Representation through information? When and why interest groups inform policymakers about public preferences

While interest groups are often seen as transmission belts of public preferences, little is known as to how they might transmit such preferences. This paper argues that the provision of information is one mechanism through which advocates represent their constituents’ interests and analyses who informs policymakers about these preferences and when actors are more likely to do so. The study relies on a new dataset containing information on the arguments advocates made in public hearings that were held on 34 specific policy issues in Germany. The results reveal that the amount of information on public preferences an actor provides is determined by actor type, its public support and position on the issue. Interestingly, information on public preferences is predominantly used by status-quo defenders. This paper contributes to our understanding of interest groups as transmission belts and their potential to enhance governments’ ability to respond to public preferences.Security and Global Affair

The costs of interest representation – a resource perspective on informational lobbying

While expert information and information on public preferences are seen as key resources that interest groups provide to policymakers, little is known about the resources that are necessary to acquire such information. Existing scholarship argues that financial resources enhance a group’s ability to supply information, which could be problematic as it suggests that resource poor groups are disadvantaged when lobbying policymakers. Applying a resource perspective to informational lobbying, this paper argues that different information types require different resources and that financial means are less important than assumed. The predictions are tested using a new dataset and survey of 383 advocates active on 50 specific policy issues in five West European countries. The results show that while economic resources are indeed associated with a higher amount of expert information, political capacities allow a group to provide both expert information and information on public preferences. This suggests that groups can rely on other than economic resources for information provision.The politics and administration of institutional changePast research project

Technocratic or democratic interest representation? How different types of information affect lobbying success

Past research project

Speaking for the People? : Analysing the extent to which interest groups represent the opinion of the citizens and under which conditions they are more likely to do so

Do interest groups help or hinder democratic policymaking? While interest groups are often understood as transmission belts which work as important intermediaries between the public and the policymaking level, their involvement is not without risk. Unequal opportunities and undue influence may bias the interest group landscape towards special interests.The latter, less optimistic perspective on interest group involvement is one that reflects public concerns as lobbying has a rather negative reputation amongst the general public. It is crucial for the study of interest groups as well as representative democracy to know the extent to which these stances on lobbying are warranted. Do groups actually represent the public and can contribute to democratic legitimacy? More specifically, can groups act as transmission belts of public preferences and how could they do so?Understanding these mechanisms is important for understanding how groups can help strengthen the extent to which governments respond to public demands. It is the dissertation’s aim to contribute to these debates, paying particular attention to the extent to which interest groups inform policymakers about what the public wants. The politics and administration of institutional chang

Too much, too fast? The Sources of Banks’ Opposition to European Banking Structural Reforms

This article examines banks' positions on the 2014 proposals for EU banking structural reforms. Centralization of authority in banking regulation and supervision has been a legislative priority in the European Union (EU) since 2008 in order to address regulatory shortcomings in the aftermath of the global finanical crisis. European decision makers have introduced more stringent capital adequacy requirements and transferred greater powers to the European Supervisory Authorites. In 2014, the European Commission put forward a proposal for banking structural reforms comprised of two elements: a ban on proprietary trading and mandatory separation of some trading activities from the deposit-taking entity. We refer to 'regulatory cascading' in order to conceptualize the rapid and successive introduction of legislative packages designed to fix problems and gaps in the EU banking regulatory framework. Our analysis shows that the majority of European banks and financial services associations are opposed to further banking structural reforms at the EU level. We find evidence that banks domiciled in member states that have already passed reforms prefer those over EU alternatives. Large internationalized banks are most opposed to further EU banking structural reforms

Organization of interest groups

Insight into the internal organization of interest groups is crucial for understanding their representative function and intermediary role in contemporary democracies. The particular organizational features of groups shape their ability to fulfill their potential as “transmission belts” between society and the state. Given these important repercussion of organizational choices, it is not surprising that decisions about the specific mission of the organization, the type of members, and their precise role in decision-making processes are often strongly contested when a new interest group is being established. Once these choices have been made, however, an organization’s mission and structure tend to be rather inert and mostly evolve in a path-dependent, incremental manner (Fraussen, 2014).This chapter defines interest groups as membership-based formal organizations, who seek to represent the interests of a particular constituency or advocate for a particular cause in the political arena. This chapter first clarifies the importance of the internal organization of interest groups and subsequently addresses the use and value of different group typologies. The last two sections focus on clarifying feature- and identity-based approaches for identifying variation in organizational form and explore how digital technologies might alter the organizational design of interest groups and how they conceive and involve their constituency.The politics and administration of institutional chang