All Politics Is (Not) Local: The Structure of Lobbying in North Carolina

As North Carolina becomes more enmeshed in the national and global economy, the local political context might reflect more extra-local ties. Lobbying organizations in the state have significant ties to out-of-state firms, particularly those with offices in Washington, D.C. Examining the structure of lobbying relationships in one state, North Carolina, in terms of both lobbyist-to-client relations and inter-lobbyist relations such as through common clients, this paper assesses the level of relations between local and out-of-state firms. Using social network and standard statistical analysis as well as lobbying data from North Carolina, adjoining states, and federal lobbying data from the U.S. Senate, this project is not only focused on the state level but also on relations between local and national firms. To the best of our knowledge, little research has explored the connections between special interests represented at both the national and state levels. We find that a significant number of lobbying organizations engage in lobbying at the federal level as well as the state level. Moreover, the structure of relations among lobbying organizations appear to exhibit a truncated scale-free distribution of ties in which a small number of organizations garner the majority of ties. Organizations that represent other organizations (as opposed to representing themselves) and that operate at the federal and state levels seem to be the critical nodes in terms of the structure of the overall network.