Others are probably right that politicians have plenty of genuine choices, where they don’t have to use their decisions to cater to lobbyists (or even voters). It’s a bit different in the UK, because legislators also form the executive: congressmen may have rather blunter tools to get their way, but Ministers in the UK definitely make LOADS of decisions and a large number aren’t fixed by voter demand, lobby power or even party position: working in the civil service supporting Ministers I’ve seen fairly substantial changes to policy made simply because the individual Minister is replaced by one with a different outlook.
There’s also the point that politicians ‘cater to’ THEIR voters/lobbyists, for the most part. They rely on the support of those that broadly agree with them.
I also think you’re approaching this too much as if being a politician is something someone’s worked out carefully as a strategy to do a specfic thing. People find politics exciting and engaging—a lot of this, though not all, is because of genuinely caring about the issues—and that’s why they want to be involved with it. Once involved, they want to be succesful, that’s human nature. I doubt many people go into politics purely because they’ve calculated it’s the way they can get a list of policies delivered, although I think there are a few and they can add a lot to the political process.
Come to think of it, it’s worth you looking at other countries if you’re interested in this. Your theory of lobbying assumes that individual politicians can rack up $ms of advertising money, but various countries have spending caps (UK) or have systems of proportional representation that mean you can’t really advertise as an individual. If you observe the same phenomena without the personal job-security element, then your model is probably flawed!
Others are probably right that politicians have plenty of genuine choices, where they don’t have to use their decisions to cater to lobbyists (or even voters). It’s a bit different in the UK, because legislators also form the executive: congressmen may have rather blunter tools to get their way, but Ministers in the UK definitely make LOADS of decisions and a large number aren’t fixed by voter demand, lobby power or even party position: working in the civil service supporting Ministers I’ve seen fairly substantial changes to policy made simply because the individual Minister is replaced by one with a different outlook.
There’s also the point that politicians ‘cater to’ THEIR voters/lobbyists, for the most part. They rely on the support of those that broadly agree with them.
I also think you’re approaching this too much as if being a politician is something someone’s worked out carefully as a strategy to do a specfic thing. People find politics exciting and engaging—a lot of this, though not all, is because of genuinely caring about the issues—and that’s why they want to be involved with it. Once involved, they want to be succesful, that’s human nature. I doubt many people go into politics purely because they’ve calculated it’s the way they can get a list of policies delivered, although I think there are a few and they can add a lot to the political process.
Come to think of it, it’s worth you looking at other countries if you’re interested in this. Your theory of lobbying assumes that individual politicians can rack up $ms of advertising money, but various countries have spending caps (UK) or have systems of proportional representation that mean you can’t really advertise as an individual. If you observe the same phenomena without the personal job-security element, then your model is probably flawed!
Your description of why people go into politics has cleared things up and makes a decent amount of sense to me.
They find it exciting and engaging and “want to be involved”.
Once they’re involved, they “want to be successful”.
I could imagine this sort of thought process. Thanks!