方数据
维普
