Lobbying as a collective enterprise: winners and losers of policy formulation in the European Union
- 1 January 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Journal of European Public Policy
- Vol. 20 (1), 59-76
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2012.699661
Abstract
Why does lobbying success in the European Union (EU) vary across interest groups? Even though this question is central to the study of EU policy-making, only few have dealt with it. The small number of existing studies is moreover characterized by a multitude of hypotheses and contradictory findings. This article aims to overcome these shortcomings by presenting a theoretical exchange model that identifies information supply, citizen support and economic power of entire lobbying camps as the major determinants of lobbying success. The hypotheses are empirically evaluated based on a large new dataset. By combining a quantitative text analysis of interest group submissions to Commission consultations with an online survey among interest groups, the theoretical expectations are tested across a large number of policy issues and interest groups while controlling for individual interest group and issue characteristics. The empirical analysis confirms the theoretical expectations indicating that lobbying is a collective enterprise.Keywords
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