Interest Groups, Experts and Policy Change in the German Bundestag

Which impact do interest groups and policy experts have on the passage of legislation? In parliamentary democracies, governments are the major sites of interest representation. We contend that parliament can also be an important venue for interest groups. Our study analyses the presence of interest groups and experts in the public hearings of the German Bundestag’s standing committees because parliamentary committees are the place where changes to incoming bills are being made. Drawing on original data about the presence of actors in the committees’ public hearings in the years 2004, 2007 and 2011, we seek to answer three main questions: First, are interest groups more important than policy experts when giving policy advice? It is disputed if public hearings primarily serve the articulation and mobilization of interests by giving stakeholders the opportunity to express their opinion, or if they have the function to enhance parliamentarians’ knowledge about policies by inviting independent experts. Second, are economic interests more important than public interests? Corporatist and neo-pluralistic approaches highlighted a structural asymmetry between different kinds of interests and assume producer and employer interests to possess an advantage in interest mediation vis-à-vis other interests, for instance employees’ or public interests. Third, does the ideological outlook of parliamentary parties affect the impact of interest groups and experts? A more left-wing parliament may be less open to change bills in line with business interests than a more right-wing government, and more open to the arguments of unions and public interest groups. We gauge the impact of different actors on the amount of legislative change by means of count regressions. We measure the amount of legislative change drawing on a new text analysis algo-rhythm suited to compare the adopted laws to the wording of the initial bills.