Mapping and Explaining Individual Corporate Lobbying in the Netherlands and Germany over time: An Upward Trend?

Over the past decades, two important changes were identified in the development of political interest communities in the US. First, the increase of individual lobbying activity initiated by firms and, second, the simultaneous decrease of collective lobbying activity through associations. In Europe, a similar trend can be observed as well, albeit less systematically, as certain studies seem to suggest that corporations increasingly prefer to initiate individual lobbying activities over collective efforts through associations. This trend is worrisome for at least two reasons. First, corporations suffer considerably less from collective action problems when mobilizing and therewith in their activities in influencing the political process compared to diffuse interests. Second, narrow interests attract less scrutiny from the public compared to interests that are framed broadly and are therefore harder to control and assess in terms of influence. Despite the potential threats these developments can form to democracies, the literature on this matter in Europe is not yet as developed as it is in the US. As a result it is hard to estimate the extent to which individual lobbying is actually being initiated by corporations in a European context over time. Moreover, explanations for why these trends have occurred remain absent, mostly because data on the development of interest group populations over extended periods of time have not been widely available. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature in three ways. First, it maps individual corporate lobbying of corporations in two important European countries (the Netherlands and Germany) and over an extended period of time, i.e. from 1970 to date. Second, it traces different types of lobby activities initiated by corporations, namely inside lobbying efforts and outside lobbying efforts through the media. Third, it sets out to explain the trends observed in individual corporate lobbying activities through changes in the economic, political-institutional, and societal context in both countries. The data used for this paper stem from three different sources: (1) random samples of companies and business associations active over time in both countries, (2) agendas and minutes of public hearings and (3) newspaper articles. Through (automated)content- and time-series analyses, trends will be generated and modeled. The combination of these data sources provides us a unique insight into the development and origins of individual corporate lobby activity in two major European countries over the past of 50 years.