Abstract
This article discusses the methodology and practice behind planning and executing the Comparative Interest Group-survey project (CIG-survey). The CIG-survey includes surveys among national populations of organized interests in 9 European countries and at the European Union level. Although surveys are a useful and reliable way to collect data on a variety of topics, there are also numerous pitfalls and challenges in surveying interest groups, especially across multiple countries. Despite the prominent use of surveys in interest group research, systematic reflections on this method are scarce and data sets are not always properly archived or openly accessible. This article elaborates upon the practical implications and reflects on the lessons learnt during from the implementation of the CIG-survey. Moreover, we highlight how the fuzzy boundaries of interest communities obfuscate sampling and that surveying interest organizations requires researchers to navigate through a specific organizational context to reach and motivate respondents. We also demonstrate how a careful survey plan can positively affect response rates and enable the creation of robust comparative data sets.
Highlights
Political strategies and organizational development of interest groups is vital to get a better understanding of systems of interest representation
Comparative knowledge, especially when we are interested in the activities of national and European interest groups in multilevel policymaking
We provide an overview of the available data sets that are publicly available via a project website
Summary
Political strategies and organizational development of interest groups is vital to get a better understanding of systems of interest representation. Online surveys allow researchers to reach a large number of interest organizations in relatively affordable way (e.g. Dür and Mateo 2016) It enables the collection of systematic data on the internal functioning, political activities, management and relations with members and other interest organizations. The limited systematic mapping of interest intermediation systems in many countries means that these studies, in contrast to those on parties, government formation, legislative or electoral politics, often lack sound comparative empirical links to the way societal interests are represented via organized interests (see Halpin and Jordan 2011 for an overview) This is accentuated in the case of smaller and Central-European countries.
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