CENTRALIZATION, ACCESS, AND INFLUENCE - THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION ANDTHE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRYS TRADE COMPLAINTS

This article explores how the relative centralization of decisionmakin g authority can affect a societal group's ability to achieve its inter ests. It examines the LIS semiconductor industry's efforts to persuade the Reagan administration to press Japan on its import barriers and i ts firms' trade practices. I find that the industry's eventual success was facilitated by an institutional change that centralized the struc ture of decisionmaking authority. Centralization proved more favourabl e to the industry's influence in this erase because it reduced the num ber of competing state interests involved in policymaking and concentr ated authority in state units that shaved the industry's preferences. To account for the change in this structure I focus on the interplay b etween government officials and policy windows. The analysis suggests that centralization may under some conditions be more conducive than d ecentralized structures to societal influence, and that modest institu tional changes can have significant policy implications.