Interest groups with rich resources lack structural incentive to hear each other out.

Evidence

Political elites within these groups do not talk to one another and have no electoral, social, or organizational incentive to do so. Legally, they each have a rich set of court cases, laws, and regulations to bolster their claims. Normatively, each group has available to it more philosophical justifications for its position than anyone can possibly read or use. Historically, each group can point to its preferred victories and defeats. Politically, each group has a core constituency and a wider set of citizens to whom it can turn for occasional support. Organizationally, each group has well-established but complex and constantly renegotiated (thus energy-draining) internal ties of communication, bargaining, and resource extraction to maintain. Socially, members of the two groups seldom encounter one another outside of formal, scripted disputes. Neither group has, in short, much reason or incentive to question its own position or give serious consideration to the other’s. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2005

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the law-merchant material on how institutional incentives shape informational behavior and to social-capital work on who has motive to bridge.