Institutional Venues, Policy Issues and Interest Group Strategies: Patterns and Explanations

Abstract

Levels of interest group mobilization and the (non-) contestation of interest groups in specific policy-making processes are shaped by a a number of different factors. Papers in this panel will focus on the effect which political institutions and/or policy issues have on (different types of) interest groups' lobbying strategies, including varying levels of mobilization and contestation as well as interest groups' policy influence. Do interest groups act differently when they address decision-makers in different institutions or when they deal with different types of policy? If so, how do their actions differ and how can these difference be explained? The panel welcomes papers which focus on interest groups politics in individual countries as well as papers that take a comparative perspective and/or investigate interest groups' cross-level actions in the EU multi-level polity. All papers should share an analytical focus along the lines sketched above. Moreover, papers in the panel shall present original empirical results based on the rigorous application of either quantitative or qualitative research designs.