Prioritizing professionals? How the democratic and professionalized nature of interest groups shapes their degree of access to EU officials

Adrià Albareda

doi:10.1017/s1755773920000247

Abstract

AbstractInterest groups are key intermediary actors between civil society and public officials. The EU has long emphasized the importance of interacting with representative groups that involve their members. Additionally, there is an increasing trend toward the professionalization of groups that invest in organizational capacities to efficiently provide policy expertise. Both member involvement and organizational capacity are crucial features for groups to function as transmission belts that aggregate and transfer the preferences of their members to policymakers, thus reinforcing the legitimacy and efficiency of governance systems. Yet, not all groups have these organizational attributes. This paper quantitatively examines the effects of interest groups’ investment in member involvement and organizational capacity on the level of access to EU Commission officials. The results indicate that member involvement does not pay off in terms of higher levels of access. In contrast, groups with high organizational capacities have more meetings with public officials of the Commission.

Highlights

Interest groups are considered as key intermediary organizations that transmit the demands of their constituencies to public officials (Kohler-Koch, 2010; Rasmussen et al, 2014)
This paper develops a novel theoretical framework to examine how the ability of groups to involve their members and professionally provide policy input shapes their level of access to public officials of the European Commission
The results indicate that the organizational capacity to efficiently generate and provide policy input matters for gaining higher levels of access to Commission officials

Summary

Introduction

Interest groups are considered as key intermediary organizations that transmit the demands of their constituencies to public officials (Kohler-Koch, 2010; Rasmussen et al, 2014). To truly function as transmission belts, interest groups should be able to involve their members as well as have the organizational capacity to ensure an efficient articulation of policy input to public officials.

Results

Conclusion