The Power of Coalitions: Lobbying Success in US Sanctions Policy Towards Iran from 2007-2016

This paper focuses on the role of interest groups in US sanctions policy towards Iran from 2007-2016. The aim of this work is to explain what changed in regard to the role of interest groups in the most significant shift in US-Iranian relations under President Barack Obama before and after the vote on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was intended to halt Iran's non-peaceful nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions by the US Congress. Policy change is assumed to be rare in the United States but when it happens, it tends to be significant, not just incremental. This is exactly what happened in respect to US foreign policy with Iran, in particular, within the voting behavior of the members of the US Congress, and even more so for the members of the House of Representatives. In the US political process, interest groups play an important role in shaping legislation. They provide votes and campaign contributions for political candidates but also offer important organizational support, supply information insight, and mobilize voluntary campaign staff. The increase in official lobbying spending from $1.45 billion in 1998 to $3.4 billion in 2018 shows the importance of lobbying in the United States (Evers-Hillstrom 2019). To analyze interest group involvement is, therefore, essential to a better understanding of the political processes in a democratic system. The challenge of investigating interest groups is linking influence to policy outcomes as well as defining and measuring influence (Dür and De Bièvre 2007, Baumgartner and Leech 1998, Beyers et. al. 2008, Hojnacki et. al. 2012, Dür 2008). Interest groups research, therefore, often focuses on single interest groups and their strategies, or mobilization tactics instead of dealing with the question of influence (Hojnacki et. al. 2012: 382-391). However, as interest groups do no act in a vacuum but are part of an ever-changing environment their lobbying success not only involves group-related factors but many contextual factors as well. When deciding on policy issues legislators take into consideration the general situation in the country, the president's position, and the mobilization of or support by several political actors. Even though an increasing number of studies concentrate on the social and political context, they do not offer a systematical analysis of various variables but examine only one or two variables (Hojnacki et. al. 2012: 385-389). This paper aims to contribute to our knowledge about how structural variables, issue salience, and actor strategies work together to produce outcomes. In addition, it provides a better understanding of interest group influence by identifying conditions under which interest groups can be successful in changing the policy status quo. The tested factors also promote the development of a standardized method to investigate lobbying success.