Lobbying alone or lobbying in pack? Explaining individual and collective access of firms to EU public officials

Business organizations have become prominent actors in public policymaking. Their policy input is crucial for the development of public policies in participatory governance systems. Firms often engage with public officials indirectly, i.e., through business associations that are aimed at aggregating the preferences of a set of companies operating under the same domain and communicating these preferences to public officials. However, previous research has highlighted the increasing presence of individual firms in the public sphere. What is not clear yet is when and why do firms decide to lobby alone and when do they delegate this political role to the association they are part of. To examine this puzzle, we consider firms and business associations active at the European Union level and examine the factors that make them interact with public officials individually or via the association(s) they are part of. Importantly, firms can also use both strategies and lobby individually and collectively. Empirically we rely on 2,784 companies and 2,653 trade and business associations included in the Transparency Register of the European Union. By focusing on specific policy issues, we assess when firms get (1) direct access; (2) access through an association; (3) both direct access and access through an association. We account for micro, meso, and macro level explanatory factors such as the nature of the firm and its basic features, the size of the association, the characteristics of the policy issue under discussion, and the public department/ministry in charge of the policy issue. The findings of this paper will contribute to a better understanding of collective and individual action considerations that firms and business associations take on board when lobbying particular policy issues.