Local government lobbying the European level: the impact of scope conditions

Local authorities are often understated and overlooked as lobby actors on the European level (Reynaert, Steyvers and Van Bever, 2011; Guderjan and Verhelst, 2021). However, there are plenty of examples where they successfully influenced European decision-making (such as the Electric Communications Code, The Late Payment Directive, etc.). In this paper, we try to find the underlying conditions that determine the lobby successes local governments have on the European level. The literature mentions many factors that seem to contribute to lobby success: the strength and resources of the actor lobbying (Eising, 2007; Stevens and De Bruycker, 2020), the use of an adequate strategy and timing (Neshkova, 2014; Beyers, Dür and Wonka, 2018; Koehler, 2018), but also external opportunities that present themselves (Verhelst, 2018). This paper specifically addresses the impact of the scope conditions, i.e. the intrinsic features of the lobby issue at the outset. We cluster these conditions in five subcategories. Three are more general applicable, namely ‘favourability of the issue content’, ‘limitation of opposition’ and ‘feasibility of the objectives’. Two other subcategories have a specific impact for local government, namely ‘the relevance of the issue’ and ‘relevance of local government’. Using a QCA analysis of 12 cases, we will study how (the combination of) these factors decide if local actors are successful in their lobby attempts to steer the outcome of European decision-making. The analysis draws on a list of varied European directives, regulations and strategies in terms of success and policy fields. We qualify the conditions by means of a literature review, document analysis (e.g., press releases, policy papers, legislative documents) and in-depth stakeholder interviews. As such, we can contribute to the literature by identifying different pathways to influence that take into account the interplay of several conditions across numerous policy domains.