The Effects of Issue and Interest Group Characteristics on Lobbying Success in Germany

Outside of the United States and the United Kingdom studies on lobbying success and influence of interest groups are scarce. While there is a growing literature on influence and success on the European Union level, little is known about the influence of interest groups on national legislation. We address this gap by investigating lobbying success in Germany. In particular, we are interested in how issue and interest group characteristics shape the chances of lobbying success. We hypothesize that controversial issues decrease the likelihood of success. Furthermore, we argue that privileged groups have better chances to succeed. Using a dataset of more than 700 policy issues extracted from more than 100 expert interviews with lobbyists at associations and firms in Germany, we code the lobbying success of organized interests based on combinations of their positions vis-à-vis the status quo at two points in time. Our results show that both issue and interest group characteristics have different mechanisms in determining success depending on whether lobbyists try to change or maintain the status quo.