Lobbying during government formations: do policy advocates attain their preferences in coalition agreements?

Abstract

Elections produce shifts in power and policy that give lobbyists incentives to influence the policy plans of new governments, but very little is known about such lobbying. This study directly observes lobbying during government coalition negotiations and its consequences for coalition agreements by studying the letters that policy advocates send to the (in)formateur steering coalition formation negotiations. While political parties are crucial for the preference attainment of lobbyists, the analysis shows that advocates that are traditional allies of a negotiating party tend to benefit more from making a request in line with the preferences of that political party than other advocates. This seems to be especially the case when advocates represent a constituency that is important to a party’s electoral strategy, suggesting that the policy implications of ties between parties and organized interests are determined by more than the presence of historical ties between parties and groups alone.