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The Journal of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University

Abstract

Over the last several decades, scholars have developed several models of policy making, including interest group pluralism where an equilibrium between competing organized interests becomes law, and legislative control, where the equilibrium between the preferences of legislators becomes law. While pluralism has fallen out of favor, this paper argues that it still has a place in models of policy making complementary to the legislative control theory. Using the development and passage of the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act, the legislation rewriting the nearly century old laws structuring the banking and finance policy domain, this article shows how this enactment required agreements between organized interests as well as between concerned legislators.

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