Interest groups in multiple streams:specifying their involvement in the framework

Although interests inhabit a central place in the multiple streams framework (MSF), interest groups have played only a minor role in theoretical and empirical studies until now. In Kingdon’s original conception, organized interests are a key variable in the politics stream. Revisiting Kingdon’s concept with a particular focus on interest groups and their activities—in different streams and at various levels—in the policy process, we take this argument further. In particular, we argue that specifying groups’ roles in other streams adds value to the explanatory power of the framework. To do this, we look at how interest groups affect problems, policies, and politics. The influence of interest groups within the streams is explained by linking the MSF with literature on interest intermediation. We show that depending on the number of conditions and their activity level, interest groups can be involved in all three streams. We illustrate this in case studies reviewing labor market policies in Germany and chemicals regulation at the European level

Der Zugang öffentlicher und wirtschaftlicher Interessen zum Deutschen Bundestag

Dieser Beitrag untersucht den informellen und den formalisieren Zugang von öffentlichen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen zum Deutschen Bundestag im Jahr 2015. Der informelle Zugang wird über die Vergabe von Hausausweise für den Bundestag erhoben, der formalisierte Zugang über Einladungen zu öffentlichen Anhörungen der Bundestagsausschüsse. Der Beitrag geht dabei von den Annahmen des Ressourcenabhängigkeitsansatzes aus, dass Informationen und Unterstützung $\textit {access goods}$ für den Bundestag sind, welche für den Zugang zu Hausausweisen und Anhörungen unterschiedlich förderlich sind und von organisierten Interessen in unterschiedlichem Maße angeboten werden können. Die Analyse kommt zu zwei zentralen Ergebnissen: Zum einen unterscheiden sich die Zugangsmuster der unterschiedlichen Interessen. Während wirtschaftliche Interessen häufiger Hausausweise besitzen, werden öffentliche Interessen überproportional oft in öffentliche Anhörungen eingeladen. Vertreter wirtschaftlicher Interessen können spezifische Expertise und Informationen über ökonomische Bedürfnisse anbieten, die ihnen häufiger Zugang über Hausausweise eröffnen. Public Interest Groups, Gewerkschaften und Wohlfahrtsverbände hingegen werden überproportional oft in öffentliche Anhörungen eingeladen, da sie politische Unterstützung für Abgeordnete bereitstellen können. Zum anderen kommt die Analyse zu dem Ergebnis, dass Lobbying eine legislative Unterstützung von organisierten Interessen für verbündete Abgeordnete darstellt. Den unterschiedlichen Interessen kommen hierbei verschieden Rollen in Anhörungen zu. Während Regierungsfraktionen öffentliche Interessen einladen, um Regierungsinitiativen zu unterstützen, sollen wirtschaftlichen Interessen Änderungsbedarf an Gesetzesentwürfen der Regierung aufzeigen.This article analyses the informal and the formal access of public and business interests to the German Bundestag in the year 2015. Informal access is surveyed by the door passes handed out by the Bundestag administration and the parliamentary party groups, formal access by the invitations to the public hearings of the Bundestag’s committees. Building on resource dependence theory, this contribution assumes that information and support are access goods to the Bundestag which are of different importance for informal and formal access and unequally distributed between the different interests. The analysis yields the following results: On the one hand, access patterns differ among the interests. While business interests possess more door passes, public interests are invited disproportionately frequent to public hearings. Evidently, representatives of specific business interests offer specific expertise and information about economic needs that are of prevalent importance for the informal access, while groups advocating public interests can primarily lend support to parliamentarians in public hearings. On the other hand, the analysis indicates that lobbying is a legislative subsidy of organized interests to their allies in parliament. In this connection, parliamentary party groups assign different roles to the diverse interests in public hearings. While they invite public interests to support government initiatives, business interests are expected to point out needs of change to legislation

An integrated multiomic approach as an excellent tool for the diagnosis of metabolic diseases: our first 3720 patients

To present our experience using a multiomic approach, which integrates genetic and biochemical testing as a first-line diagnostic tool for patients with inherited metabolic disorders (IMDs). A cohort of 3720 patients from 62 countries was tested using a panel including 206 genes with single nucleotide and copy number variant (SNV/CNV) detection, followed by semi-automatic variant filtering and reflex biochemical testing (25 assays). In 1389 patients (37%), a genetic diagnosis was achieved. Within this cohort, the highest diagnostic yield was obtained for patients from Asia (57.5%, mainly from Pakistan). Overall, 701 pathogenic/likely pathogenic unique SNVs and 40 CNVs were identified. In 620 patients, the result of the biochemical tests guided variant classification and reporting. Top five diagnosed diseases were: Gaucher disease, Niemann-Pick disease type A/B, phenylketonuria, mucopolysaccharidosis type I, and Wilson disease. We show that integrated genetic and biochemical testing facilitated the decision on clinical relevance of the variants and led to a high diagnostic yield (37%), which is comparable to exome/genome sequencing. More importantly, up to 43% of these patients ( n  = 610) could benefit from medical treatments (e.g., enzyme replacement therapy). This multiomic approach constitutes a unique and highly effective tool for the genetic diagnosis of IMDs