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Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 4, 609-618 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/106591290605900410

The Politics of Consumer Protection: Explaining State Attorney General Participation in Multi-State Lawsuits

Colin Provost

Nuffield College, Oxford University

In the past 20 years, state attorneys general have reinvented the enforcement of consumer protection regulations. Prosecuting businesses through multi-state lawsuits has the effect of enforcing consumer protection laws at the national level. The participation of states in these lawsuits varies quite dramatically across states, yet little research has been done to explain these differences in consumer protection enforcement. Because state attorneys general are elected in 43 states, the electorate’s ideology and the state’s socioeconomic culture should help explain these discrepancies. A pooled time-series analysis of participation rates from 1989-1998 provides support for these hypotheses.

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This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
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