What explains variation across national interest groups in their amount of lobbying on legislative proposals in the European Union (EU)? We present an argument that leads to the expectation that resource-rich associations engage in more lobbying on EU legislation than other associations. Moreover, we expect business associations to have privileged access to the European Commission and national governments; and citizens' groups to parliaments. Using original data from a survey of 1417 interesgroups in Germany, Ireland and Spain, we find support for these expectations. We conclude that national associations are heavily involved in EU lobbying, but that resource-endowment and type matter for access. The paper is of relevance to the literatures on interest groups in the EU, the EU's (alleged) democratic deficit, and the role of civil society in governance beyond the nation state.

What explains differences in the lobbying behaviour of interest groups? And what consequences do these differences have for the access that interest groups can gain to decision-makers and the influence that they can exert on policy outcomes? Building on an unprecedented amount of empirical evidence on lobbying in Europe, this book puts forward a distinction between lobbying insiders and lobbying outsiders. Lobbying insiders, most prominently business interests, try to establish direct contacts with decision-makers, enjoy good access to executive institutions, and manage to shape policy outcomes when mobilizing the public on an issue is difficult. Lobbying outsiders, in particular citizen groups such as consumer, environmental or health non-governmental organizations, put greater emphasis on mobilizing the public or changing public attitudes, find it easier to gain access to legislative decision-makers, and have the greatest impact on outcomes on issues that are amenable to an outside lobbying campaign. The book shows that a single argument, building on group type as the main variable, can explain variation across interest groups in their choice of strategy, their access to decision-makers, and the conditions under which they can exert influence. The existence of lobbying insiders and lobbying outsiders has important implications for both our understanding of political decision-making and the normative appraisal of contemporary democracy.

Unique in bringing together contributions from academics and practitioners on the theme of strategic, intelligent modern lobbying this book provides a thorough and accessible discussion on key ideas pertinent to the pursuance of public affairs in the European Union. Combining innovative academic research with first-hand professional experience it offers the reader a combination of practical recommendations, case studies and academic theory to add new insights to interest group research and lobbying strategies. While focusing on the European Union the contributors acknowledge the multi-level dimension of EU decision-making and incorporate research on multi-level governance as well as lobbying by sub-national authorities. Through this they present a fuller picture of a subject that should appeal to students, academics and practitioners alike.

Thousands of lobbyists lobby decision-makers in Brussels every day, but little is known about their impact on policy. Lobbying in the European Union addresses this research gap and analyzes the conditions under which interest groups can successfully lobby the European institutions.

EU Lobbying: Empirical and Theoretical studies offers an analysis of large empirical studies of interest group politics and Lobbying in Europe. Recognising the continued European economic integration, globalisation and the changing role of the state, it observs significant adaptations in interest mobilisation and strategic behavour. This book assesses the logic of collective and direct action, the logic of access and influence, the logic of venue-shopping and alliance building. It addresses specific issues such as: the emergence of elite pluralism in EU institutions, the pump priming of political action by EU institutions, and the growing political sophistication of private and public interests in Brussels. Through these issues the book explores how interest groups lobby different European institutions along the policy process and how the nature of policy dictates the style and level of lobbying. This book was previously published as a special issue of Jounal of European Public Policy

It is universally accepted that there has been a huge growth in EU lobbying over the past few decades. There is now a dense EU interest group system. This entirely new volume, inspired by Mazey & Richardson's 1993 book Lobbying in the European Community, seeks to understand the role of interest groups in the policy process from agenda-setting to implementation. Specifically, the book is interested in observing how interest groups organise to influence the EU institutions and how they select different coalitions along the policy process and in different policy domains. In looking at 20 years of change, the book captures processes of institutional and actor learning, professionalisation of lobbying, and the possible emergence of a distinct EU public policy style. More specifically, from the actors' perspective, the editors are interested in assessing how the rise of direct lobbying and the emergence of fluid issue-based coalitions has changed the logic of collective action, and what is the potential impact of 'venue-shopping' on reputation and influence. From an institutional perspective, the contributors explore resource and legitimacy demands, and the practical impact of consultation processes on the emergence of a distinct EU lobbying relationship. It will be essential reading for academics and practitioners alike.

This work seeks to clarify why and when interest group leaders in Washigton, USA seek to mobilize the public order to influence policy decisions in Congress. It grants a more important role to the need for interest group leaders to demonstrate popular support on particular issues.

Interest organizations have always assumed a prominent place in European politics because they link states with citizens, institutionalize the resolution of social conflicts, regulate important sectors of the economy and society, contribute to workable policy outcomes and socialize members into democratic politics. However, the plethora of interest group studies that exist have not consolidated our understanding of these actors. These analyses have been subject to the vagaries of different theoretical perspectives and vary greatly in their conceptual and methodological frameworks. Consequently, a not always complementary and fragmented series of findings has emerged. This book is a systematic and comprehensive effort at investigating and integrating the state of the art in European interest group research. Combining the analysis of interest group politics in the EU with the comparative study of interest organizations, the book seeks to identify the areas about which there is consolidated knowledge, that are marked by controversies, in which considerable uncertainty exists, that have been omitted from research programs and that ought to be part of future studies. Thereby, it provides a general reflection on how the study of interest group politics can be improved by linking it to the comparative study of governance. This book was published as a special issue of West European Politics.

This study focuses on the framework conditions under which civil society actors from the new Central and East European member states of the European Union are operating in Brussels. They are facing several challenges which complicate their access to the formal and informal networks of European policy making. By analysing the network around the Directive on Services, the author exemplifies the difficulties the civil society actors from the four new member states face and what implications it has on the EU governance. Kristina Charrad is a member of the Research Group European Civil Society and Multilevel Governance at the University of Mnster.

Political scientists have always accorded interest organizations a prominent place in European Union (EU) policy-making because they connect the EU institutions to citizens, provide important information to EU policy-makers, and control resources that impact on the problem-solving capacity of EU policies. In other words, they are vital to both the input legitimacy and the output legitimacy of the EU. So far, research on interest organizations in EU policy-making has concentrated on EU-level interest organizations and EU-level politics. This edited book draws attention to the role national interest organizations play in the EU multilevel system. All contributions present state-of-the-art research on that subject in the form of theory-driven empirical analyses. Chapter 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138614741_oachapter8.pdf