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This approach to understanding regulation developed as a response to the capture theory. Some researchers reject the capture theory's emphasis on monopoly control of individual agencies by one narrow group of powerful interests. Instead, they propose that multiple groups actually compete for control of an agency's activities (e.g, Peltzman 1976, Becker 1983).
The average citizen is not a major factor in this model either. Instead, powerful groups fight among themselves to use the coercive authority of the government to makes rules and regulations that would help their particular businesses. Such rules might help one industry or company, but hurt others.
For example, the recent attempts to get the state government to permit the private sale of subsoil water rights on state-owned lands in west Texas, might help new companies hoping to sell water to distant communities. But this would come at the expense of farmers and ranchers who depend on underground springs. So, the contending special interests concerned with this issue lobby the Texas Land Commissioner and other state agencies to either permit or prevent such actions.
As in the capture theory government regulation is not regarded by the regulated industries as an inherently bad thing. Instead, the regulated industries or companies actually demand regulation. The key difference between the capture theory and the special interest theory is that the latter holds that competition among special interests can be both widespread and intense.
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