Signal Rockets in a Crowd: Elitist and Pluralist Perspectives on the Success of Lobbying Coalitions

Lobbyists habitually join forces to influence policy, yet the effects of coalition lobbying remain understudied. This paper probes the alleged signalling function of coalitions. It argues, firstly, that policymakers should plausibly be responsive to such signals in crowded advocacy situations where they need a heuristic device to gauge preferences. Secondly, the appeal of the signal should vary depending on the coalition’s composition. Based on pluralist and elitist theories, hypotheses on the appeal of differently composed coalitions, varying in diversity, the share of business members and aggregate lobbying resources, are formulated and tested on a dataset comprising 50 issues in five European countries. At high advocacy activity, both pluralist and elitist predictions hold: More diverse, as well as more business-dominated coalitions, and coalitions cumulating higher resources are more likely to attain policy preferences than other coalitions. In short, high lobbying activity increases the importance of the support signal conveyed by coalition characteristics.