I’m taking my (even better) business elsewhere? Exploring how democratic backsliding affects the responsiveness and advocacy strategies of Central and Eastern European interest groups

Recently, various Central and European (CEE) EU members have experienced a regression of democratic quality, often resulting in the emergence of competitive (semi-)authoritarian regimes with an explicitly illiberal governing ideology. This has often been accompanied by various interlinked processes such as the “cartelization of the state” and “hollowing” of civil society. Labelled by Sata and Karolewski (2020) as “caesarean politics”, some CEE governments engaged in clientelism characterized by elaborate systems of rewards and punishments, the predominance of informal networks, and state capture, potentially resulting in atrophic party-civil society relationships. While literature on CEE organized interests has boomed recently (Rozbicka et al. 2020; Dobbins & Riedel 2021), we are only beginning to understand how interest groups are adapting to democratic backsliding, political centralization and the closure of the political opportunity structure. Based on a survey of more than 400 interest groups operating in Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Slovenia, we explore whether organizations shut out from policy-making in backsliding countries are recalibrating their strategies. Specifically, we are interested in whether organizations with intense ties with opposition parties in countries more heavily affected by backsliding are shifting their lobbying activities to alternative advocacy arenas. In addition, we explore whether strong ties with the opposition (as a proxy for not being politically on board with illiberal, national-conservative governments) stimulates organizational learning processes such as professionalization, expertise accumulation and increasing cooperation with like-minded organizations. Altogether, the analysis shall shed light on the responsiveness of interest organizations in the context of democratic backsliding.