Interest Group Mobilization Research Articles

Free Trade's Organized Progressive Opposition

Abstract Populist, protectionist, and progressive opposition to globalization are renascent among voters and politicians, but which of these ideologies have successfully inspired interest group mobilization? To answer this question, we collect original data on thousands of groups’ participation in highly organized coalitions opposed to US trade policy and globalization. Examining the types of groups that compose coalitions, variation in activation across issues, and coalitions’ written statements, we find that their motivations are mainly progressive, focused on the environment, human rights, economic justice, and reducing corporate power. We also focus on progressives’ labor union allies, showing that their participation in anti-trade coalitions is driven by both sincere progressive and classic protectionist motives. Thus, a progressive–labor alliance espousing mainly demands for fair trade, not plain protectionism, dominates public activism against US trade agreements. This interest group opposition has no match on the political right, suggesting that the recent efflorescence of populist anti-globalization may not last, even as progressive fair traders use their superior mobilization to endure.

Does climate advocacy matter? The importance of competing interest groups for national climate policies

ABSTRACT Climate politics and governance across the globe involve an increasing number of interest groups such as from business and civil society. Against this backdrop, it matters a great deal whether interest group mobilization is able to influence climate policy-making. First, there is an increasing number of climate policy supporters like nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and green businesses lobbying in favour of additional climate policies. Second, there is also strong mobilization of groups from energy-intensive and fossil fuel industries lobbying against potentially costly climate policies. In this paper, we investigate the potential effects of these mobilization patterns. More precisely, we ask whether there is any systematic effect of competing interest group mobilization on national climate policy production. To this end, we harness arguments from literatures on interest group mobilization and climate policy-making. Empirically, we exploit a comprehensive global dataset on the adoption of national climate laws and interest group mobilization (over 4,000 organizations) between 1997 and 2016. The results show that the increasing mobilization of climate policy supporters is positively related to national climate policy production. Climate policy opponents are able to weaken this effect, but are hardly able to block new climate laws. The results add to our understanding of climate politics focusing on the role of business organizations and NGOs. This is highly policy relevant for both analysts and practitioners given that the Paris Agreement relies heavily on national policy efforts. Key policy insights The growing mobilization of climate policy supporters is positively related to the adoption of additional climate laws. The positive effect of climate policy supporters is weakened but rarely blocked by climate policy opponents, such as those from the fossil fuel industry. The effect of lobbying over climate policy needs to be assessed in its competitive context, that is by considering how political support and opposition on climate policy interact.

Policy Feedback and the Polarization of Interest Groups

AbstractWe use the case of education interest groups to examine how and when policy changes lead interest groups to polarize in their support for political parties. Using over 145,000 campaign contributions from all 50 states from 2000 to 2017, we test whether the passage of private school choice, charter laws, and labor retrenchment policies led to the polarization of education interest groups over time. In 2000, teachers unions were the dominant group and mostly aligned with Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans lacked support from any education groups. This pattern was consistent across states. Over time, coalitions in some states became polarized, meaning unions grew even more aligned with Democrats and reform groups with Republicans, while other states did not experience such polarization. We show that private school choice programs, but not labor retrenchment or charter laws, contributed to this changing partisan alignment. Our findings demonstrate that policy feedback can shape both the electoral mobilization and party alignments of interest groups.

The Welfare State Upholders: Protests Against Cuts in Sickness Benefits in Sweden 2006–2019

The power resource approach (PRA) claims that the labour movement continues to be the most prominent defender of the welfare state. The new politics thesis (NPT), on the other hand, claims that the welfare state has created new interest groups in the form of welfare clients who have taken over as the most prominent welfare state upholders. In an attempt to empirically evaluate these claims, we present a study of the extent to which clients and the labour movement have been involved in protests against cutbacks in the Swedish sickness benefit from 2006 to 2019. The article contributes to the welfare state literature by studying a most likely case for PRA‐style interest group mobilization both in terms of country (Sweden) and policy area (sickness insurance). It also tests the claim from PRA scholars that client interests are uncommon in these contexts. Our results show that protest engagement among client groups is greater than the engagement among the labour movement when looking at protests directed specifically against cuts in the sickness benefit programme. However, when broader protests against cutbacks in several transfer programmes are taken into account, the number of protests initiated by clients and by the labour movement is comparable. Overall, our results suggest that both the PRA and the NPT are needed to explain current developments in social democratic welfare states like Sweden.

Political strategies in energy transitions: Exploring power dynamics, repertories of interest groups and wind energy pathways in Brazil

Sustainable energy transitions lead to selective pressures that reshape the power relations between existing regimes, inducing political and economic reorganizations, and creating institutional tension. This study analyzes the political mobilization of interest groups around shifts in the wind power regime, their ways of influencing the governmental agenda, and the primary discursive strategies employed. The analysis spans the period from 2000 to 2018 having Brazil as a case study. Initially, the analysis focused on (i) the election financing for the period, before shifting to the developments of the network formed during the campaign financing, driven by (ii) the participation of these stakeholders in public hearings of the federal government. The analysis allowed us to identify the strategies that are used to influence the political process carried out by the political subsystem formed around the wind power regime. Understanding political representation strategies in a sustainable energy transition is important for analyzing the construction of democratic and fair energy regimes.

Exploring the proportionality of representation in interest group mobilization and political access: the case of the Netherlands

Surveys reveal that there are great differences among citizens in their membership of political associations. Such differences plausibly lead to a better representation of interests of privileged citizens compared to other citizens. We examine the demographic groups (in terms of education, gender and immigration background) that tend to be members of interest groups. We also investigate the relation between the membership profile of associations and the propensity of interest groups to be routinely approached by policymakers. The results of our elite survey of Dutch interest associations indicate that relatively well-educated citizens and men are better represented in interest groups. Patterns of underrepresentation are not further exacerbated by the outreach of policy-makers, except that interest associations with a relatively large female membership are less likely to be consulted.

Monuments as Mobilization? The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Memorialization of the Lost Cause

ObjectiveThe United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) played an important role in constructing monuments commemorating the Civil War. Memorialization of the “Lost Cause” and preserving southern heritage are often cited as reasons for monument construction. Here, we study whether these monuments were also used as tools to mobilize potential members.MethodWe use data on Confederate monuments and UDC membership to empirically test if monument construction mobilized women to join the UDC.ResultsStates with more Confederate monuments tended to have more UDC members. Confederate monument construction, especially courthouse monuments, was also predictive of the annual growth in UDC membership in a state. However, membership in individual chapters was not consistently affected by building a monument in a communityConclusionConfederate monuments could be a boon to UDC membership, underscoring how memorials can be used as catalysts for interest group mobilization.

Towards Explaining Varying Degrees of Politicization of EU Trade Agreement Negotiations

Over the last decade, European Union (EU) trade agreement negotiations in the form of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada have been strongly contested. By contrast, many other EU trade negotiations have sailed on with far less politicization, or barely any at all. In this contribution, we assess a series of plausible explanation for these very varying degrees of politicization across EU trade agreement negotiations—conceived of as the combination of polarization of opinions, salience given to them in public debate, and the expansion of the number of societal actors involved therein. Through a review of existing explanations, we show how each of these explanations faces a set of challenges. In the third section, we argue it is useful to conceive of these existing explanations as structural background conditions enabling agency on the part of interest group and civil society organizations. We therefore close by sketching how literature on the relationship between interest group mobilization and public opinion could inform further comparative research on trade policy negotiations, and on politicization of EU policy making in general.

The American Institute and the Problem of Interest Group Mobilization in Antebellum United States

This article explores the formation and early history of the American Institute of the City of New-York, which in the 1830s became the leading lobby association of “friends of industry” in the United States. More specifically, the article considers how the institute’s officers sought to overcome obstacles of collective mobilization that had plagued earlier pro-industry associations. Pre–Civil War interest groups is an understudied area, and historians typically depict the years following in the Compromise of 1833 as a period essentially devoid of pro-industry agitation. However, it was in precisely in these years that friends of industry for the first time managed to obtain the resources necessary for sustained mobilization. Key to the American Institute’s success, this article argues, was the development of annual manufacturing fairs, events that provided steady revenue, strengthened internal cohesion, attracted new members, facilitated coordination with like-minded groups, and provided opportunities to engage in popular politics in an ordered manner.

It's economic size, stupid! How global advocacy mirrors state power

AbstractNumerous empirical studies suggest that global interest communities are heavily biased in favor of wealthier countries. This research note critically reviews these works suggesting that they (i) lack a benchmark to assess the biased nature of global interest communities and (ii) conflate the concepts of “wealth” (based on GDP per capita) and “economic power” (based on GDP) into one analytical category. As a corrective to these problems, we compare variation in global interest group mobilization across countries to the size of these countries' national economies. Relying on an original dataset mapping interest groups communities at the World Trade Organization (1997–2012) and the United Nations Climate Summits (1997–2011), we show that (i) global interest representation almost perfectly reflects differences in countries' relative economic power and (ii) contrary to the conventional wisdom, wealthier countries are, relative to their economic size, actually underrepresented in global interest communities.

The political economy of health financing reform in Malaysia.

There is growing evidence that political economy factors are central to whether or not proposed health financing reforms are adopted, but there is little consensus about which political and institutional factors determine the fate of reform proposals. One set of scholars see the relative strength of interest groups in favour of and opposed to reform as the determining factor. An alternative literature identifies aspects of a country’s political institutions–specifically the number and strength of formal ‘veto gates’ in the political decision-making process—as a key predictor of reform’s prospects. A third group of scholars highlight path dependence and ‘policy feedback’ effects, stressing that the sequence in which health policies are implemented determines the set of feasible reform paths, since successive policy regimes bring into existence patterns of public opinion and interest group mobilization which can lock in the status quo. We examine these theories in the context of Malaysia, a successful health system which has experienced several instances of proposed, but ultimately blocked, health financing reforms. We argue that policy feedback effects on public opinion were the most important factor inhibiting changes to Malaysia’s health financing system. Interest group opposition was a closely related factor; this opposition was particularly powerful because political leaders perceived that it had strong public support. Institutional veto gates, by contrast, played a minimal role in preventing health financing reform in Malaysia. Malaysia’s dramatic early success at achieving near-universal access to public sector healthcare at low cost created public opinion resistant to any change which could threaten the status quo. We conclude by analysing the implications of these dynamics for future attempts at health financing reform in Malaysia.

Privatization of Social Security Retirement Systems: Lessons and Comparisons from Chile, Argentina, and the United States

Retirement pensions are traditionally provided through government social insurance systems, which pool risks broadly across the population and provide benefits that are set in law. In contrast, under privatized systems, workers’ benefits depend on their own individual account balances and investment returns, with little or no redistribution and pooling of risk across the population. In 1981, Chile became the first country to fully privatize its social security retirement system, setting an example that Argentina and numerous other countries later emulated. More than two decades later, both Chile and Argentina undertook “re-reforms” to their privatized systems, with Chile maintaining its privatized system while Argentina returned to a fully public system. The United States also confronted efforts to privatize its Social Security system around the same time periods—in the early 1980s and the early 2000s—but ultimately chose to strengthen the existing system rather than privatizing. This article examines and contrasts these three countries’ experiences in the 1980s-90s and 2005-08, probing the factors that led to or prevented privatization. While finances usually provided the stated pretext for reform, privatization is now widely acknowledged to worsen the financial challenges faced by pension systems. Ultimately, neoliberal ideologies were pivotal in putting privatization on the policy agenda, and institutional structures and interest group mobilization helped to shape the outcomes of the privatization effort.

Legislative Efficiency and Political Inclusiveness: The Effect of Procedures on Interest Group Mobilization in the European Parliament

ABSTRACTThis paper contributes to discussions surrounding interest group representation in the European Parliament. Drawing from conceptualizations of legitimacy, and theoretical work on information-access we argue that different procedures bestow a different type of authority to parliamentary committees affecting their legitimacy orientation, in turn impacting the balance between private and public interests mobilised. We assess a population of 10,000 accredited lobbyists, and the procedural output across the 7th legislature’s committees (2009–2014). Our analysis indicates that committees with a higher ratio of Ordinary Legislative Procedures to Own Initiative Reports see greater private interest mobilisation. Conversely, in committees where the procedures’ ratios are inverse we observe greater public interest mobilisation. Theoretically, we provide a novel approach for framing the committee’s nature from a procedural perspective, bridging discussions on interest group mobilisation and the democratic deficit. Empirically, the results overturn the premise of business dominance across the institution’s committees through a unique dataset.

Towards Universal Health Coverage in Ethiopia's ‘developmental state’? The political drivers of health insurance

With Universal Health Coverage (UHC) now entrenched among the top global development priorities, questions arise as to the conditions under which politicians commit to UHC and why certain strategies for health financing and access are favoured over others. The Ethiopian government has been piloting and scaling-up Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) for the informal sector since 2010 and is establishing Social Health Insurance for formal sector workers as a means of achieving UHC. CBHI covers 11 million people making it one of the largest health insurance schemes in Africa. This paper employs a process tracing methodology to examine the political drivers of the adoption and evolution of state health insurance based on 28 key informant interviews conducted between 2015 and 2018 with politicians, policymakers and donor officials. The paper highlights the inadequacy of existing theories—focusing on interest group mobilisation, electoral competition and bureaucratic actors—for explaining the Ethiopian case. Instead the paper proposes an ‘Adapted Political Settlements’ framework that explains the state's push to expand CBHI and stalled progress on SHI. This framework highlights the interests and ideas of the ruling coalition as important drivers of reform. In a context of ruling party dominance and minimal threat from electoral competition, the ruling coalition has sought to build political legitimacy through the delivery of socioeconomic progress, including health services. The policy idea of health insurance, meanwhile, has secured elite commitment due to its fit with deeply held ideas within the ruling coalition concerning the importance of self-reliance and resource mobilisation for development. Finally, the centralisation of power within the ruling coalition prior to 2012 enabled the emergence of a long-term developmental vision and the marginalisation of opposition to health insurance, while fragmentation of the ruling coalition since 2012 has led SHI to stall.

Autocratic checks and balances? Trust in courts and bureaucratic discretion

ABSTRACTAn emerging literature in political economy focuses on democratic enclaves or pockets of quasi-democratic decision-making embedded in non-democracies. This article first explores the factors that may lead to the emergence of such institutional checks and balances in autocratic politics. I use the comparative analysis of courts in Morocco and Tunisia, and argue that interest group mobilization and the centrality of legalism in political development have been essential for the existence of “governance” enclaves. Second, I explore whether such checks effectively contain everyday rent-seeking, as well as the theoretical channels through which this may occur. Findings from firm-level surveys conducted in Morocco and Tunisia in 2013 indicate that higher general trust in courts, even in modest relative terms, rendered businesses significantly less vulnerable to tax corruption in Tunisia, in sharp contrast to the Moroccan case.

Revisiting the ESA model: a historical test

The energy–stability–area (ESA) model put forth by Lowery and Gray (Am J Polit Sci 39(1):1–29, 1995) focused scholarly attention on two factors critical to interest group mobilization: the density and diversity of groups within a population. Since that seminal publication, researchers have continued to refine the model and its applications. Yet, so far, these studies have been focused on modern interest groups. Here, we extend Lowery and Gray’s (1995) cross-sectional ESA model by studying the strength of state branches of three interest groups—the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Patrons of Husbandry (Grange), and the Grand Army of the Republic—in the mid-1910s. We find some support for the ESA model across all three groups, though density dependence, a key part of the Lowery and Gray story (1995), is not significant in our historical models. Our results further deviate from Lowery and Gray’s work by finding strong evidence for the role of government size on interest group mobilization. Ultimately, we conclude that the ESA model provides important insights on the development of membership associations during the early twentieth century, albeit with some important amendments for the period.

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

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.

Setting the Party Agenda: Interest Groups, Voters and Issue Attention

Do political parties respond to interest group mobilization? While party responsiveness to voters has received widespread attention, little is known about how interest groups affect parties’ policy agendas. I argue that political parties respond to interest groups as lobbyists offer valuable information, campaign contributions, electoral support and personal rewards, but that party responsiveness is conditioned by voter preferences. Based on a novel longitudinal analysis studying the responsiveness of German parties to interest groups across eleven issue areas and seven elections from 1987 until 2009, it is shown that parties adjust their policy agendas in response to interest group mobilization and that interest groups are more successful in shaping party policy when their priorities coincide with those of the electorate.

Winning, Westminster-style: Tamil diaspora interest group mobilisation in Canada and the UK

ABSTRACTMigration scholars are becoming increasingly interested in diasporas and in their ‘host state’ activities. In a separate body of literature, foreign policy analysts have been considering domestic sources of foreign policy and increasingly the impact of diaspora interest groups on host state foreign policy. The convergence of these two strands offers fertile ground to explore the efforts of diaspora interest groups on host state foreign policy. This illustrative, comparative case study adds additional rigour to existing analyses of mobilised diaspora host state lobbying by further conceptualising policy outcome through the application of the literature on interest groups. Theoretically, it further situates diaspora lobbying into the foreign policy literature by introducing Role Theory, which aids in demonstrating the impact of structural differences when considering similar actors. Via this theoretically informed template, the paper argues that slight contextual variation in two seemingly analogous contexts can discernibly impact outcomes, in this case on whether or not Tamil diaspora interest groups influenced British and Canadian foreign policy in 2009 toward the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Peace is on the Ballot: The Politicization of the Colombian Peace Talks

On October 2nd 2016, Colombian voters rejected a referendum on the peace agreement between the federal government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Contrary to most advance polling and preliminary estimates in national and international news media, the “No” vote won by a tight margin, thus rejecting a peace deal that would have brought an end to the longest civil war in the Western hemisphere. This paper examines the intersections of civil society and the political groups most actively involved in the peace process in Colombia, beginning in the 1980s and leading to the 2016 referendum. The findings are two-fold: first, civil society has played an integral role in both the endurance and the hindrance of the peace process from its beginnings in 1980s up to the present day, through electoral support of independent candidates and by mobilization of special interest groups. Second, the 2016 referendum results share exceptional demographic and geographic correlations with the results of the 2014 presidential election. This suggests the peace referendum was highly politicized and split along the lines of partisanship at the highest echelons of Colombian democracy.