W4: lobbying & interest groups Flashcards
Interest groups: two key messages
- Lobbying is inherent in any political system 🡪 it is always going to be there, so ask how it works and how it works for the group
- The characteristics of EU interest groups and lobbying processed mirror the characteristics of the EU political system
Lobbyist:
An individual engaged in attempts to influence governmental decision-making on behalf of an interest group.
Interest group:
a group of people that share certain preferences regarding the outcomes of governmental decision-making and organize in order to influence those outcomes, without seeking elected office.
Interest groups in the European Union according to the Transparency Register
- 12,478 registered organizations and self-employed lobbyists
- Most of them are organizations with multiple people.
- There is a broad diversity in lobbying groups such as firms, gold companies, because it can achieve something by influencing EU policy
- Types of interest groups in the EU 🡪 firms, business associations (representing a kind of businesses), NGO’s (the last group has in general less people). Trade unions are not only like national trade unions, but more representing a group such as doctors. Public authorities (local and regional governments, provinces, regions) are also represented at the European level but do not have to register which explains their small part.
European umbrella organizations
- How EU interest groups are organized: a typical umbrella organization.
- An example is the epha – European Public Health Alliance Members from member states and from other EU-level (think about an organization that works against smoking on EU-level), also non-EU (because EU influences also non-EU member states)
- General assembly with representatives from member organisations
- Board 🡪 is not there every day but meet monthly
- Secretariat – the professionals of the organization whose permanent job it is to lobby including support staff 🡪 they do the daily work in Brussels. 🡪 They talk with policy makers and try to find out if something interesting is happening in Brussels which is difficult due to the structure of the EU. They know how the EU works.
This reflects how the EU is structured 🡪 national organizations who are the basis organization and organize to have their voices heard, like multilevel governance
Lobbying channels in the EU
- Firms who are part of national organizations, via (or directly to) the European organization or go directly to Brussels itself or hire a commercial consultant
- Going directly depends on sources, trust, an entry you have in Brussels (it is an investment) 🡪 you can also hire in some lobbyist who have already their access to Brussels and the policy makers.
- The first question if you go to Brussels is what the European union can do for your question..
- Lobbying efforts can be aimed directly at the EU institution or they can target national governments, which then take the message with them to Brussels.
Two most important systems of interest representation:
Corporatism: a system of interest representation in which a limited number of interest groups has privileged access to governmental decision-making some groups have special rights. Interest groups have become part of the government, they cooperate. (Germany, NL, Scandinavia)
Pluralism: a system of interest representation in which large numbers of interest groups compete with each other for access to governmental decision-making. None of the groups has a privileged position in policy-making. Relations among interest groups and between interest groups and the government tend to be more antagonistic than they are in a corporatist system.
Pluralism and corporatism in the EU:
- EU is predominantly pluralist. There are many interest groups and it is easy for them to gain access to EU policy-making but they have to share this access with a range of other groups.
At the same time, elements of corporatism can be found in various parts of the EU.
- The EESC: European Economic and Social Committee. Involvement of social and economic interest groups (employers and labour unions), together with groups like environmental or consumer groups
- The CoR: Committee of Regions. Elected local/regional politicians
- The Social Dialogue: more far reaching corporatism. Three employers organizations and three labor unions (social partners)
The variety of interest groups in the EU is also a result of attempts by the European Commission actively to stimulate the creation and activities of certain groups. Especially NGO’s
- For the European Commission, supporting EU-level interest groups has been a way to increase the legitimacy of EU initiatives.
- For the Commission, it is a great benefit if it can tell member state governments and the European Parliament that its proposal is supported by a wide range of European interest groups.
Logics of lobbying: two strategies
Inside lobbying: getting at the table (influence a person), directly.
- Inside lobbying is reported at EU-level to see with which organizations there is spoken. It is not complete, but gives you an idea with which organizations there is spoken.
Outside lobbying: mobilization of public opinion, indirectly, think about demonstrations, political strikes, try to get it in the media 🡪 all these ways have the hope to influence policy makers.
- But: Outside lobbying does not happen that much, most protests are not focused on EU policies, almost nothing is directly aimed at EU policy makers
- Groups can do a combination, others combine it too.
- Outside lobbying is only used if it has a chance to get influence.
The choice of strategy by interest groups. depends on:
The target of the lobby:
- Outside lobbying works best when the decision-maker that is targeted is sensitive to public opinion. For instance, elected politicians depend more on public opinion than civil servants. If an interest group wants to influence the EP, outside lobbying is more likely to be successful than when it wants to influence the European Commission
The organization and identity of the interest group:
- Inside lobbying and outside lobbying require very different skills.
- For inside lobbying, a group need to establish and maintain contacts with policy-makers, and be able to gather and present information in a way that ties in with the policy debates in a given field.
- For outside lobbying, a group needs to have a sufficiently large network of members and volunteers to organize large-scale events and relay those events to the media.
The issue at stake
- Some issues appeal to public sentiments more easily than others. Thus, it is difficult to conceive of a large-scale demonstration being organized against a proposal on accounting standards. Outside lobbying will typically be used only for issues people feel close to.
Interest groups that represent firms and industries or local governments rely almost completely on inside lobbying.
Why is there so little outside lobbying aimed at the EU?
Imig and Tarrow explain this by pointing at the unfavourable political opportunity structure for political protest at the EU level and the organizational constraints that many groups face.
- Political opportunity structure: is the institutional and political context within an interest group operates and that determines the receptiveness of decision-makers to the claims of that group.
- Decision makers are much less sensitive to public opinion: EC is not directly elected, EP elections are decided on local issues, Council is not dependent on public opinion. Whilst domestic politicians rely heavily on public opinion
In addition to the Political opportunity structure, many groups find it difficult to organize political protests at European scale: different countries, different languages, different media
And the issues at stake are partly different at the EU level than within the member states: EU is a lot farther ‘from home’. Issues closest to daily lives are done at MS level
Lot of choices to make when lobbying:
- Target: commission, EP, Member state governments
- Work alone or join forces? The advantage of going alone is that the demands and message of the group are not diluted by compromises with partner groups. The disadvantage it that no group is capable of single-handedly influencing.
Do interest groups matter?
- Determining the influence of interest groups is a notoriously difficult issue in political science.
One way of assessing interest group influence is to take a policy proposal, see what the response of an interest group was, and then determine whether the policy proposal changed as a result of that response. This approach is fraught with caveats:
- First, if we observe that a policy proposal has changed, how can we be sure that it was changed because of the response by the interest group?
- Second, any policy proposal is subject to numerous pressures, from interest groups, member state governments, MEPs and governments from states outside of the EU. It is nearly impossible to isolate the effect of interest group activity in this plethora of activities.
- Third, and most fundamentally, interest groups need not always do something in order to have an ipact on policy-makers. If policy-makers know that a powerful interest group is likely to oppose some idea, they will think twice before they propose it. Influence can therefore be exerted without doing anything.
What determines interest group influence?
Resources and interest groups characteristics
- The most important interest group characteristic that affect their impact in the EU are expertise and political support. Because campaign financing is less important in the EU than in the USA, money plays a smaller role for interest groups in the EU than in the latter.
Issue characteristics 🡪 smaller issue, easier to get influence, because:
- Less competitions, few or no other interest groups involved
- Policy makers will easily compromise because they won’t have big repercussions
Characteristics of the political system
- Even though resources are important for an interest group, they do not fully determine its success. It also depends on the way the political system operates. It makes a difference if the system is pluralist or corporatist.
- But also if campaign contributions are allowed, if there are a lot of (important) elections. Less democratic, because not many elections. But also less influence of lobbying and interest groups
How the EU’s political system is reflected in interest representation
- The multilevel character of most EU interest groups
- The importance of expertise and constituency weight (and much less: direct financial contributions)
- The importance of coalition building
- The emphasis on inside lobbying (and limited role of outside lobbying)
- The importance of ‘constructive’ lobbying 🡪 most proposals in EU make it to policy, other in US where policy makers can kill proposals.
