Party Goals, Intra-Party Democracy, and Interest Group Influence on Party Positions

This paper examines interest group influence on party positions. While previous research has shown that the resources interest groups have to offer matter for their chances of influencing the positions of political parties, less attention has been paid to the parties themselves and how their incentives to consider interest group input can differ. I argue that how parties prioritize different goals as well as how internally democratic their decision-making procedures are matter. I test my expectations on more than 5,000 party-interest group observations from Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom.