No Way Out: Dual Channels of Manipulation in Agenda Institutions

A large body of literature in Political Science emphasizes the importance of limiting opportunities for manipulation of legislative institutions by self-interested actors. This note shows that that the very conditions that shield institutions from agenda manipulation are precisely those that expose them to capture by special interests. This result holds in a highly general dynamic framework that encompasses a broad range of empirically relevant agenda institutions and policy-making environments, including those with policy uncertainty and experimentation.