Political self-interest and US environmental policy

This article assembles a theory of political self-interest in U.S. environmental policy. The article selectively incorporates ideas from the economic and "public choice" self-interest literature, but mainly it draws upon the self-interest literature that straddles traditional political science and public choice. Deriving predictions about the voting public, interest groups, and politicians from this literature, the article concludes that U.S. officeholders do have incentive to respond to constituencies favoring environmental protection, but that the responses will consist predominately of environmental pork barreling and policy symbolism. The theory has important implications for environmental interest group political strategy.