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Interest Groups in the Media: Bias and Diversity Over Time
Abstract
A prominent presence in the news media is important for interest groups. This article investigates the development in the diversity of interest group media attention over time. The analysis draws on a dataset of 19,000 group appearances in the Danish news media in the period 1984–2003. It demonstrates how diversity has risen continually over time, leading to a media agenda less dominated by labour and business and more by public interest groups and sectional groups. This development is related to the increasing political importance of the news media and the decline in group integration in public decision-making processes. The article also shows how the development of group appearances is closely related to changes in media attention towards different policy areas.
... According to Binderkrantz and Skorkjaer [6] in their paper "Interest Groups in the Media: Bias and Diversity Over Time", the media is essential to interest groups. As social media grows, it becomes more important to politics and fuels political conflict within online communities. ...
... As social media grows, it becomes more important to politics and fuels political conflict within online communities. Binderkrantz and Skorkjaer [6] say that when this phenomenon is extended to multiple other issues in the global community, it can lead to more serious internal conflicts in areas that were never seen before. ...
... Many people in these groups firmly believe that only their beliefs are correct and are unwilling to consider the views of other religious groups. When this phenomenon extends to multiple other issues in global communities, it is likely to spark even more serious intra-group conflicts on several issues, with many recent disputes even in previously unheard-of areas [6]. For instance, the constant online conflict between Android and Apple mobile phone users, which often attracts insults and put-downs between the two groups on various new media platforms, with Android users convinced that Android is a better system than Apple and Apple users confident that Apple is a better system than Android. ...
Nowadays, social media is being widely used, which brings individuals the convenience of obtaining information, but at the same time, its disadvantages are also apparent. It can be said that the characteristics and functions of social media are a double-edged sword; it has a significant impact on individuals because it will subconsciously change peoples identity from active seekers of information to passive consumers. Therefore, this paper will focus on how social media decreases individuals willingness and initiative to receive information and how social media uses algorithms and big data to influence peoples perceptions and actions. For example, silently, social media algorithms create a filtering bubble so that individuals can only see posts that are similar to their viewpoints; and how social media platforms establish business profit models that change individuals traditional consumption patterns and the functioning of related business markets. As social media continues infiltrating personal lives, the authors conclude that people will lose their online identity and become more passive.
... Interest group scholars usually conceive of a biased system of interest representation as lacking diversity and where access and influence are skewed towards a small number of well-resourced interests, especially economic interests . Many domestic systems, as well as the European system of interest representation, have been found to be characterised by bias in various policymaking arenas and the news media (Binderkrantz, 2012;Bunea, 2017;De Bruycker & Beyers, 2015;Lowery & Gray, 2004;Rasmussen & Gross, 2015;Schlozman et al., 2012). Similarly, in Belgium, scholars have observed a bias towards a limited number of privileged, mostly economic, interests that gain regular access to the policy process and receive media attention, while many interest groups enjoy no or only limitedly access. ...
... Interest organisations are identified through their participation in specific policymaking processes. Examples are studies using the US state lobby registration rolls or all interest groups registered at the German Bundestag (Klüver & Zeidler, 2019;Lowery & Gray, 1995, lists of organisations attending political events such as global diplomatic conferences (Hanegraaff et al., 2015), organisations participating in public consultations, parliamentary hearings, advisory bodies (Bunea, 2017;Pedersen et al., 2015;Rasmussen, 2015) and organisations appearing in the news media (Binderkrantz, 2012;Binderkrantz et al., 2017a;De Bruycker & Beyers, 2015). These data sources are particularly suited to study advocacy strategies and influence tied to specific policy dossiers (Berkhout et al., 2018;Beyers et al., 2014b). ...
... In this regard, the media arena is somewhat more inclusive of citizen groups (compared to advisory councils). This can be framed in the context of increased public attention and interest mobilisation on issues such as the environment and human rights (see Binderkrantz, 2012). In addition, while the traditional neo-corporatist actors have maintained their core position in advisory councils dealing with welfare state policies, in other 'new' domains also citizen groups have gained substantial access (Willems, 2020). ...
Interest Representation in Belgium
This article assesses the size and diversity of Belgium’s interest group population by triangulating four data sources. Combining various sources allows us to describe which societal interests get mobilised, which interest organisations become politically active and who gains access to the policy process and obtains news media attention. Unique about the project is the systematic data collection, enabling us to compare interest representation at the national, Flemish and Francophone-Walloon government levels. We find that: (1) the national government level remains an important venue for interest groups, despite the continuous transfer of competences to the subnational and European levels, (2) neo-corporatist mobilisation patterns are a persistent feature of interest representation, despite substantial interest group diversity and (3) interest mobilisation substantially varies across government levels and political-administrative arenas.
... In effect, editors and reporters are likely to pay more attention to economic groups to get insider information and perspectives. Aggregate patterns of media visibility support this argument by showing a business group bias in media coverage (Binderkrantz 2012;Binderkrantz et al. 2017;Danielian and Page 1994;Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2009). ...
... In contrast to previous findings regarding aggregate measures of media appearances, we cannot point to any significant advantage accruing to economic interests other than privileged access to the media for news on economic regulation. Our results thus contradict the impression of a general media stronghold by economic interests as suggested by H3 and identified in studies of aggregate media attention (Binderkrantz 2012;Binderkrantz et al. 2017;Danielian and Page 1994;Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2009). Finally, we expected interest groups representing economic interests to be particularly successful in corporatist systems (H5). ...
... Depending on which policy areas are in focus, some interest groups are more or less likely to push their interests onto the agenda. Analysis over time has demonstrated, for example, that citizen groups have become more prominent media sources partially because the balance between reporting on different policy areas has turned to their advantage (Binderkrantz 2012). Still, this study demonstrates that for a given policy area, the attention toward different types of interests is shaped more by resource differentials and patterns of mobilization in different policy areas than by reporters systematically paying more attention to some interests rather than others. ...
Media attention is a scarce, yet attractive, resource for interest groups. Existing studies show that media attention is concentrated on a relatively small number of well-resourced groups, often representing economic interests. However, the literature still struggles to disentangle the reasons behind this bias in media attention. Is it explained by media selection practices or uneven interest group activity? We cannot separate these two possible mechanisms by simply studying aggregate levels of media attention. In this study, we therefore compare the set of groups that lobby in specific policy areas with the groups that appear in the news on issues related to those same policy areas. The investigation is based on data from Denmark and the United Kingdom. First, we use survey data to identify the policy areas in which groups actively lobby. Second, we identify groups’ media appearances in news stories related to those same policy areas. Third, we compare diversity among the groups actively lobbying with the groups actually appearing in the news and investigate possible biases. We find that even when the analysis of media appearances is narrowed down to only those groups active in a policy area, the news media allow more access to well-resourced groups. However, in contrast to previous findings, differences in media appearances across interest group types are not reproduced. These results imply that media selection biases are mainly produced by varying lobbying resources rather than discrimination based on the type of interests that groups represent.
... Review of literature IGOs and the use of social media. From the popular resourcebased view, scholars present different viewpoints on IGOs use of social media (Binderkrantz, 2012). Some scholars view social media as weapons for aiding resource-poor organizations such as non-governmental organizations and civil society groups (Eyal, 2016), while others see them as arsenals for already established organizations like corporations and businesses. ...
... Some scholars view social media as weapons for aiding resource-poor organizations such as non-governmental organizations and civil society groups (Eyal, 2016), while others see them as arsenals for already established organizations like corporations and businesses. Both views illustrate the potential resource capacity of organizations to use social media (Binderkrantz, 2012), but the argument about why and how an organization might want to use social media remains inconclusive. Why an organization employs social media technologies does not rest on its resource capacity, but on how the organizational use of social media is conceptualized (Kanol and Nat, 2021). ...
The value experience perceived by users and the extent of interactivity on social media show how engaging audiences are. Few studies have looked at what drives this value experience in organizational communication. This study explores the functional use of communications by interest group organizations (IGOs) and discerns their effect on user engagement with and without multimedia inclusion on Twitter. A bi-term topic modeling technique is used to analyze posts from 121 organizations, and a generalized linear regression model to assess the link between the content functions and user engagement. The results show that the information and communication content functions include event updates and people recognition. Further, report, event, period, and people communication functions drive a higher engagement with multimedia inclusion, while unite, sign, and glean communication functions are more likely to increase engagement without multimedia elements. This study bridges the gap in the service literature as it pertains to non-profit organizations (i.e., interest group organizations) by exploring organizational communication using communications content functions of Twitter posts. This study is the only one to investigate content functions beyond the categorizations of message functions and the relationship between content functions and user engagement.
... Per ciò che concerne gli esiti, le domande di ricerca sono due, tra loro strettamente interconnesse: innanzitutto, ci preme verificare quali (tipi di) attori hanno goduto di maggiore visibilità mediatica sul tema, dominando così il dibattito pubblico in relazione al PNRR. In secondo luogo, proprio sulla base della considerazionedata abbondantemente per assodata dalla letteratura più recente (Binderkrantz 2012;Binderkrantz et al. 2017a; Aizenberg e Hanegraaff 2020)che la capacità di sfruttare il sistema mediatico quale cassa di risonanza per le proprie rivendicazioni sia strumento fondamentale ai fini dell'influenza di policy, soprattutto in fase di agenda (Binderkrantz e Rasmussen 2015), cercheremo di individuare quali interessi sono stati in grado di incidere sul contenuto del 3 PNRR e quali, al contrario, hanno giocato un ruolo sostanzialmente marginale. Nel farlo, ci concentreremo sulla corrispondenza tra le priorità segnalate dai (vari) gruppi di interesse e quelle concretamente entrate a far parte del Piano. ...
... Non soltanto, dunque, imprenditori e sindacati si sono spartiti la gran parte della visibilità mediatica legata al Recovery Fund (cfr. sezione 4): anche in riferimento ai temi trattati, le agende portate avanti dagli attori per così dire tradizionali del sistema degli interessi risultano maggiormente centrali rispetto a quelle dei gruppi di interesse pubblico e altri tipi di gruppo, così confermando le aspettative teoriche (Binderkrantz 2012;Aizenberg e Hanegraaff 2020 Ad ogni modo, non ce ne dobbiamo eccessivamente sorprendere. Come è noto (Klüver et al. 2015;Pritoni 2021), il lobbying è probabilmente l'attività più contestuale che esista. ...
Over the past few months, (very) much of the Italian public debate dealt with two closely related issues: the COVID-19 pandemic and the policy instruments at disposal to national and supranational political actors to mitigate its consequences, especially from a socioeconomic point of view. On this, the main political tool was the so-called 'Next Generation Europe' plan (also known as 'Recovery Fund'): with respect to Italy, this plan concerned more than 200 billion euros, including loans and grants, to be invested in the (economic) relaunch of the country. Thus, it represented a big game that all interest groups wanted to play, a perhaps unrepeatable opportunity to see their own requests transformed into public policies. This article focuses precisely on how the most important organized interests mobilized and contributed to the public debate on the Recovery Fund (RF). It does so by attempting to answer three main research questions: which interests have received greater media visibility with respect to the RP? Which issues those same interest groups brought to the attention of public opinion? With what consequences (if any) to the main contents of the plan itself? Our empirical analysis focuses on the 20 most important Italian interest groups (i.e. the main business associations, labor unions, institutional groups and public interest groups of the country), reconstructing their lobbying activity and public frames through a detailed coding of their (traditional and social) media interventions and press coverage from
... This is not different in the literature that the current endeavor seeks to engage with. That is, in both of the literature strands on outside strategies and media appearance, especially those studies conducted in the European context, there is a focus on mechanisms of business associations when referring to the representation of business interests (Beyers, 2004;Binderkrantz, 2012;Binderkrantz et al., 2015;Binderkrantz et al., 2017;Kriesi et al., 2007). This study therefore partially departs from insights from the studies of business association strategies and media appearance as well and derives and tailors arguments that more specifically refer to interest representation strategies of corporations. ...
... When they do so, they benefit from the advantaged position that business has in politics (Lindblom, 1977), and are able to mobilize quicker than encompassing interests as they experience less collective action problems (Olson, 1965). In addition, due to corporations' established insider positions, it might be easier for them to gain access to journalists, as the latter are more inclined to report on powerful actors (Binderkrantz, 2012;Galtung & Ruge, 1965). ...
This paper analyses how corporations appear in media coverage on six policy domains through a complexity lens in two major British newspapers between 2012 and 2017. Corporations are often thought to avoid press coverage, though another strand of literature indicates that they dominate the news compared to other organized interests. We argue that corporations use multiple lobby strategies including media strategies in order to maximize influence. They do so to signal technical expertise to specific constituencies that is not necessarily accessible to the general public. The results show that corporations are more likely to be involved in news coverage that is technical in nature which is an important finding as it tells us more about the media involvement of key players in the political process. Yet, this coverage is not necessarily less accessible which is a positive finding for the functioning of our democracies.
... From the equalization-normalization perspective, it is therefore relevant to ask whether weak, resource-poor groups can use digital media to strengthen their visibility in and impact on the traditional media agenda. If so, digital media utilization might reduce bias in interest groups' media access (Binderkrantz, 2012;Danielian & Page, 1994;Thrall, 2006). Alongside other factors such as collective action problems (Aizenberg & Hanegraaff, 2020;Olson, 1965) and framing (De Bruycker & Beyers, 2015), interest groups' resources (such as staff numbers) cause bias in media access; resource-rich groups are cited by journalists more frequently (Andrews & Caren, 2010;Binderkrantz et al., 2015;Thrall, 2006). ...
... Why should we care about resource-related bias in interest groups' media success? From a normative perspective, it is desirable that different societal viewpoints are reflected in media debates, because this allows citizens to formulate informed opinions (Danielian & Page, 1994, p. 1057; see also Binderkrantz, 2012) and prevents select interests having undue influence on policymaking via the media. Because narrow but wealthy segments of society are more likely to join interest groups and can afford higher membership fees (Lowery et al., 2015(Lowery et al., , p. 1224Olson, 1965;Schattschneider, 1960, pp. ...
The equalization-normalization debate concerns whether the Internet equalizes politics by empowering resource-poor organizations, or whether it further strengthens the position of resource-rich organizations. We address this debate by studying how interest groups’ utilization of digital media is associated with their success in influencing news media. We suggest digital media is characterized by the coexistence of old and new media logics that benefit resource-rich and resource-poor groups in different ways. Analyzing a dataset of 1,127 Finnish interest groups, we found that groups’ utilization of digital media is positively associated with their news media success, yet traditional ways of influencing the news media remain more effective. Among resource-rich groups with larger public relations staff, blog publishing is positively associated with both media access (media visibility) and agenda-building success (influencing news topics). In contrast, utilization of digital media among resource-poor groups only correlates with agenda-building success, and audiovisual content is more effective than other content. We suggest that while resource-poor groups benefit from network media logic in which the flow of information is initially based on popularity among social media users, resource-rich groups can exploit mass media logic where traditional journalistic gatekeeping is more important. The findings also imply that digital media has not decreased resource-related bias in interest groups’ media access.
... Lobbying strategies are often conceptualized as either direct communication within political institutions, or as indirect, "outside" communication through third party actors, such as members, or the media (Beyers 2004, Kollman 1998. Overall, resourceful groups generally lobby more, and public interest groups mobilize to a greater extent through outsider strategies than special interests such as business (Binderkrantz 2005(Binderkrantz , 2012Baumgartner et al. 2009). However, actual strategies are conditional on contextual factors such as issue type and -salience, policy field and -process, institutional and political context, the type, and number of groups involved, and their objectives (e.g., Baumgartner and Jones 2015;Beyers 2004;Dür and De Bièvre 2007;Kriesi et al. 2007;Hanegraaff et al. 2017;Mahoney 2007a). ...
While interest groups frequently arrange seminars and conferences, the strategic use of public events for political influence has largely evaded scholarly scrutiny. Drawing on systematic, in-depth data from 49 interviews, quantitative event mapping and extensive ethnographic observation within the health field, this study proposes that public event lobbying serve two key purposes: first, to forward policy issues and -solutions directly to policy makers within a public, communicatively controlled setting, and second, to network with a broad range of issue stakeholders, including policy makers. By arranging public events, interest groups in practice construct non-institutional arenas for direct access which afford substantial control over how issues are presented, and by whom. Moreover, by physically assembling decision makers and issue stakeholders, public event lobbying directly or indirectly contributes to establish and strengthen policy communities. Theoretically, public event lobbying is proposed as a direct outsider lobbying strategy, which serve both short-term issue influence objectives and long-term capacity building for lobbying through the construction of supportive networks. While public event lobbying is applied across group types, the study finds that financial resources and inter-organizational cooperation are key determinants for event organizing.
... Bennett's research centres on the influence of the media in shaping public opinion and political discourse. He introduced the concept of "indexing" (Binderkrantz, 2011), which suggests the coverage of news frequently aligns with the opinions of official elites, hence reflecting the number of government officials expressing particular viewpoints (Cook, 2013). Meanwhile, authors such as Papaioannou T, Aalberg T, Dimitrova Dv, Esser F, Greenwald G, Hopmann Dn, and Ibrahim Y, each shows a varying level of productivity, total citation count and impact, as shown in table 6. Author's keywords and co-occurrence networks In bibliometric analysis, there are two types of keywords, which is author's keywords and index keywords (Ni et al., 2022). ...
... One way to realize this is to install consultation instruments such as advisory councils (ACs) (Arras and Braun 2017;Beyers and Arras 2019). These are permanent bodies within the agency, in which a limited number of stakeholders, selected by the agencies, hold a seat for a longer period of time (Binderkrantz 2012;Fraussen, Beyers, and Donas 2015;Gornitzka and Sverdrup 2015;Rasmussen and Gross 2015). Agencies may use ACs to balance interest representation and as such counterbalance the structural predominance of regulated business interests (Arras and Braun 2017;Beyers and Arras 2019). ...
European Union (EU) agencies are known to have a high risk of capture by regulated business interests. To limit this risk, agencies try to involve a diverse set of stakeholders. One way of doing so, is to install advisory councils (ACs): permanent bodies with a fixed number of stakeholders selected by the agency. Current scholarship has mainly studied whether stakeholders' access to ACs is biased towards business interests. However, it remains unknown whether the ACs functioning might also be biased. This research note presents a strategy to go beyond access and look inside the ACs. By examining how members perceive the councils, its meetings and the discussions therein, it explores whether the councils' functioning contributes to more balanced interest representation. We illustrate that although the councils' members are willing to prioritize seeking consensus over defending their own interests, finding this consensus proves difficult due to asymmetries in resources, thus stressing the need for a better understanding of bias. We end with proposing further qualitative approaches to study bias of advisory bodies in the future.
... However, their comparative advantage is limited to many context-related L. Gatto elements. For example, recent developments have witnessed the rise of both public and citizen interest groups (Binderkrantz 2012) that are challenging the privileged position of business interest groups. Finally, business interest groups, and interest groups more in general, are mainly looking at two main objectives when taking into account all this calculation: influencing a public policy and defending their own resources. ...
The global financial crisis resulted in a re-examination of the business sector as a whole and its lobbying activity. Nevertheless, research has not analysed the impact that the global financial crisis had on the coalitions within the business interest group community. This article describes in detail how coalitions within the business interest group community have emerged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. I focus my attention on the Swiss case because of the importance of its financial sector as well as its neo-corporatist system. The empirical approach consists of a process tracing on three policy areas: financial regulation, tax policy and corporate governance, which is elaborated through an extensive document analysis and 28 in-depth interviews. The advocacy coalition framework is used to analyse business interest groups’ beliefs. The findings suggest that different beliefs materialise, especially in the field of financial regulation and partially in tax policy.
... For example, some researchers discuss that access to interest groups to the policymaking process based on outside tactics depends on factors such as issue salience and the support interest groups receive from the broader public (Dür and Mateo, 2013). However, Binderkrantz (2012) discusses that powerful and resourceful interest groups employ outside tactics as they have the skill to use media strategies which demand resources. ...
Exchanging of information defines how interest groups access the European Union's (EU) legislative process. In the exchange process, interest groups, based on their abilities and interests, supply policymakers who are pressed for time and staff with relevant information for legitimate access to the EU legislative process. However, while we know about the determinants of access to policymakers based on the existing literature, the literature needs to be more active regarding the determinants of access to MEPs for HR NGOs regarding human rights issues, especially in third countries. Therefore, this research applied a qualitative approach to understanding the determinants of HR NGOs' access to MEPs regarding the human rights situation in Iran. The research started with the question of what determines the access of HR NGOs to MEPs. This research shows that the informational needs of MEPs are crucial determinants of access to MEPs. Furthermore, the findings of this research indicate that besides the informational needs of MEPs, the tactic that HR NGOs employ to access MEPs is another crucial determinant of access to MEPs regarding the human rights situation in Iran.
... Examples of constraints related to these logics can be found in CSOs using insider strategies such as lobbying policymakers and that restrain their media presence or use of "voice" and protest, as it could risk damaging their inside lobbying efforts (Grant 2004). Regardless of the possible tension between media and access strategies, media work seems to be a strategy used by most interest groups to get "their" issues on the agenda (e.g., Binderkrantz 2012;Dür and Mateo 2013;Jacobs and Glass 2002). In summary, in this thesis, organizations' actions are defined and constrained by these three logics because of their interest in gaining support and legitimacy from members and the media and their endeavor to gain influence over public policy. ...
The professionalization of civil society organizations coupled with an elite-driven policy process has fostered the rise of policy professionals in civil society organizations (CSOs). This dissertation explores the role and functioning of policy professionals in CSOs, describing and analyzing how CSOs’ hiring of such expertise contributes to processes of professionalization within civil society, including what that entails from a normative perspective. It does so by analyzing interviews with and observations of policy professionals in Sweden, Latvia, and the Netherlands. The main research question guiding the thesis concerns how we can conceptualize and understand the group of policy professionals in civil society and the role it plays in the professionalization of civil society. The analysis is based on field theory in combination with new institutional theory.
The study provides new insights into the role of policy professionals and professionalization of CSOs through four empirical studies. First, it conceptualizes the field of policy advocacy in civil society as a struggle to gain influence over internal and public policymaking. In this struggle, policy professionals’ daily activities concern practices of influencing policy application and constructing several types of field-specific capital. Types of capital important for this subfield are, over and above social and academic capital, organizational capital and policy-political capital. While organizational capital restores the organization by fostering legitimacy, trust, and loyalty, policy-political capital, acquired from the political sphere, enhances the political professionalization of the field.
Second, a contribution of this thesis is to conceptualize policy professionals’ different role orientations as policy scholars, policy lobbyists, policy communicators, and policy activists. These role orientations of individual policy professionals are in turn connected to strategies embedded in the logics of and relationships with actors outside civil society.
Third, by identifying how these policy professionals handle the sometimes-clashing logics of membership and influence, gaps between ideals and practices are found in policy professionals’ day-to-day policy work. Policy professionals try to overcome these gaps by the means of decoupling, myth creation, and organizational hypocrisy, creating a discrepancy in that the organizations say one thing but do another.
Lastly, this thesis argues that the mediatization of civil society creates conflicts within organizations, in turn pushing CSOs to advance their work via branding, framing, and strategic communication that elevate the positions of communicators within policy teams.
One of this study's main contributions is made in relation to the professionalization of CSOs, demonstrating how their roles are connected to organizational strategies. A second contribution is that of nuancing and extending the literature on and conceptualization of policy professionals by conceptualizing the subfield of policy professionals in civil society. This thesis reveals how the policy professionalization of CSOs creates a new political landscape where competence relating to these areas is in demand, fostering the emergence of policy professionals as a cadre in civil society. A significant danger of this policy professionalization of CSOs is that decision making is placed more in the hands of these employees, rather than in the hands of the members the organization is supposed to represent.
Keywords: civil society, policy professionals, professionalization, organization, advocacy, strategy, member, mediatization, field theory, capital, decoupling, logic of influence, organizational hypocrisy, myth.
... It is in line with these observations as political scientists have argued that within such arrangements, government is thought to share its power with a select group of membership organizations such as labor or business associations and avoids direct interaction with businesses (Streeck & Kenworthy, 2005). Political scientists have argued that due to a decline in importance of these arrangements, groups that used to have access to government are nowadays not necessarily granted access by default anymore (Binderkrantz, 2012;Crepaz, 1994). From this perspective, it seems logical that members of these groups such as corporations are now more inclined to lobby individually because there are more incentives to do so in these contexts (see also Aizenberg & Hanegraaff, 2020). ...
This paper argues that a high degree of conflict and a low degree of salience on a policy issue drives corporations to lobby alone rather than via a business association. Previous research has addressed drivers at organizational, sector and structural level. This paper adds an issue perspective. These arguments are important as democracies thrive when business employs its power in a responsible manner. When corporations lobby alone, it can be a challenge to do so as they tend to overlook long‐term interests of the broader business community and society. The arguments are tested for the first time in a corporatist context through an original survey experiment among corporate lobbyists in Germany and the Netherlands. The study finds support for the expectation on conflict, which is striking as it indicates that corporations prefer to lobby alone due to conflict even in contexts in which they are not incentivized to do so.
... For det første er befolkningens vaerdier aendret. Betydningen af klassiske fordelingspolitiske spørgsmål er mindsket, og vaerdimaessige spørgsmål, de nypolitiske emner, har fået øget opmaerksomhed (Binderkrantz, 2012;Stubager, 2009). Inglehart (2008) har målt udviklingen i materielle og postmaterielle holdninger og finder stigende støtte til postmaterielle vaerdier i postindustrielle samfund som det danske. ...
Interessegrupper kan bidrage til et velfungerende demokrati, idet de kan sikre diversitet i koret af stemmer i det politiske system. Men er der mere diversitet i den danske interessegruppepopulation i dag end tidligere? Fire forskellige samfundsudviklinger: nye politiske værdier, demografiske ændringer, ændrede korporative strukturer og velfærdsstatens ekspansion påvirker, hvordan den danske interessegruppepopulation har udviklet sig i forhold til sammensætningen af forskellige gruppetyper. Der er mere diversitet i den danske interessegruppepopulation i dag end i 1970’erne, hvor de økonomiske organisationer som arbejdstager- og erhvervsorganisationer dominerede populationen. I dag er der mere ligevægt mellem de økonomiske organisationer og civilsamfundsorganisationerne.
... De fremhaever også, hvordan nye politiske aktører som de policyprofessionelle og nye begreber som svingdørslobbyisme i stigende grad er kommet i fokus. Baggrunden for disse forandringer skal findes i den gradvise svaekkelse af de korporative strukturer, som har fundet sted siden 1980'erne i Danmark, Norge og Sverige (Christiansen, 1997;Blom-Hansen, 2000;Binderkrantz, 2011;Rommevedt et al., 2013). Samlet set gør forandringerne i Skandinavien, at forskelle i interessevaretagelse mellem disse politiske systemer og de politiske systemer i England og USA på en raekke områder, herunder i forhold til lobbyisme, er blevet mindre (Ihlen, Binderkrantz og Öberg, 2020). ...
Svingdørslobbyisme vokser i Danmark, uden at det har medført ny lovgivning. I flere lande, som Danmark normalt sammenligner sig med, har en lignende udvikling fundet sted og ført til ny lovgivning. Lovgivningen begrundes af især to overordnede hensyn: hensynet til den generelle tillid til det politiske system og hensynet til beskyttelse af statens økonomiske interesser. Artiklen beskriver fremvæksten af svingdørslobbyisme i Norden og Tyskland. Herefter analyserer artiklen nyere lovgivning om regulering af svingdørslobbyisme i Norge, Sverige og Tyskland. Det konkluderes, at hensynet til såvel økonomi som tillid fremgår af den nyere lovgivning i alle tre lande, men også at reguleringen kun indeholder svage sanktioner i tilfælde af regelbrud. På denne baggrund diskuteres regulering af svingdørslobbyisme i Danmark.
... Furthermore, studies have suggested that insider status is another major mechanism that increases interest groups' media access (Binderkrantz, 2012;Binderkrantz et al., 2015;De Bruycker and Beyers, 2015: 455). This view takes its point of departure from the indexing hypothesis originally formulated by Bennett (1990). ...
A growing body of studies analyzes interest groups’ media visibility. Yet little is known about how the drivers of media access may vary across different interest group systems. This article focuses on two major mechanisms through which organizations can gain media visibility: media management efforts and the newsworthiness of elite actors. We hypothesize that media effort explains interest groups’ media access more strongly in competitive, pluralist interest group systems and that insider (i.e. “elite”) status does so more strongly in hierarchical, corporatist systems. We analyze surveys and media data on interest groups in the pluralist United Kingdom, the moderately corporatist Denmark, and the more strongly corporatist Finland. As hypothesized, media effort is most effective in the UK and weakest in Finland. However, we find only weak support for the insider status hypothesis: there is some evidence of the expected cross-country differences, but the effects are small and unrobust.
... While the choice of political actors-i.e., those actors commonly associated with direct strategies-was quite straightforward, the identification of actors involved in indirect forms of mobilization was more difficult. We decided to include the media because of its increasing importance for interest groups (e.g., Kollman 1998;Binderkrantz 2012), as well as the courts because it is quite easy for activists and interest organizations to take legal action in order to advance their causes, especially in the case of public interest groups. We use two distinct operationalizations. ...
This study examines interest groups’ involvement in the policymaking process by asking the following questions: Which political and non-political actors do interest groups target? What are the attitudinal and behavioral components of their strategy? We focus on new Southern European democracies that have been understudied in terms of interest group politics. Based on an original cross-national survey administered in Greece, Portugal and Spain, with responses from approximately 600 interest groups, this study argues that the attitudinal and behavioral dimensions are partially distinct components that need to be distinguished. The findings show that although groups mainly target governmental actors to defend their interests, parties are still considered important intermediaries to influence public policies. Moreover, organizational resources are the most significant explanatory factors that shape the relations between organized interests and policymakers, while cross-country differences do not seem to be of great relevance.
... Existing work on organized interests in the media has enumerated the distribution of appearances in newspapers, and on radio or television. The almost unanimous finding, regardless of policy area or political system, is that appearances in all forms of media are concentrated among a small number of groups (Binderkrantz, 2012;Binderkrantz et al., 2017;Danielian & Page, 1994;Thrall, 2006). Furthermore, the diversity of groups in the media is skewed towards economic interests (Binderkrantz et al., 2017), especially in those policy fields where they hold expertise, such as regulatory policy (Binderkrantz et al., 2020). ...
Think tanks are expected to cut through the prevailing short-term government agenda of the day, and to inject long-term perspectives and research-based expertise into policy debates. In order to do so, they need to attract media attention to themselves in connection with those issue areas in which they have expertise, even if government is focusing elsewhere. Yet, existing studies of media attention among organized interests have thus far ignored the issue context. We argue that sinking costs into research in specific policy areas pays off for think tanks by funnelling more media attention towards them. This is notwithstanding the importance of governments’ own issue agendas, which, if a think tank’s expertise aligns with them, further raises media attention. We substantiate these claims with a content analysis of news coverage of 62 Australian think tanks in 19 different policy issue areas. The results broadly support our argument and contribute to studies of policy advisory systems, organized interests, and group-media relations.
... Our first strategy to identify groups is manual and similar to what has been done in previous research (Binderkrantz 2012;Binderkrantz et al. 2017;Danielian and Page 1994;Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2009;Tiffen et al. 2013). For this, coders were instructed to read the full text of all articles to identify interest group appearances. ...
Studying patterns of interest representation in politics is a central concern of scholars working on interest groups and lobbying. However, systematic empirical analysis of interest group representation entails a large amount of coding and is potentially prone to error. This letter addresses the potential of two computational methods in enabling large-scale analyses of interest group representation. We discuss the trade-offs associated with each method and empirically compare a manual, a query-based, and an off-the-shelf supervised machine learning approach to identify interest groups in a sample of 3000 news stories. Our results demonstrate the potential of automated methods, especially when used in combination.
... The increase in media coverage between the years likely relates to the rise in high-cost medicines, expanding the number of relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, the newly established prioritization system appears to reduce corporate opportunities for backstage influence, likely amplifying the strategic significance of the media (Binderkrantz, 2012). For instance, pharmaceutical companies, medical experts and patients in 2017 all address the government directly through the media, requesting involvement or lamenting the lack of dialogue. ...
The media are central arenas for actors challenging government practice, as those who succeed in publicly defining issues can influence public perceptions and policy outcomes. Taking into account the widespread civic participation in health media coverage, this study explores actor influence on the media framing of a contentious health policy issue, before and after a policy change. By means of media texts analysis, it analyses the relation between actor frames and the dominant media frames on the issue of priority setting of innovative pharmaceuticals. While confirming that actors vary in their ability to influence the media, the findings contend traditional conceptions that representation equates media influence and shed light on factors that affect frame influence.
... However, this is far from a given (Davesa and Shahin 2014;van Dijk and Hacker 2018). Policymaking that invites the viewpoints of many stakeholders to an open public debate is good for raising awareness (Binderkrantz 2012), but this in itself does not lead to empowered citizens or better policymaking. Many examples can be given where the process serves as 'window dressing', providing an additional venue for organised lobbying (Donders, Van den Bulck, and Raats 2019) and failing in 'inclusiveness (of actors and discourses) and consequentiality' (Buxton 2019;Schouten, Leroy, and Glasbergen 2012). ...
This paper asks to what extent the European Commission’s stakeholder participation model takes into account non-expert citizen contributions in policy processes pertaining to copyright. In theory, the increasing scale of citizen engagement in stakeholder consultations on copyright could help address the EU’s democratic deficit. The paper analyses the European Commission’s consultation processes in copyright policy across the Barroso 1&2 and Juncker Commissions (2004–2019). It documents the scale and the type of stakeholder involvement in public consultations. Through expert interviews and a survey, the paper gives critical insight into stakeholders’ perception of the Commission’s consultation practices and citizens’ role in policymaking. It concludes that the Commission is inclusive of different types of stakeholders, but casts doubt on the (perceived) motivation and appropriateness of its stakeholder participation model for non-expert citizens. The paper thus sheds light on the attempts and the struggle to engage with citizens in a digital age.
... Reflecting the call to study bias in the pressure system empirically, a strand of research has focused on assessing the appearance of organized interests in different political arenas. Binderkrantz (2012), for example, has assessed the diversity of interest group media attention in the Danish news media between 1984 and 2003. She shows that diversity has increased over time as both public and sectional groups gained more relative attention over time. ...
Text analysis is highly useful for scholars working on lobbying and interest groups. It is a method through which organized interests, their positions on issues, and the frames that they employ can be identified within bodies of text. This technique allows scholars to measure access to different types of venues and the policy positions that groups express. It can reveal patterns of populations and communities that can be used as (in)dependent variables. In turn, these can be linked to characteristics of organized interests, the context in which they operate and policy outcomes.
Analysis of content in texts can be best described as “the systematic, objective, quantitative analysis of message characteristics” (Neuendorf, 2002, p. 1). There are different types of text analysis, and these types can usually best be described by the degree of human involvement in the coding process. The types range from human coding to supervised coding to unsupervised coding which are associated with different trade-offs when it comes to validity and reliability.
This entry explains why text analysis is a useful method for interest group scholars, sheds light on the different types of text analysis, their benefits and limitations, notes the main empirical applications in the field of interest group research, and discusses promising applications for future research.
... A mídia é a uma das principais responsáveis por tornar o hipsterismo um assunto relevante por tê-lo divulgado amplamente (WAMPOLE, 2012;LORENTZEN, 2007). Há que se considerar que a mídia opera de maneira parcial, moldando o assunto de que tratam sob determinados vieses (BINDERKRANTZ, 2012). Então, pode-se afirmar que esse agente conta com procedimentos que formatam as conclusões e, consequentemente, afetam a construção do Hipster. ...
Os registros sobre o Hipster são questionáveis por definir o fenômeno de maneira satírica em várias publicações midiáticas e até em livros. Já os acadêmicos, apesar de certas inconsistências, são mais claros em identificá-lo como pessoas que utilizavam o consumo para se afirmar ou viver de determinada maneira. Diante disso, este artigo fez uma reflexão contributiva às constatações acadêmicas sobre o Hipster a partir de fatores metodológicos e teóricos. O caminho investigativo foi o de analisar o artigo de Cavalcanti (2019) em que o Hipster era caracterizado por meios científicos e estudar o conflito entre as categorias e o modo com que os autores utilizados constroem o objeto, sendo possível entender as limitações do conhecimento e identificar uma operação cultural que chamamos de práticas culturais soberanas. Conclui-se que a construção do Hipster tem vieses e lacunas, mas que ainda permite entender a contribuição das práticas culturais de consumo observadas.
... Og for det tredje betyder politikkens medialisering, at den politiske kommunikation i højere grad bliver påvirket af nyhedsmediernes logik, og at både politikere og den politiske kommunikation således professionaliseres (Esmark og Blach-Ørsten, 2011). Nyhedsmedierne bliver således en afgørende arena for politisk indflydelse (Binderkrantz, 2011). I dette landskab, hvor der er konstant kamp om medieopmaerksomheden, spiller de policy-professionelle en stor rolle i forhold til både at vinkle og praesentere politiske budskaber på en måde, der er attraktiv for nyhedsmedierne, og samtidig spiller de rollen som rådgivere for de politiske aktører, der ikke blot selv opsøger, men også bliver opsøgt af nyhedsmedierne (Svallfors, 2016b). ...
Poliittiseen vaikuttamiseen liittyvässä keskustelussa on noussut yhä useammin esille lobbaus erilaisten kanavien kautta. Keskusteluissa on kuitenkin syvennytty vain vähän uutismedian ja toimittajien rooliin sekä siihen, kuinka heihin kohdistetaan poliittista lobbausta. Tämä artikkeli tarkastelee laadullisen aineiston avulla toimittajien kokemuksia lobbaamisesta, jolla pyritään vaikuttamaan poliittisen päätöksenteon uutisointiin. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu talouden ja politiikan uutisointiin keskittyneiden toimittajien teemahaastatteluista (n=16). Analyysi osoittaa toimittajien huomioivan ja hyödyntävän poliittista lobbausta toimitustyössä. Toimittajiin kohdistetun poliittisen lobbaamisen kasvua selittävät journalismin, käytännön työn sekä poliittisen viestinnän muutokset ja kehityskulut. Toimitusten pieneneminen, työmäärän ja kiireen lisääntyminen sekä ammattimaistunut lobbaus ovat lisänneet toimittajien kokemuksia heihin kohdistetusta poliittisesta lobbaamisesta. Varautuminen poliittiseen lobbaamiseen on heikentynyt ja on yhä useammin toimittajan oman ammattitaidon varassa. Toimittajien ja toimitusten kyvyllä huomioida nämä haasteet ja vastata niihin voi olla merkittäviä vaikutuksia suomalaiseen poliittiseen journalismiin.
Purpose
This paper develops a typology of argumentation strategies used in lobbying. Unlike in other strategic communication functions such as crisis or risk communication, such typologies have not been proposed in the sub-field of public affairs.
Design/methodology/approach
The article synthesises the strategic communication, political communication and policy studies literature and employs exchange theory to explain the communicative-strategic exchange in public affairs. It showcases its explanatory potential with illustrative examples from Big Tech lobbying.
Findings
The paper describes that categories of argumentation strategies that a public affairs professional will choose are based on the contingency of the issue, policy objective and lobbying objective. The descriptive typology will require empirical testing to develop further.
Social implications
The paper describes how public affairs professionals influence public policy through their argumentation strategies, which sheds light on the usually opaque activities of lobbying.
Originality/value
The proposed typology is the first of its kind for the field of public affairs. Beyond, it contributes communication-scientific insights from a rhetorical tradition to strategic communication research and other social science fields where lobbying is studied, e.g. policy studies.
The purpose of this opening chapter is to equip readers with the necessary conceptual and theoretical tools to analyze the politics of interest groups. To achieve this, the chapter defines what an interest group is, and then proceeds to present and discuss the primary approaches used to study organized interests, namely, pluralism, neo-corporatism and neo-pluralism. Additionally, various typologies of interest groups are examined, along with the primary strategies adopted by these actors to exert influence over policymaking. Finally, the chapter considers the institutional role played by interest groups and the challenges they encounter within modern representative democracies.KeywordsPluralismNeo-corporatismTypes of interest groupsGroup mobilizationSocial dialogue
This chapter focuses on the media appearances of interest groups in two of the main Portuguese newspapers between 1990 and 2019. It identifies the types of groups and particular organizations that are more frequently mentioned in the press, their longitudinal evolution and diversity, the policy domains in which organizations are involved and their potential relationships with other political organizations, while drawing some conclusions about the mobilization strategies that are mentioned in the media. In findings similar to those observed in other European countries, we observe increasing media appearances of public interest groups over time, partly at the expense of business groups and trade unions. Groups are mostly involved in articles relating to health, education and justice policy areas, yet shying away from a more active involvement in electoral disputes. In addition, mobilization strategies still attract attention, particularly protests and demonstrations. Altogether, the results suggest that those groups with greater resources and access to other political (or administrative) arenas make more appearances.KeywordsInterest groupsMediaOutside lobbyingPolicy areasAdvocacy
Lobbying ist in der Schweiz ein besonderes Phänomen, dessen Form und Mechanismen von den drei länderspezifischen Institutionen bestimmt werden: der direkten Demokratie, dem Föderalismus und dem Konkordanzprinzip. Diese Institutionen und die sich daraus ergebenden Strukturen und Prozesse, die es unterschiedlichen Akteuren erlauben, insbesondere im vorparlamentarischen Verfahren auf Politik und Verwaltung einzuwirken, werden in diesem Beitrag anhand von aktueller Literatur erläutert und kritisch diskutiert. Ziel ist es, den Leserinnen und Lesern einen umfassenden Einblick in die Lobbyarbeit in der Schweiz in unterschiedlichen Phasen des Gesetzgebungsprozesses sowie auch außerhalb dessen zu bieten.
In modernen Demokratien sind gesellschaftliche Akteure auf Präsenz und Resonanz in den publizistischen sowie sozialen Medien angewiesen, wenn sie ihre Interessen durchsetzen wollen. Vor allem solche Akteure, die über nur geringe Verbindungen zum politisch-administrativen System verfügen und damit wenig Gelegenheit zum Inside-Lobbying haben, sind auf die öffentliche Form der Interessenvertretung, das sogenannte Outside-Lobbying, angewiesen. Der vorliegende Beitrag identifiziert und systematisiert den kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Forschungsstand zum Inside- und Outside-Lobbying für zwei relevante Akteurstypen: Unternehmen und intermediärer Organisationen.
How can we define lobbying? What is a lobby? Is an interest group different from a pressure group? And how can we categorize different types of groups? Who can be technically labeled as a lobbyist? By adopting the perspective of political science, the article tries to answer all these questions, providing the fundamental definitions of the concepts involved in the practice, the study, and the regulation of lobbying, also untangling some theoretical problems that often lead to various misunderstandings in the public discourse on lobbying, and that are usually behind ineffective or “flawedµ attempts of regulation of lobbying activities
Lobbying ist in der Schweiz ein besonderes Phänomen, dessen Form und Mechanismen von den drei länderspezifischen Institutionen bestimmt werden: der direkten Demokratie, dem Föderalismus und dem Konkordanzprinzip. Diese Institutionen und die sich daraus ergebenden Strukturen und Prozesse, die es unterschiedlichen Akteuren erlauben, insbesondere im vorparlamentarischen Verfahren auf Politik und Verwaltung einzuwirken, werden in diesem Beitrag anhand von aktueller Literatur erläutert und kritisch diskutiert. Ziel ist es, den Leserinnen und Lesern einen umfassenden Einblick in die Lobbyarbeit in der Schweiz in unterschiedlichen Phasen des Gesetzgebungsprozesses sowie auch außerhalb dessen zu bieten.
In modernen Demokratien sind gesellschaftliche Akteure auf Präsenz und Resonanz in den publizistischen sowie sozialen Medien angewiesen, wenn sie ihre Interessen durchsetzen wollen. Vor allem solche Akteure, die über nur geringe Verbindungen zum politisch-administrativen System verfügen und damit wenig Gelegenheit zum Inside-Lobbying haben, sind auf die öffentliche Form der Interessenvertretung, das sogenannte Outside-Lobbying, angewiesen. Der vorliegende Beitrag identifiziert und systematisiert den kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Forschungsstand zum Inside- und Outside-Lobbying für zwei relevante Akteurstypen: Unternehmen und intermediärer Organisationen.
Nach der ersten grün-roten Landesregierung in einem deutschen Bundesland von 2011 bis 2016 in Baden-Württemberg führte Winfried Kretschmann von 2016 bis 2021 zum zweiten Mal eine grün-geführte Landesregierung an – eine lagerübergreifend grün-schwarze Kiwi-Koalition. Auch diese Regierungskonstellation ist bislang in der deutschen Geschichte einmalig. Der Sammelband analysiert, wie sich dieser Regierungswechsel von Grün-Rot zur selbst ernannten grün-schwarzen Komplementärkoalition in den verschiedenen Politikfeldern auf die durchgesetzten Policies ausgewirkt hat. Neben dem expliziten Vergleich der durchgeführten Reformen in den beiden Legislaturperioden beleuchten einzelne Kapitel des Sammelbands beispielsweise auch die Koalitionsbildungsprozesse, die Bürgerbeteiligung und den Einfluss organisierter Interessen unter der zweiten Landesregierung Kretschmann sowie die Verschiebungen im Parteiensystem in Baden-Württemberg.
Die Herausgeber
Dr. Felix Hörisch ist Professor für Sozialwissenschaften, Sozial- und Bildungspolitik an der Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken.
Dr. Stefan Wurster ist Assistant Professor für Policy Analysis an der Hochschule für Politik der Technischen Universität München.
Die Koalition aus Bündnis 90/Die Grünen und CDU in der 16. Wahlperiode Baden-Württembergs ist erst die dritte gemeinsame Landesregierung dieser beiden Parteien nach Hamburg (2008–2010) und Hessen (seit Januar 2014). Sie ist zugleich die erste, in der die Grünen den Senior-Partner darstellen. In diesem Beitrag gehen wir der Frage nach, inwiefern sich die „Kiwi“-Koalition auf die organisierten Interessen im Land auswirkt. Theoretische Betrachtungen lassen erwarten, dass sich ein (partieller) Regierungswechsel insofern auf die Interessengruppen auswirkt, als damit Politikwechsel oder Veränderungen im Zugang zum politischen System einhergehen. Daher untersuchen wir zunächst anhand von einschlägigen Verbändeverzeichnissen, inwiefern sich der Wechsel zu Grün-Schwarz auf das Interessengruppensystem ausgewirkt hat. Zweitens setzen wir auf der Basis von Regierungsdokumenten und Medienberichterstattung zu landespolitischen Themen die Gesetzgebung der letzten drei Landesregierungen mit Veränderungen in der Verbandsaktivität in Beziehung. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich der partielle Regierungswechsel von Grün-Rot zu Grün-Schwarz nur sehr gering auf das Interessengruppensystem ausgewirkt hat. Die politische Aktivität der Interessengruppen ist tendenziell gleichbleibend bis abnehmend. Dies liegt vor allem daran, dass in der 16. Wahlperiode größere Politikvorhaben, die reges Lobbying auslösen würden, weitgehend ausblieben. Eine Ausnahme stellt das Politikfeld Inneres und Justiz dar. Hier ging insbesondere mit der Polizeigesetz-Reform erhöhte politische Aktivität der Interessengruppen einher. Ansonsten sind die leichten Veränderungen in den Aktivitätsniveaus unter Grün-Schwarz eher dem Regierungswechsel an sich sowie Ursachen außerhalb der Landespolitik geschuldet.
According to the cartel party model, political parties that are primarily state funded appear to weaken their connection with civil society and lose grassroots support. The Italian case seems to support the first part of this assertion: political parties in Italy are heavily reliant on public funding. This chapter examines the relations between civil society and advocacy groups by examining the details of political parties’ private revenue. While the conclusions drawn from this data source can be contentious, they are nevertheless insightful. Interest groups may be thought of as intermediaries for civil society concerns, and recent literature on party–group partnerships has been incorporated. Private finance analysis results corroborate previous analytical research on party–group ties.
In both comparative and country-specific studies on private money in politics, a knowledge gap is recognised. I address the state-of-the-art of studies in this area in this chapter, focusing on the regulatory framework and international debate. To comprehend dynamics, an in-depth study is required; hence, the case of Italy is viewed from this vantage point. The political transitions that have occurred there over the last few decades underscore the transformations that have arisen in a number of developing countries. Progressive alienation of political parties from civil society, as well as the personalisation of electoral competition, can be analysed by the flow of money raised by political groups, allowing us to gain a greater understanding of political actors’ shifting representational roles and financial networks.
Democratic party transformations are a central topic of research in contemporary political science. The deterioration of the mass party model has raised many concerns about the evolution and prospects of democratic participation. The goal of this chapter is to show how the current discussion on party organisation is from a particular point of view: funding the political campaigns. From this vantage point, the organisational dynamics of the party, as well as its representational objective, are a function of financial capital. Additionally, the financial framework enables an examination of the party’s links to civil society representatives and their specific interests.
Gaining an audience on social media is an important goal of contemporary policy advocacy. While previous studies demonstrate that advocacy-dedicated nonprofit organizations—what we refer to as advocacy groups—use different social media tools, we still know little about what specific audiences advocacy groups set out to target on social media, and whether those audiences actually engage with these groups. This study fills this gap, deploying survey and digital trace data from Twitter over a 12-month period for the Australian case. We show that while groups target a variety of audiences online, there are differences between group types in their strategic objectives and the extent to which particular audiences engage with them. Business groups appear to target elite audiences more often compared with citizen and professional groups, whereas citizen groups receive more online engagement from mass and peer audiences.
What explains MEPs’ decisions to recognize some interest groups as relevant policy actors? Addressing this question is fundamental for understanding the role of political elites in shaping patterns of interest representation and interest groups’ role in legislative decision‐making. Building on theories of legislative behaviour and informational theories of legislative lobbying, we argue that MEPs give recognition to those organizations that are instrumental for achieving key political goals: re‐election, career‐progression and policy influence. The pursuit of these goals generates different patterns of MEP recognition of interest groups. We contribute to the literature in three ways. Conceptually, we propose interest group recognition as a key concept for understanding interactions and links between legislative and non‐legislative actors. We illustrate the high conceptual relevance of recognition for interest groups research while noting its conspicuous neglect in the literature. We address this gap and place the concept central stage in understanding legislators’ attention to and behaviour towards interest organizations. Theoretically, we build on a classic framework explaining legislators’ behaviour and refine it through the lenses of informational theories of legislative lobbying. We argue and show that legislators recognize organizations that enhance electoral prospects in their home Member States, and that legislator‐group ideological proximity and an interest group's prominence in a specific policy field affect MEPs’ decisions to recognize some organizations as relevant actors. Our argument acknowledges the importance of the broader context in which MEPs operate and pays attention to how they react to and interact with it. Empirically, we propose an original and innovative research design to identify and measure recognition with the help of social media data. Our measurement strategy constitutes a significant improvement insofar that it reduces the challenges of measurement bias usually associated with self‐reported data generated through interviews, surveys, or the textual analysis of newspaper articles and official documents. Our research design allows using fine‐grained measures of key dependent and explanatory variables and offers the very first analysis of MEP interest group recognition that holds across decision‐making events and policy areas. We test our argument on a new dataset with four million observations recording the recognition of more than 7,000 organizations by 80% of MEPs serving in EP8. We find that MEPs are more likely to recognize organizations from their Member State, particularly under flexible‐ and open‐list electoral institutions. MEPs are also more likely to recognize organizations that share their ideological affinities and are prominent actors in policy areas legislators specialize in. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
This article explores how personal experience in the form of human interest stories has become a road to visibility, legitimacy, and impact for organizational actors and interest groups. Focusing on news media representations of health, where patients and their experiences with disease play an increasingly central role across media platforms, the article theorizes the hierarchies and dilemmas of a “human interest economy” in which ordinary people become exemplars, based on the authenticity of their experience, and their ability to attract attention and support. Departing from 38 interviews with management and communications professionals in Norwegian health interest groups, the article analyzes how organizations that provide exemplars to the news media adapt to and negotiate generic human interest formats that favor certain diseases, victims, and storylines over others. By discussing how the normative claims of immediate and authentic bottom-up voices in the news media tie in with less visible and more implicit strategic interests, the article adds to the theorizing about the role and power of ordinary people in the news, and how they serve the strategic interests of organizational actors that liaise between journalists and participants.
How to study media diversity has become a major concern in today’s media landscape. Many expect that algorithmic filtering and a shift of audiences from legacy media to new intermediaries decrease the diversity of news diets, leading to fragmented societies, polarization and spread of misinformation. Different fields, from journalism research to law and computer science, are involved in the study of media diversity. They operate, however, with vastly different vocabularies, frameworks, and measurements. To overcome this fragmentation, this study provides an extensive overview of conceptualizations and operationalizations of media diversity in different fields using a systematic literature review (1999–2018). This showed a lack of theorizing and linking of conceptual with empirical work in media diversity research. Based on this, we develop a framework on how to move forward: Regarding conceptualization, we call for focusing on different places in the journalistic information chain instead of the classical exposure-supply distinction. Methodologically, automated approaches (e.g., analyzing digital traces) and qualitative approaches (e.g., capturing perceptions of diversity) should receive more attention. For analysis, matters of balance and disparity need to be stressed more, especially discussing possible limits to diversity. Overall, research into media diversity thus needs to be addressed in interdisciplinary collaboration.
The continuing usefulness of the distinction between insider groups and outsider groups is reviewed. Changes in British politics mean that it is open to a new range of criticisms, but it still retains some validity given the importance of narratives of inclusion and exclusion in politics. The Labour government's code of practice on consultation should make it easier for groups to put their views to government, but traditional insiders still have some advantages, particularly in relation to socially excluded groups. Direct action groups continue to challenge established insider groups in agriculture and traditional insiders are changing their strategies. The Huntingdon Life Sciences protest has widened the repertoire of forms of direct action, but responses to it may undermine civil liberties. The continuing influence of big business reminds us that traditional forms of insider politics persist, alongside newer forms of protest politics.
As a result of the Europeanization of politics and the increasing role of the public sphere, political actors in Western Europe are currently facing a double strategic challenge. Based on data from seven West European countries and the European Union, the authors analyze how state actors, political parties, interest groups, and social movement organizations cope with this double challenge at both the national and the supranational level. Results indicate that the classic repertoire of inside strategies at the national level is still the most typical for all actors, but media-related strategies are also prominent at the national level. The Europeanization of repertoires is mainly determined by institutional factors and by the actors’ power, whereas the public arena plays an equally important role for all types of actors, in all countries and at both the national and the EU level.
Following a period of almost obsessive academic attention in the 1980s, in the early 1990s the concept of corporatism fell from favor, as its explanatory powers appeared to wane and the Keynesian welfare systems under which it had flourished apparently fell into decline. In the late 1990s, a new interest in corporatism emerged, in line with new patterns of concertation and corporatist behavior in some unexpected places-countries in which the institutional basis for collaborative, bargained methods of policy making and conflict resolution seemed distinctly unpromising. We review the extensive literature on corporatism since the 1970s and consider its applicability in the contemporary period. We argue that an excessively structural-functionalist interpretation of corporatism led many wrongly to predict its demise as a form of policy making, and that an understanding of its persistence and new manifestations today must resurrect and strengthen some early, recently neglected insights into processes of political exchange.
In this article, some organizing principles and hypotheses are offered concerning the ways in which social movements interact with the news media and the outcomes for both parties. The structural part of the analysis focuses attention on the power and dependency aspects of the relationship and the consequences of the asymmetries. The cultural part focuses attention on the more subtle contest over meaning. Hypotheses on how social movement characteristics affect media coverage focus on movement standing, preferred framing, and sympathy. The authors argue for the importance of organization, professionalism, and strategic planning and for the benefits of a division of labor among movement actors. Hypotheses on how media characteristics affect movement outcomes focus on leadership, action strategy, and framing strategy. The authors argue for audience size, emphasis on the visual, and emphasis on entertainment values as influencing movements.
While understanding interest group systems remains crucial to understanding the functioning of advanced democracies, the study of interest groups remains a somewhat niche field within political science. Nevertheless, during the last 15 years, the academic interest in group politics has grown and we reflect on the state of the current literature. The main objective is to take stock, consider the main empirical and theoretical/conceptual achievements, but most importantly, to reflect upon potential fertile future research avenues. In our view interest group studies would be reinvigorated and would benefit from being reintegrated within the broader field of political science, and more particularly, the comparative study of government.
How broad do groups spread their engagement across the spectrum of public policy issues? The orthodoxy for some time has been that groups tend to focus their engagement rather narrowly. Some suggest that groups shy away from competition and pursue niche-seeking behaviour. Others argue that resource limitations constrain both the monitoring behaviour of groups and the extent to which groups can engage in policy influence activity. While there is some consensus that groups tend to specialize, there is not a great deal of work that seeks to explain it. To date this question has tended to be explored using survey data alone, which provides generalized findings about ‘interest’ in policy areas. In this article we go one step further. By linking detailed survey data with the actual policy activity data of interest groups, we investigate the factors that shape the breadth of engagement by interest groups.
The ability of interest groups to make their views heard is a central tenet of pluralist views of American politics. Despite consensus about the importance of news coverage to interest groups pursuing “outside strategies,” however, little work has examined the ability of ordinary groups to make news. I argue that the best predictor of an interest group's ability to use the mass media as a political tool is the level of organizational resources (money, members, staff, etc.) it enjoys. Through an investigation of the quantity and quality of news coverage received by a sample of 244 interest groups, I show that uneven distribution of resources leads to heavy concentration of news on the largest and wealthiest groups as well as to important differences in how the media portray group actions. I conclude that the outside strategy is more a romantic myth than an accurate portrayal of the American system.
Embracing ‘groups’ as means to address democratic deficiencies invites scrutiny of their democratic practices. However, many groups lack internal democratic practices and offer few opportunities for affiliates to participate. Guided by an implicit ‘representation’ narrative of groups, the absence of internal democratic practices is interpreted as a sign of ‘failure’ or ‘deficiency’. Some scholars have entertained the idea of setting minimum standards of internal democracy as a prerequisite for policy access. This article scrutinizes this emerging consensus and its ‘representation’ narrative. Drawing upon the work of O’Neill (2001) and Pitkin (1967), it is argued that groups can also be viewed through a lens of solidarity. This paper argues that the type of constituency a group advocates for can be used to calibrate expectations of internal democratic structures of accountability and authorization. The concepts of ‘representation’ and ‘solidarity’ are used to make sense of the (changeable) practices of a variety of groups.
This article notes the systemic lack of conceptual clarity in the social sciences and attempts to illustrate the adverse consequences by closer examination of the particular example of the interest group field. It indicates the significant ambiguities implicit in the term. Not all policy-influencing organisations are interest groups as normally understood, but because there is a lack of an appropriate label the term interest group is used by default. The article seeks to distinguish between interest groups and other policy relevant bodies—often corporations or institutions. It finds disadvantages in adopting a functional interpretation of the interest group term (i.e. any organisation trying to influence public policy). While the wider range of organisations are crucial in understanding the making of public policy, it is confusing to assume that this wider population are all interest groups. The article instead advances the complementary notions of pressure participant, policy participant and interest group. This slightly expanded repertoire of terms avoids conflating important distinctions, and, in Sartori's term permits ‘disambiguation’. The core assumption is that the search for comparative data and exploration of normative questions implies some harmonisation in the interest group currency.
This article reports causes and consequences of the mediatization of politics about activities of the German parliament (Der Bundestag) and coverage of German politics in three national newspapers during 1951–1995. During this period, the number of decision-making activities remained fairly constant, the number of information activities significantly increased, and coverage of German politics changed: Although the number of reports triggered by events and issues remained fairly constant, the number of stories triggered by statements (about events or issues) significantly increased and those triggered by statements made by politicians increasingly overshadowed articles triggered by nonpoliticians. Declarations of actions and demands for action, in particular, seemed to trigger articles, which indicates a growing importance of symbolic politics and has implications for citizens' relations to decision makers.
Corporatism may be seen as variety of capitalism in which specific structural prerequisites such as unionization, centralization, and strong states combined with bargaining and concertation produce certain economic outputs. Corporatism may also be seen as a variety of democracy in which interest groups are integrated in the preparation and/or implementation of public policies. Departing in the last position, we measure the strength of Scandinavian corporatism by the involvement of interest groups in public committees, councils, and commissions. Corporatism in relation to the preparation of policy has gone down in all three Scandinavian countries whereas corporatism in implementation processes are more varied among the three countries.
The most dramatic even in pressure politics in the year 2000 was the fuel protest. It vividly illustrates the tension between conventional forms of insider pressure group activity and the increasing use of various forms of direct action. Conventional insider politics is still widely used, but many established groups are facing dissent from their own membership and competition from more militant groups. The growth of direct action and the increasing effectiveness of single-issue groups raises important normative issues about the political process. The greater complexity of a multi-level system of government presents groups with both opportunities and threats. There is an uneasy and unstable balance between traditional and new forms of activity. There needs to be a wider debate about the democratic legitimacy of pressure groups.
This article examines to what extent European interest associations combine public political strategies with traditional forms of inside lobbying or the seeking of access to public officials. I compare two theoretical perspectives: a resource-based explanation focusing on the nature of the mobilized interest and an institutional account emphasizing the explanatory power of varying institutional conditions. My data show that institutional variables have a significant effect on whether and how public and inside strategies are combined. Although the institutional supply of access favours specific interests, the European Union contains important institutional opportunities for diffuse interests that aim to expand the scope of political conflict or signal policy concerns by using public political strategies.
Written by one of Britain's leading analysts of pressure groups, this book provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of pressure group politics in the UK and of the increasingly important EU dimension. The sleaze scandals surrounding the parliamentary lobby, grass roots direct action, the use of the media and courts and the particular importance of business, labour and consumer interests are also given full coverage.
Unlike political or economic institutions, social movements have an elusive power, but one that is no less real. From the French and American revolutions through the democratic and workers' movements of the nineteenth century to the totalitarian movements of today, movements exercise a fleeting but powerful influence on politics and society. This study surveys the history of the social movement, puts forward a theory of collective action to explain its surges and declines, and offers an interpretation of the power of movement that emphasises its effects on personal lives, policy reforms and political culture. While covering cultural, organisational and personal sources of movements' power, the book emphasises the rise and fall of social movements as part of political struggle and as the outcome of changes in political opportunity structure.
Social movements have an elusive power but one that is altogether real. From the French and American revolutions to the post-Soviet, ethnic, and terrorist movements of today, contentious politics exercises a fleeting but powerful influence on politics, society, and international relations. This study surveys the modern history of the modern social movements in the West and their diffusion to the global South through war, colonialism, and diffusion, and it puts forward a theory to explain its cyclical surges and declines. It offers an interpretation of the power of movements that emphasizes effects on the lives of militants, policy reforms, political institutions, and cultural change. The book focuses on the rise and fall of social movements as part of contentious politics in general and as the outcome of changes in political opportunities and constraints, state strategy, the new media of communication, and transnational diffusion.
This article reports causes and consequences of the mediatization of politics about activities of the German parliament (Der Bundestag) and coverage of German politics in three national newspapers during 1951-1995. During this period, the number of decision-making activities remained fairly constant, the number of information activities significantly increased, and coverage of German politics changed: Although the number of reports triggered by events and issues remained fairly constant, the number of stories triggered by statements (about events or issues) significantly increased and those triggered by statements made by politicians increasingly overshadowed articles triggered by nonpoliticians. Declarations of actions and demands for action, in particular, seemed to trigger articles, which indicates a growing importance of symbolic politics and has implications for citizens' relations to decision makers.
The work of E. E. Schattschneider (1960) and others suggests that there may be systematic biases or unrepresentativeness in the voices that interest groups contribute to public deliberation about policy. Evidence from hundreds of TV news stories concerning 80 diverse policy issues from the 1969-82 period indicates that corporations and business groups predominated (especially on economic issues), with 36.5% of all interest group mentions, contrasted with only 13.2% for labor. Professional and agricultural interests were rarely heard from. Citizen action groups had 32% of all interest group stories, but these often concerned unpopular protest activity. Such imbalances, apparently resulting from differential command of money and other resources, seem to violate norms of equal access, representativeness, balance, and diversity in the marketplace of ideas.
Austrian corporatism is in retreat. Created to represent "material" interests, it can not accommodate the rise of "new politics" issues. Quantitative and qualitative analysis provides strong evidence that corporatist institutions have fallen behind the social modernization of Austria during the past twenty years. In contrast, the Austrian parliament is becoming more influential. The "private" functional (corporatist) bodies, often considered to be undemocratic, are losing influence, while "public" institutions such as political parties and parliament are gaining power in originating, shaping, and influencing legislation.
The news media are frequently accused of portraying politics as a strategic game rather than focusing on political issues. However, the understanding of the prevalence of different news frames in the media coverage of politics is limited in several respects. This article seeks to contribute to remedying this by (1) conducting a longitudinal analysis of the use of different news frames during election periods as well as in everyday politics, (2) adopting an analytical framework including several different types of process focus, and (3) pointing to the importance of including political developments alongside changes in the media system when explaining developments in the news coverage of politics. The empirical analysis of twenty years of public radio news in Denmark confirms a long-term trend toward greater focus on electoral consequences in news stories in election periods; however, the trend is not mirrored in news stories when an election is not imminent. In explaining these findings, situational factors related to the political system and party politics must be included alongside explanations pointing toward an increasing professionalization of political parties as well as long-term changes in the media system and in party competition.
In contrast to large-n research on US interest organizations using lobby registration data, European Union (EU) scholars have used a variety of data sources, including registries maintained by the European Commission, directories of interest organizations active in Brussels, and data on access to the European Parliament (EP). This diversity of sources raises important questions about their comparability. To what extent do these different EU sources actually measure the same population of interest organizations? We find that the several data sources vary markedly over EU institution and publisher. The paper discusses the methodological and substantive causes of these differences and their implications for further development of large-n research on interest organization politics in the EU.1
The growing intrusion of media into the political domain in many countries has led critics to worry about the approach of the "media-driven republic," in which mass media will usurp the functions of political institutions in the liberal state. However, close inspection of the evidence reveals that political institutions in many nations have retained their functions in the face of expanded media power. The best description of the current situation is "mediatization," where political institutions increasingly are dependent on and shaped by mass media but nevertheless remain in control of political processes and functions.
List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroductionCh. 1Progress and Confusion3Ch. 2Barriers to Accumulation22Ch. 3The Rise and Decline of the Group Approach44Ch. 4Collective Action and the New Literature on Interest Groups64Ch. 5Bias and Diversity in the Interest-Group System83Ch. 6The Dynamics of Bias100Ch. 7Building a Literature on Lobbying, One Case Study at a Time120Ch. 8Surveys of Interest-Group Activities147Ch. 9Learning from Experience168AppendixArticles on Interest Groups Published in the American Political Science Review, 1950-1995189References197Index217
Case-Studies of the policy-making process constitute one of the more important methods of political science analysis. Beginning with Schattschneider, Herring, and others in the 1930's, case-studies have been conducted on a great variety of decisions. They have varied in subject-matter and format, in scope and rigor, but they form a distinguishable body of literature which continues to grow year by year. The most recent addition, a book-length study by Raymond Bauer and his associates, stands with Robert A. Dahl's prize-winning Who Governs? (New Haven 1961) as the best yet to appear. With its publication a new level of sophistication has been reached. The standards of research its authors have set will indeed be difficult to uphold in the future. American Business and Public Policy is an analysis of political relationships within the context of a single, well-defined issue—foreign trade. It is an analysis of business attitudes, strategies, communications and, through these, business relationships in politics. The analysis makes use of the best behavioral research techniques without losing sight of the rich context of policies, traditions, and institutions. Thus, it does not, in Dahl's words, exchange relevance for rigor; rather it is standing proof that the two—relevance and rigor—are not mutually exclusive goals.
We modestly challenge Baumgartner and Leech’s (1998) very pessimistic assessment of the state of interest group research by arguing that there has been a rich collaboration of theory and data during the 1990s, which at least points toward a new and more coherent theoretical perspective on interest representation, and one largely indigenous to political science. With some trepidation given its checkered history, we label this perspective as a neopluralist view. We explore this developing approach in three steps. We first provide a broad outline of three distinct approaches to the study of interest representation, identifying how each has understood the various stages on which organized interests have attracted the attention of scholars. We then identify six attributes of the emerging neopluralist approach that distinguish it from prior work on interest representation. Finally, we consider the appropriateness of our proposed neopluralist label and what must be done to further develop the neopluralist perspective.
The study puts forth a theoretical framework for explaining the ways in which political action groups use the mass media. Rooted in the resource mobilization approach to conflict, media strategy is determined by the extent of collective resources. The mass media is seen as one of several alternative arenas of conflict through which groups attempt to influence the government. Compared to other more institutional arenas, access to the media is a relatively inexpensive alternative for small, unorganized groups. A more detailed understanding of media strategy comes through an analysis of the attempts of group leaders to meet specific groups needs and minimize particular risks. A participant-observation was carried out, involving three different action groups that were active during the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. While all of the group leaders attempted to maximize collective rewards, their particular set of collective resources and needs were reflected in both the type of group risks they encountered and the media strategies they developed to minimize those risks.
The frequent resort to protest activity by relatively powerless groups in recent American politics suggests that protest represents an important aspect of minority group and low income group politics. At the same time that Negro civil rights strategists have recognized the problem of using protest as a meaningful political instrument, groups associated with the “war on poverty” have increasingly received publicity for protest activity. Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation, for example, continues to receive invitations to help organize low income communities because of its ability to mobilize poor people around the tactic of protest. The riots which dominated urban affairs in the summer of 1967 appear not to have diminished the dependence of some groups on protest as a mode of political activity.
This article provides a theoretical perspective on protest activity as a political resource. The discussion is concentrated on the limitations inherent in protest which occur because of the need of protest leaders to appeal to four constituencies at the same time. As the concept of protest is developed here, it will be argued that protest leaders must nurture and sustain an organization comprised of people with whom they may or may not share common values. They must articulate goals and choose strategies so as to maximize their public exposure through communications media. They must maximize the impact of third parties in the political conflict. Finally, they must try to maximize chances of success among those capable of granting goals.
Until recently, Manoilesco's confident prediction could easily be dismissed as yet another example of the ideological bias, wishful thinking and overinflated rhetoric of the thirties, an événementielle response to a peculiar environment and period. With the subsequent defeat of fascism and National Socialism, the spectre of corporatism no longer seemed to haunt the European scene so fatalistically. For a while, the concept itself was virtually retired from the active lexicon of politics, although it was left on behavioral exhibit, so to speak, in such museums of atavistic political practice as Portugal and Spain.
This paper uses data from an enumeration of the nearly 7,000 interest organizations active in Washington politics to understand the kinds of interests that are likely to achieve representation in American national politics. Although much has been made of the arrival in Washington of many new citizens groups over the past two decades, business interests are overrepresented among organized interests there in terms of the number of interest organizations and the structure of interest representation. This overrepresentation takes place at the expense of the representation of the interests of broad publics and the poor. Further, in spite of the emergence over the past two decades of many organizations representing the interests of the previously underrepresented, the bias in the pressure system towards the interests of business and the well-off seems to have become more pronounced. Although there are complicated formal problems in attempting to harmonize the principle of political equality with the representation of interests by organizations and, therefore, in specifying what an unbiased pressure system would look like, it is clear that an unbiased pressure system would be quite different from what presently obtains.
Public-choice models argue that large interest groups are less likely to overcome free-rider problems because of the irrelevance of individual's participation to the supply of non-excludable group benefits. But these accounts are constructed in terms of‘objective’ variables, and hence rely on perfect information assumptions. Paying attention instead to how people learn that interest groups are relevant for them indicates a key role for group identities, i.e. subjective perceptions of interests shared with others. Recasting the decision to form or join groups in terms of subjective variables highlights the importance of perceived group viability. In a liberal democratic context, increasing group size has ambiguous effects; it somewhat accentuates the irrelevance of individual participation to supply, and yet (ceteris paribus) also increases the group's viability. Applying the group identity approach sheds light on a problem which public-choice theory cannot adequately explain: The reasons why (apart from group size) social interests are differentially difficult or easy to organize.
The article compares the political activities of different types of interest groups. Drawing on data from a survey of all Danish national interest groups, it demonstrates significant variation in the strategic choices of different types of groups. Groups with corporative resources direct much attention towards influencing the bureaucracy. They possess resources valued by officials and therefore have good options for utilizing a strategy targeting the administration and seeking corporatist integration. By contrast, public interest groups are more likely to use publicly visible strategies in which affecting the media agenda plays a central role. By engaging in such strategies, public interest groups can demonstrate a high level of engagement to their diffuse membership. Furthermore, the goals of public interest groups are typically conducive to pursuit through public strategies. A third category of other groups is incorporated in the analyses as a point of reference to establish patterns of strategy use. While there are clear differences between groups with regard to most strategies of influence, different types of groups are equally engaged in a parliamentary strategy. Interacting with Parliament seems to be important for groups integrated in corporatist structures as well as for those relying more on public strategies.
The increasing importance of New Politics or authoritarian-libertarian values to electoral behaviour in advanced Western industrial democracies and the previously documented strong link between such values and educational attainment indicates that, contrary to the claims of some New Politics theorists, the ideological conflict is anchored in the social structure – in particular in educational groups. For this interpretation to be warranted, however, it should be possible to document the existence of education-based group identity and group consciousness related to the value conflict. The article develops indicators of the core variables out of Social Identity Theory. Based on a unique survey from Denmark, which includes the new set of indicators, the analyses show that members of the high and low education groups have developed both group identity and consciousness reflecting a conflict between the groups and that these factors are related to authoritarian-libertarian values. The results are interpreted as reflecting a relationship of dominance, which supports the view that the ideological conflict is structurally anchored.
This paper is the product of a collaborative, comparative study of nine policy areas in British Government. It does not describe these several policy areas but summarises recent theoretical discussions in Britain of the concept of policy networks; provides a typology which encompasses the variety identified in the individual, detailed case studies; discusses a set of key problems in the analysis of networks; and identifies some directions for future research.
The integration of organized interests into the formation and implementation of public policies is a core institutional trait of the Scandinavian countries. However, significant changes have taken place in the relations between organized interests and public authorities in Denmark and Norway during the last two decades. The use of traditional corporatist structures of interest intermediation has been reduced in favor of a corresponding increase in lobbyism. At the same time a marked increase in the frequency and intensity of contacts between organized interests and parliamentary actors has taken place. The shift in focus mirrors the increasing role played by the two parliaments in public policy formation and a less positive assessment of the outcomes of strongly institutionalized corporatist policy making by administrative decision makers.
The ideal of a neutral, objective press has proven in recent years to be just thatâan ideal. But while everyone talks about the political biases and influences of the news, no one has figured out whether and how the news media exert power. In Governing with the News, Timothy E. Cook goes far beyond the single claim that the press is not impartial to argue that the news media are in fact a political institution integral to the day-to-day operations of the three branches of our government. The formation of the press as a political institution began in the early days of the republic when newspapers were sponsored by political parties; the relationship is now so central that press offices are found wherever one turns. Cook demonstrates not only how the media are structured as an institution that exercises collective power but also how the role of the media has become institutionalized within the political process, affecting policy and instigating, rather than merely reflecting, political actions. Cook's analysis is a powerful and fascinating guide to our age when newsmaking and governing are inseparable. "This is a wonderful analysis of a highly important topic. Tim Cook is resoundingly right that we need to look at the media as political institutions and their operatives as political actors."âDavid R. Mayhew, author of Divided We Govern "This meticulously researched and well reasoned work proposes to take seriously a thesis which flies in the face of both journalistic lore and political myth. Governing with the News is an innovative contribution to our understanding of media."âW. Lance Bennett, author of News: The Politics of Illusion "This book should be read by journalists . . . by mass communication faculty teaching courses in media structure or effects and journalism faculty as a supplemental text to courses in media history and media management."âBenjamin J. Burns, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
In this innovative account of the way policy issues rise and fall on the national agendaâthe first detailed study of so many issues over an extended periodâFrank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones show that rapid change not only can but does happen in the hidebound institutions of government. Short-term, single-issue analyses of public policy, the authors contend, give a narrow and distorted view of public policy as the result of a cozy arrangement between politicians, interest groups, and the media. Baumgartner and Jones upset these notions by focusing on several issuesâincluding civilian nuclear power, urban affairs, smoking, and auto safetyâover a much longer period of time to reveal patterns of stability alternating with bursts of rapid, unpredictable change. A welcome corrective to conventional political wisdom, Agendas and Instability revises our understanding of the dynamics of agenda-setting and clarifies a subject at the very center of the study of American politics.
This article examines to what extent interest associations combine public political campaigning with seeking access to policy networks. Two theoretical approaches explaining choice of influence strategies are presented; one focusing on the interest association itself and another considering the institutional context in which political activities are embedded. Empirically we look at Euro-level interest mobilisation. In the literature on the EU the notion of network governance is dominant; that is, by drawing on expert knowledge and by inclusion of private and public actors, government becomes de-politicised. In general, gaining access to policy networks is viewed as more relevant than public campaigning, and so societal interests prefer access strategies instead of publicly politicising their demands. However, our evidence collected among public officials and interest associations challenges this view. We find no contradiction between both forms of political mobilisation and we observe that, in general, associations both use and combine voice and access strategies. It is also demonstrated that, although the institutional supply of access might be somewhat biased in favour of specific interests, the EU contains important opportunities for those who aim to expand the scope of political conflict. In particular, we show that institutions such as the European Parliament, but to some extent also the Council, considerably attract attempts to politicise demands publicly.
The literature often contrasts interest groups possessing insider status and outsider groups forced to seek influence through more indirect means. Drawing on data from a survey of all national Danish interest groups, this article demonstrates that most groups have an action repertoire including both direct contacts to bureaucrats and parliamentarians and indirect activities such as media campaigns and mobilizations of members. Different strategies of influence are correlated positively, hence, there is no contradiction between pursuing strategies associated with insider access to decision-making and strategies where pressure is put on decision makers through media contacts and mobilizations. An analysis of four distinct strategies – an administrative, a parliamentary, a media and a mobilization strategy – finds interesting variations in the factors that affect the pursuance of the various strategies of influence. Groups with a privileged position vis-à-vis decision makers have high levels of activities targeting these decision makers, but the lack of a privileged position does not lead groups to pursue indirect strategies. Indirect strategies are most intensively pursued by cause groups and groups who find themselves in a competitive situation with regard to attracting members.
Explaining policy generalists and specialists: Patterns of interest group mobilization in public policy
- Halpin
Halpin, D. & Binderkrantz, A.S. (2011). Explaining policy generalists and specialists: Patterns of interest group mobilization in public policy. Journal of European Public Policy
18(2): 201-219.