I tend to look at the special interest groups as the problem of distributed costs and concentrated benefits. In the case of the off-shore drilling, the minority

I tend to look at the special interest groups as the problem of distributed costs and concentrated benefits. In the case of the off-shore drilling, the minority has much more to gain individually than the majority has to lose individually, so it's worth the minority's time, money and effort to advocate fiercely, while resisting would expend more effort than the result justifies. So, if we want to dis-empower special interests, we need to empower the general people, specifically by affecting this equation: by decreasing the cost of advocacy, and/or increasing the expected benefit of advocacy. You seem to be attempting to increase the benefits by tying nations to group benefits, and decreasing the cost by redefining advocacy as joining a 'nation.' The challenge here is that for the advocacy to influence the existing system, it needs to result in election results as well, and I don't see that connection quite so clearly. Could you elaborate? I do think there's something here - with a little help on the advocacy cost/benefit side, voter power could definitely put a damper on special interests in general. That's the thrust of my own effort in this area, focused on the voter side: http://votereports.org/ http://votereports.org/ P.S. Great to see Duverger's law mentioned