Bert Fraussen

The Expanding Core and Varying Degrees of Insiderness: Institutionalised Interest Group Access to Advisory Councils

The interaction between organised interests and policy makers is an important ingredient of contemporary political systems. In earlier work, interest group scholars have distinguished groups that enjoy access to consultation arrangements from those that are bound to stand on the sideline. Frequently, these insiders are considered to be equally connected to public authorities. Yet their degree of ‘insiderness’ differs significantly. By unpacking the set of organised interests that have gained access, this article distinguishes core insiders from groups that occupy a more peripheral position in an interest intermediation system. Empirically, we demonstrate and explain varying degrees of insiderness in the community of insider groups in Belgium, using the extensiveness of representation in advisory bodies as a proxy for access. Our findings show that, although nowadays a diverse set of organised interests gets involved in policy-making processes, the inner circle is dominated by traditional economic interests.

Assessing the Composition and Diversity of the Australian Interest Group System

Any democratic society requires mechanisms for citizens to have effective political voice. Clearly, political parties provide a key channel for expressing views and preferences. However, organised interests provide another important mechanism for such representation. A crucial question in this regard is whether the interest group system is capable of ensuring the representation of a variety of public and private interests. Resolving these debates requires data that map the terrain and also are attentive to organisational diversity. This article takes up this challenge through exploring the composition and diversity of the Australian system of organised interests, using a new data set based on the Directory of Australian Associations. This system-level approach delivers important insights into the nature of the Australian interest group system, as well as provides a framework for subsequent work interpreting and contextualising advocacy activities of particular groups, or lobbying dynamics in specific policy domains.

No place like home? Explaining venue selection of regional offices in Brussels

ABSTRACT While subnational authorities strongly mobilize in Brussels, they do not lobby all EU-level venues to the same extent. This article explains the varying intensity with which regional offices interact with various EU-level policy-making venues when seeking to influence EU policies. Theoretically, we complement an exchange-based perspective with political-institutional and contextual factors, such as regional political autonomy and the degree of preference alignment with key policy-making venues. To test our hypotheses, we rely on evidence collected through 33 face-to-face interviews with regional representations concerning their lobbying activities in four salient policy processes. Our results highlight that while most offices regularly interact with both national and supranational venues, the central government representation in Brussels is always, irrespective of what is at stake, the most important contact point. Furthermore, we also find that policy alignments shape venue selection, indicating some evidence of strategic manoeuvring.

Political Parties and Interest Organizations at the Crossroads: Perspectives on the Transformation of Political Organizations:

This article reviews the case for considering the study of parties and interest organizations together, under the umbrella of “political organizations.” While both literatures are rather disconnected at the moment, we believe that they share many commonalities. A common narrative involves the apparent transformation of parties and interest organizations, as both organizations are continuously adapting to changing environments. In this review, we integrate both literatures and assess arguments for organizational convergence vis-à-vis claims of continuing diversity. Building upon recent work that takes a more joined-up approach, we advance a common research agenda that demonstrates the value and feasibility of studying these organizations in tandem.

Interest Groups and Policy Capacity: Modes of Engagement, Policy Goods and Networks

This chapter focuses on the policy capacity of interest groups. More specifically, it explores which types of policy capacities interest groups may develop. It is widely acknowledged that interest groups can play key roles in the policy process, in particular if they have generated their own capacities through the possession of a number of ‘policy goods’ to assist in policy formulation and implementation. These ‘policy goods’ are highly valued by policymakers. This chapter links different policy goods to analytical, operational and political skills, as well as to different modes of policy engagement. To fully understand the development and value of these capabilities one should look at the links between organizational factors and policy context. That is, the generation of interest group policy capacities is first and foremost a dynamic process, in which policy context and the relationships between government and interest groups shape the generation and value of group capacities.

Conceptualising the policy engagement of interest groups: Involvement, access and prominence

While much progress has been made in empirically mapping and analysing a variety of interest group activities in the last decade, less attention has been devoted to conceptual work that clearly defines and distinguishes different forms of policy engagement. This article contributes to this endeavour by developing a theoretical framework that explicitly links currently available measures of the policy engagement of groups to the distinct concepts of group involvement, access and prominence. It argues that greater conceptual clarity will lead to better accumulation of knowledge in the sub-field and a better understanding of the role of interest groups in political systems.

Interest Group Politics: Change and Continuity

Lobbying the European Union: Institutions, Actors and Issues, David Coen and Jeremy Richardson (eds.), New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 The Political Economy of State-Business Relations in Europe: Interest Mediation, Capitalism and EU Policy-Making, Rainer Eising, London: Routledge, 2009 Organized Business Interests in Changing Environments: The Complexity of Adaptation, Jurgen R. Grote, Achim Lang and Volker Schneider (eds.), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 Political Activities of Interest Organizations: Conflicting Interests, Converging Strategies, Joost Berkhout, Universiteit Leiden, 2010 Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why, Frank R. Baumgartner, Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnacki, David C. Kimball and Beth Leech, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009

Live to Fight Another Day? Organizational Maintenance and Mortality Anxiety of Civil Society Organizations:

Communities of civil society organizations are characterized by substantial volatility, as new organizations are continuously established and old ones are regularly disbanded. This article aims to improve our understanding of the dynamic nature of civil society by focusing on a particular aspect of organizational maintenance, namely, mortality anxiety. Building upon previous work that assesses actual and perceived survival chances of civil society organizations, we examine how inter-organizational competition, ties with public authorities, and the internal institutionalization of civil society organizations shape how these groups assess their survival chances. Our results demonstrate that high levels of inter-organizational competition and a strong reliance on government funding significantly increase mortality anxiety. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of a professionalized and internally differentiated structure. We rely on survey data and focus on the case of Belgium, in this way providing a first assessment of mortality anxiety in a neo-corporatist political system.

Laying the Groundwork: Linking Internal Agenda-Setting Processes Of Interest Groups to Their Role in Policy Making:

Although scholarship has highlighted the role of stakeholders in policy making, less is known about the preparations they make that lay the groundwork for their lobbying activities. This article links ideas on collaborative governance with the study of agenda setting within interest groups. We outline an orthodox mode of agenda setting that anticipates groups possess a proactive policy mode, an institutionalized policy platform, and a pyramid-like agenda structure. Subsequently, we use this orthodox mode as a heuristic device for examining agenda structures and processes, combining survey data on the practices of groups in Australia with illustrative qualitative evidence.