Organised Interests in the Energy Sector: A Comparative Study of the Influence of Interest Groups in Czechia and Hungary

In this article, we explore civil society mobilisation and the impact of organised interests on the energy policies of two post-communist countries - Hungary and Czechia - and specifically nuclear energy. Drawing on numerous hypotheses from the literature on organised interests, we explore how open both political systems are for civil society input and what interest group-specific and socio-economic factors mediate the influence of organised interests. Based on the preference attainment method, our case studies focus on the extent to which organised interests have succeeded bringing nuclear energy legislation in line with their preferences. We find that while both democracies are open to civil society input, policy-making is generally conducted in state-industrial circles, whereby anti-nuclear and renewable energy advocates are at best able to make minor corrections to already pre-determined policies

Organised Interests in the Energy Sector: A Comparative Study of the Influence of Interest Groups in Czechia and Hungary

In this article, we explore civil society mobilisation and the impact of organised interests on the energy policies of two post-communist countries—Hungary and Czechia—and specifically nuclear energy. Drawing on numerous hypotheses from the literature on organised interests, we explore how open both political systems are for civil society input and what interest group-specific and socio-economic factors mediate the influence of organised interests. Based on the preference attainment method, our case studies focus on the extent to which organised interests have succeeded bringing nuclear energy legislation in line with their preferences. We find that while both democracies are open to civil society input, policy-making is generally conducted in state-industrial circles, whereby anti-nuclear and renewable energy advocates are at best able to make minor corrections to already pre-determined policies

Interest group access in CEE in the healthcare sector

This chapter explores characteristics of organized interests and their level of political access in four post-communist countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia. The authors explore data on healthcare interest groups collected by means of a unique large-scale survey and develop statistical models to estimate the maximal likelihood of events occurring utilizing an ordered logit model. The chapter explores the conditions, which enhance the access of interest groups to the political apparatus, i.e., the parliament and governing parties. The focus relies on the characteristics of interest groups that may mediate their leverage on political decision-making. This includes their financial and personal resources, whether they represent diffuse or concentrated interests, and the information they provide policy-makers with. The authors also explore whether the professionalization of interest groups facilitates political access. The statistical analysis isolates the key features of interest groups, which enhance their capacity to shape healthcare policies in the four countries.publishe

Towards energy policy corporatism in Central and Eastern Europe?

This paper contributes to our understanding of interest intermediation structures in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and, specifically, whether, which, how and to what extent organized interests are incorporated into policy-making processes. Unlike previous studies primarily focusing on patterns of economic coordination (Jahn 2016), we focus on energy policy-making in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. We address the extent to which these energy interest intermediation systems are gravitating towards a more corporatist policy-making paradigm and whether corporatist arrangements have been dismantled in view of the new wave of national conservatism in CEE. We offer a complex operationalization of corporatism based on concrete indicators and present the results of a survey of energy interest groups operating in the region. It covers questions regarding interest intermediation between the organized interests and the government, regulatory authorities as well as the degree of policy coordination and political exchange with the state and between rivalling organizations, enabling us to derive a “corporatism score” for each national institutional setting and discuss them in the light of Jahn’s (2016) corporatism rankings for the region. We show that—despite striking differences—at least rudimentary corporatist interest intermediation structures have emerged with some variations of pluralism and statism in all four countries.publishe

Exploring Populations of Organized Interests in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe

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Explaining the density of post-communist interest group populations—resources, constituencies, and regime change

Englisch: The article tests the energy–stability–area (ESA) model of interest group population density on a sample of different 2018 Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovenian energy, higher education and health care interest organisation populations. The unique context of recent simultaneous political, economic and in the cases of Czechia and Slovenia, national transitions present a hard test for population ecology theory. Besides the area (constituency size) and energy (resources, issue certainty) terms, the article brings the stability term back into the center of analysis. The stability term, that is, the effect of a profound change or shock to the polity is operationalised as Communist-era population densities. As all three policy domains are heavily state controlled and tightly regulated, the effect of neocorporatist interest intermediation is also tested. The article finds strong support for the energy and neocorporatism hypotheses and provides evidence for the effect of communist-era organisational population density on post-transition densities: The size of 2018 organisational populations is found to be dependent on pre-transition densities. The relationship is, however, not linear but curvilinear. Nevertheless, the analysis indicates that the effect of pre-transition population size is moderated by other environmental level factors. Deutsch: Der Artikel testet das Energie-Stabilitäts-Gebietsmodell (ESA) der Bevölkerungsdichte von Interessengruppen an einer Stichprobe verschiedener tschechischer, ungarischer, polnischer und slowenischer Bevölkerungen von Energie-, Hochschul- und Gesundheitsorganisationen aus dem Jahr 2018. Der einzigartige Kontext der jüngsten gleichzeitigen politischen, wirtschaftlichen und im Falle Tschechiens und Sloweniens nationaler Übergänge stellt die Theorie der Populationsökologie auf eine harte Probe. Neben den Begriffen Flächen (Wahlkreisgröße) und Energie (Ressourcen, Themensicherheit) rückt der Artikel den Stabilitätsbegriff wieder in den Mittelpunkt der Analyse. Der Stabilitätsbegriff, dh die Auswirkung einer tiefgreifenden Veränderung oder eines Schocks auf das Gemeinwesen, wird als Bevölkerungsdichte der kommunistischen Ära operationalisiert. Da alle drei Politikbereiche stark staatlich kontrolliert und streng reguliert sind, wird auch die Wirkung neokorporatistischer Interessenvermittlung getestet. Der Artikel findet starke Unterstützung für die Energie- und Neokorporatismus-Hypothesen und liefert Belege für den Effekt der organisationalen Bevölkerungsdichte der kommunistischen Ära auf die Dichte nach dem Übergang: Die Größe der Organisationsbevölkerung im Jahr 2018 hängt von der Dichte vor dem Übergang ab. Der Zusammenhang ist jedoch nicht linear, sondern krummlinig. Dennoch zeigt die Analyse, dass der Effekt der Bevölkerungsgröße vor dem Übergang durch andere Umweltfaktoren gemildert wird

Exploring interest intermediation in Central and Eastern Europe : is higher education different?

Higher education interest groups remain somewhat understudied from a comparative theory-driven perspective. This is surprising because political decisions regarding higher education must increasingly be legitimized to students, taxpayers, the academic community and society. This article aims to advance our understanding of higher education stakeholders in post-communist Europe. In our view, the region deserves more attention, not least because students and academics were very instrumental in bringing down communism and institutionalizing democracy. First, we draw on Klemenčič’s (EJHE 2(1): 2–19, 2012; SHE 39(3):396–411, 2014) distinction between corporatist and pluralist as well as formalized and informal systems of representation in higher education. Looking at survey data from four countries—Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia—we examine to what extent post-communist democracies have established corporatist institutions to facilitate the formal participation of various crucial stakeholder organizations, e.g. students’ unions, academic unions, rectors’ conferences, etc. Then we address whether higher education organizations enjoy privileged access to policy-makers compared to those from other policy areas, while engaging with the argument that higher education is a particular case of “stakeholder democracy” in a region otherwise characterized by weak civic participation and corporatism. To wrap up, we discuss different “mutations of higher education corporatism” in each country.publishe