ABSTRACT
This chapter shows evidence - albeit only suggestive evidence - that environmentalists have had a significant effect on government decisions, and that they have had more of an effect when they make the optimal organizational choice. It highlights institutions effects on policy outcomes rather than on organizational choice. The chapter explores the effects on policy outcomes of the interaction between institutions and organizations. It reviews prior research on the first question: how institutions affect the size of the winning coalition. Contemporary work in political economy has used the winning coalition framework to examine the effects of two main democratic institutions: electoral rules and corporatism. The environmentalist organizations, particularly interest groups, should have less of an effect under corporatism than under non-corporatism/pluralism. The chapter argues that the effect of political institutions should not be considered separately from social demands. The effects of party activism are statistically indistinguishable from zero, and are extremely similar under both centralization and decentralization.
