The Complexity of Revolving Doors in Regulation: Evidence from the American States

Early proponents of regulatory capture theory argued that regulation was designed to benefit industry (Stigler 1971) because regulators had incentives to generate political support or enhance their own future job prospects (Levine and Florrence 1990). Thus, the presence of capture partly depends on the presence of revolving doors between industry and government. However, the concept of revolving doors is far more complex than theories of regulatory capture have allowed it to be because we typically envision businesses in revolving door scenarios as desiring weaker regulation. Businesses may seek stronger enforcement of the law, meaning that revolving doors may actually produce a much more complex and competitive set of regulatory relationships than previously conceived. I examine the diverse set of revolving doors produced by the office of state attorney general in the United States—increasingly prominent, elected enforcers of nearly every major area of regulation at the state and federal levels. Utilizing an original dataset on AG careers, I examine the career choices of AGs who subsequently enter private practice, categorizing their work as seeking stronger business compliance, seeking weaker regulations, or seeking contractual work with AG offices. I examine the impact of state, office and policy characteristics on this choice and supplement the study with open-ended interviews of current and former AGs, to understand their policy goals and how they view their role. Theories of capture and revolving doors have advanced, but they are still weakly conceptualized; this study will help to illustrate the complexity of public and private regulatory relationships and how they ultimately affect regulatory law enforcement.