Patterns of Conflict and Mobilization: Mapping Interest Group Activity in EU Legislative Policymaking

Arndt Wonka,Caelesta Braun,Iskander De Bruycker,Dirk De Bièvre,Jan Beyers

doi:10.17645/pag.v6i3.1267

Arndt Wonka, Caelesta Braun + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v6i3.1267

Copy DOI

Abstract

Contemporary studies on interest group politics have mainly used single interest organizations as their central objects of study. This has led to a rich body of knowledge on the motivations of interest group mobilization, strategy development and even policy access and influence. The focus on single interest groups, however, has resulted in limited knowledge on aggregate patterns of interest groups’ activity. This article seeks to address this lacuna, by examining patterns of mobilization and conflict of interest groups’ activity in EU legislative policymaking. To do so, it adopts a unique policy-centred research design and an empirical assessment of policy mobilization for a sample of 125 EU legislative proposals based on extensive media coding as well as structured elite interviews. We find that levels of policy mobilization vary substantively across different legislative proposals and that political conflict between interest groups is remarkably low. This suggests that interest group conflict and mobilization contribute little to EU politicization and that in cases where interest groups voice opposing positions, conflicts do not occur between business and non-business groups. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of interest groups in EU legislative policymaking.

Highlights

Contemporary studies on interest group politics mostly take single interest organizations as their analytical point of departure
We study policy mobilization by interest groups on 125 European Union (EU) legislative proposals that were initiated by the European Commission (EC) between 2008 and 2010
Should our exploration show that cross-type conflicts are a regular occurrence in policy mobilization in the EU and that structural conflicts are rare, we will take this finding as an indication that mobilization in the EU is driven by interest groups’ policy-specific rather than by their structural interests

Summary

Introduction

Contemporary studies on interest group politics mostly take single interest organizations as their analytical point of departure. We do so to avoid biased inferences on groups’ relevance in EU policymaking which may result from a focus on a few “important” cases, i.e. policies that were strongly contested by numerous political actors (e.g., Dür & Mateo, 2014; Lindgren & Persson, 2008) To this end, we study policy mobilization by interest groups on 125 EU legislative proposals that were initiated by the European Commission (EC) between 2008 and 2010. This shows that there are good reasons to suggest that the number of groups and type of conflict are associated and that studying both mobilization rates as well as the level and degree of political conflict associated with concrete policy proposals adds to our understanding of position-taking in EU legislative policymaking. Should our exploration show that cross-type conflicts are a regular occurrence in policy mobilization in the EU and that structural conflicts are rare, we will take this finding as an indication that mobilization in the EU is driven by interest groups’ policy-specific rather than by their structural interests

Data and Research Design

Empirical Analysis

Findings

Conclusion