When interest groups choose to collaborate with political parties what determines the type of party they opt to work with? Anne Rasmussen and Simon Otjes write that the two key elements shaping this decision are typically the ideological similarities between the interest group and the party, together with how powerful the party is in terms of its role in government. Outlining a comparison of more than 750 Danish and Dutch interest groups, they note that the extent to which these two factors affect collaboration between interest groups and parties is dependent on the characteristics of political systems

Otjes, Simon

Rasmussen, Anne

NARCIS 

Why political context is key in determining the parties interest groups choose to collaborate with

LSE Research Online

25/03/2015Why political context is key in determining the parties interestgroups choose to collaborate withblogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/03/25/why-political-context-is-key-in-determining-the-parties-interest-groups-choose-to-collaborate-with/When interest groups choose to collaborate with political parties what determines the type of partythey opt to work with? Anne Rasmussen and Simon Otjes write that the two key elements shapingthis decision are typically the ideological similarities between the interest group and the party,together with how powerful the party is in terms of its role in government. Outlining a comparison ofmore than 750 Danish and Dutch interest groups, they note that the extent to which these twofactors aﬀect collaboration between interest groups and parties is dependent on the characteristicsof political systems.Collaboration between interest groups and parties often plays a key role in democratic governanceand shapes both the character of public policy and the quality of democracy. Rather than beingdirectly in touch with the voters, many parties rely on collaboration with interest groups whendetermining public policy.A common factor considered is whether interest groups focus on lobbying parties that are theirideological friends or direct their attention toward powerful parties. Many of the historical tiesbetween groups and parties have been of an ideological nature. Prominent examples include links between socialistparties and trade unions and right-wing parties and business groups. However, interest groups may also decide tofocus on pivotal parties, i.e. those parties whose vote can make or break the majority. Such “powerful” partiesinclude centrist parties who are more likely to have the determining vote than extreme parties. They may alsoinclude “larger parties” who are also more relevant for coalition building than smaller parties.What determines the parties that interest groups collaborate with?Our recent study in Party Politics shows that the extent to which power and ideology aﬀect collaboration betweenindividual parties and interest groups depends on the institutional context in which the two interact. In some politicalsystems, ideology is more likely to act as a driver for collaboration than in others. Similarly, the tendency to lobbypowerful parties may not be equally strong in all systems. Our analysis is based on survey responses from morethan 750 Danish and Dutch interest groups about their degree of collaboration with the diﬀerent parliamentaryparties.We argue that patterns of cabinet formation (wholesale or partial alteration) inﬂuence the emphasis groups place oncollaborating with ideologically aligned versus powerful parties. Extending Peter Mair’s work on the structure of partycompetition, we analyse whether multiparty systems experience diﬀerent patterns of party-group collaborationdepending on whether cabinet formation tends to be wholesale or partial. In the former, left and right-winggovernments alternate and party competition is bipolar. In the latter, there is partial alteration and the key distinctionis between core and marginal parties. These party system dynamics have implications for not only the interaction ofthe parties themselves, but also their exchanges with interest groups.Our design compares the Netherlands and Denmark and predicts the degree of collaboration for every interestgroup-party dyad. The countries are very similar in many respects: both are corporatist systems, have a multipartysystem with strikingly similar parties and parliamentary systems with coalition governments. However, they diﬀer inone crucial respect: the pattern of government formation. In Denmark, two kinds of governments tend to form: onefocused on the social-democrats or one centred around liberals and conservatives.1/3Credit: European Parliament (CC-BY-SA-ND-NC-3.0)Political parties are organised in two blocks: one of left-wing parties organised around the social-democrats and oneof right-wing parties where the liberals and theconservatives form the axis. In this way, the majorcabinet parties in Denmark have traditionally beenfrom either the left or the right, and governmentchanges have been ‘wholesale’.In the Netherlands, cabinets have instead beenformed around coalitions of two of the three coreparties: the Liberal Party, the Labour Party and thelargest Christian-Democratic party. In Denmark youcan often predict the government formation as soonas the election result is announced: either the left orthe right has a majority. In the Netherlands any kind ofgovernment is possible and government alterationhas only been partial: one of the major parties staysin government and the other leaves the governmentwhile the third party enters government.We ﬁnd similarities in the factors determining party-group collaboration in both Denmark and the Netherlands:groups are more likely to interact with large parties and parties close to the political centre in both countries.However, our study indicates that the relative importance of power and ideology for party-group collaboration isconditioned by the institutional context in which such collaboration occurs. The diﬀerence in cabinet formation, weargue, matters for the extent to which power and ideology matter.In line with our predictions, we show that power considerations (size and extremism) matter less for an interestgroup’s degree of collaboration with parties in Denmark with a tradition of wholesale cabinet alteration than in theNetherlands where partial alteration is the norm. In the Netherlands there is more insecurity about cabinet formation.Therefore interest groups foster strong relations with all three large core parties.Instead, the tendency for Dutch groups to collaborate with ideologically aligned parties is weaker than in Denmark,where groups operate in a system in which coalitions alternate between the left and the right. There are nosigniﬁcant diﬀerences in how frequently Dutch groups – such as business groups or environmental, labour andhumanitarian groups – cooperate with the Dutch right and left-wing parties respectively. In Denmark, by contrast, weﬁnd that interest groups are divided between those oriented at the right-wing bloc and those oriented at the left-wingbloc. Here, business groups focus more on the right-wing parties, and labour, environmental and humanitariangroups focus more on the left-wing parties. The ideological division that divides the parties in Denmark is more likelyto cut through the ﬁeld of interest groups.Hence, even if both power and ideology matter for interest groups lobbying in both systems, the extent to whichthese two factors matter is dependent on the political context. In this way, system-level diﬀerences do not only resultin overall diﬀerences in patterns of party-group behaviour between countries but also shape the rationale underlyingthe state-of-play between parties and groups within them. This calls for studies which do not examine the directimpact of system-level characteristics on interest group-party relations, but also consider the conditioning impactsuch system characteristics may have on other explanatory factors.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1IsyCj12/3 _________________________________About the authorAnne Rasmussen – University of CopenhagenAnne Rasmussen is a Professor with special responsibilities at the Department of Political Science,University of Copenhagen and aﬃliated to the Department of Public Administration, LeidenUniversity Her research examines interest groups, political responsiveness, political parties andlegislative decision-making. It has appeared in e.g. the British Journal of Political Science and theEuropean Journal of Political Research.Simon Otjes – Groningen UniversitySimon Otjes is a Researcher at the Documentation Centre Dutch Political Parties of GroningenUniversity. His research has examined political parties, party systems and spatial models of partypositions in the Netherlands and the European Union. He has published in American Journal ofPolitical Science and Electoral Studies.3/3

Why political context is key in determining the parties interest groups choose to collaborate with

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

NARCIS

LSE Research Online

ARTS repository - University of Groningen

University of Groningen Research Database

University of Groningen

ARTS repository - University of Groningen

Copenhagen University Research Information System