Studying Volatility of Stakeholder Mobilisation in Public Consultations

Interest group mobilization in public consultations has a clear core-periphery structure: some interest groups mobilize on every consultation, whereas others might just mobilize on a single consultation. Persistently mobilizing has an important function when ‘playing the influence game’ (Anderson, Newmark, Gray and Lowery, 2004). Whether a group succeeds to be continuously present during meetings (Hanegraaff, ed.) or in lobbying communities in general (Anderson, et al. 2004), it helps them to build relationships with politicians and gain political experience. These assets are important, if not essential, when trying to influence policy (Gray & Lowery, 1995). In the policy area of financial regulation, it is often argued that the financial sector had close ties with policymakers before the financial crisis (Baker, 2010; Baxter, 2011; Mudde, 2006). In this period, the financial sector influenced policymakers extensively and lobbied (successfully) for self-regulation. The financial crisis, however, highlighted the extensive role of the financial sector in policy-making (Chalmers, 2015), thus showing that financial sector stakeholders might have caused more harm than good. After all it was the financial sector which created high-risk financial products and proposed self-regulation during the years before the crisis (Baxter, 2011; Mügge, 2006). Hence, the reputation of these stakeholders is harmed which changes the core-periphery structure of consultations on financial regulation (AUTHOR). No research has focused which groups mobilize more or less frequently after the financial crisis. Hence, using a dataset consisting of 432 consultations over 2004-2014 with responses of 1,746 interest groups, this research answers the question: How can the changing persistence of interest groups after the crisis (and reforms) be explained? In this paper I will focus on group characteristics (i.e. group type; economic sector; level of mobilization) that might explain why a group changes its mobilization after the crisis, and after the reforms.