Political Entrepreneurs and the Transfer Demanding Process: Homesteading the Unassigned District

This paper introduces the transfer-demanding entrepreneur to help bridge the gap between static equilibria in an interest group theory of government and process theories. The transfer demanding entrepreneur acts in a creative, discontinuous fashion to organize latent demand for a particular transfer into an effective interest group. The disequilibrating, re-equilibrating transfer demanding entrepreneur provides a theoretical framework for understanding the movement between static political equilibria. This paper considers the transfer demanding entrepreneurship necessary to bring together the western railroads, organized labor, and potential Oklahoma colonists in the passage of white settlement and coal-lease ratification legislation in the Indian Territory.