Pieter Bouwen

Corporate Lobbying in the European Union: Towards a Theory of Access

The complexity and diversity of European interest politics is exemplified by the multitude of channels and targets that private actors use to lobby in the EU multi-level system. The aim of this article is to investigate the logic behind the apparent ad hoc lobbying behaviour of private interests. A theoretical framework is developed in order to explain the access of business interests to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The degree of access to these institutions is explained in terms of a theory of demand and supply of access goods. Access goods concern information that is crucial in the EU policy-making process. In order to gain access to an EU institution, business interests have to provide the access good(s) demanded by that institution. Organizational form is introduced as the innovative unit of analysis. It follows that associative business action is unconventionally studied in relation to two other organizational forms: individual company action and thirdparty representation.

Competing for consultation: Civil society and conflict between the European Commission and the European Parliament

This article investigates how informal rules in the European Union change in the periods between formal treaty revisions. On the basis of a case study on the White Paper on Governance presented by the European Commission in July 2001, it shows how institutional change is driven by conflict between the Commission and the European Parliament. The conflict concerns the development of informal rules to structure the interaction of the Commission and the Parliament with Europes civil society. The interaction with civil society organisations is very important for the EU bodies because it allows them to acquire resources that are indispensable in order to fulfil and expand their organisational role. An additional aim of this article is to examine how these institutional developments might influence the long-term development of formal treaty rules.

The Democratic Legitimacy of Business Interest Representation in the European Union: Normative Implications of the Logic of Access

This paper studies the capacity of business interests to contribute to the democratic legitimacy of EU governance through participation in the EU policy-making process. Whereas the unbalanced participation of business as opposed to non-business interests in EU policy-making has been problematized, no research has been conducted regarding the unequal participation of different organizational forms of business interest representation (companies, associations and consultants). Here, first it is argued on the basis of a theory of access that this unequal participation has important repercussions because the different organizational forms do not have the same potential to contribute to the legitimacy of EU governance. The theoretical approach makes it possible to bridge the gap between the EU legitimacy debate and the literature on EU business interest representation by establishing a relationship between the new concept of ‘access goods’ and the existing notions of input/output legitimacy. Second, an empirical investigation of business interest participation is undertaken in order to systematically assess the empirical relevance of the normative propositions and consequently to make inferences about the democratic legitimacy of business interest participation in the EU policy-making process.