CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Suresh Babu, Rahuldev Sukhil |
|---|---|
| Title | How Does the Sugar Program Continue to Thrive?: A Multi-Level Capture of the American Legislative Process by the Sugar Industry |
| Summary | How do inefficient support programs like the sugar program continue to exist? The American sugar industry has grown to become one of the top five biggest producers globally. This can be credited to the infamous Sugar Program which is one of several agriculturally protectionist federal subsidy programs backed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The sugar program supports the US sugar industry by maintaining high domestic sugar prices achieved by limiting international access to the American sugar market through import quotas and protective tariffs along with several loan subsidies for domestic sugar producers. This program functions at a no-cost model by not being included in the federal budget but indirectly costs several billions of dollars which is passed on to the consumers. The purpose of this paper is to explain the survival of this program through both, a capture of the regulatory agency (the USDA) along with the legislative capture of legislators in charge of passing farm bill legislations by the sugar industry. This explanation combines the theories George Stigler’s theory on Economic Regulation (regulatory capture) along with Mancur Olson’s theory of collective action in explaining how the well-regulated sugar industry was able to successfully lobby through Political Action Committees (legislative capture) towards influencing major farm bill legislations. This paper concludes with a causal mechanism that suggests that both, the USDA and several of the legislators have undergone a certain level of capture which coerced them into prioritizing the interests of the sugar industry over the intended public welfare. These captures were two major reasons as to why the sugar program survived and why it is bound to remain untouched, at least in the near future. |
| Supervisor | Folsz, Attila |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/suresh_rahuldev.pdf |
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