Interest group system vibrancy: assessing competitiveness and internal voice across interest group communities in Europe

In a defense of ‘the intermediate structure’ as an indispensable part of democracy, Truman (1959, 491) notes that the leaders of intermediary organizations in a country have responsibilities to reduce the vulnerability of the system to ‘demagogic leaders whose actions may constitute a threat to the system of procedures’. The extent to which interest groups are able to take up such responsibilities is likely to vary greatly among organizations, policy communities and countries. We depart from the idea that a vibrant interest group system relies on a combination of competition among groups as a means to offer choice to potential members and internal voice in decision-making as a means to secure independence from external (state) actors. The absence of external competition and internal voice make interest group systems vulnerable whereas the presence strengthens interest group elites to act responsibly and democratically. On the basis of CIG interest group survey data from a variety of European countries, we examine the differences in interest system vibrancy across countries, interest communities and individual interest groups. Our dependent variable, vibrancy, is understood as a combination of internal voice and external competitiveness. It is operationalised on the basis of survey-answers about membership-control over the organization (internal voice) and about the presence of like-organizations (competition). We hypothesize that maturation matters (operationalized: interest system age (East-West Europe), policy community age (material vs post-material issues) and group age). We control for interest type (citizens vs business), professionalisation, contacts with government parties and several other factors at the group level. Our results speak to the idea that there are increasing differences in the levels of democracy across European states.