Beyond Insider and Outsider: Sequenced Strategies of Public Interest Groups Across the Policy Cycle

This article examines how public interest groups adapt their strategies across different phases ofthe policy process, moving beyond the traditional insider/outsider dichotomy. While priorresearch often treats public interest groups as a homogeneous category, predominantly relying onoutsider strategies to mobilize public opinion, our comparative study of the Nature Conservancyin Australia and Pro Natura in Switzerland reveals a more dynamic and stage-specific pattern ofstrategic behavior. Using process-tracing methods, we show that both organizations favor discreet,technical engagement during agenda-setting, selectively deploy public mobilization duringdecision-making when technical strategies alone are insufficient, and shift toward operational,cooperative strategies during implementation. Differences between the organizations also reflectvariations in organizational identity and governance context: TNC prioritizes risk-averse, insiderorientedstrategies in line with Australian institutional constraints, while PN leverages its activistidentity to combine institutional lobbying with visible public campaigns in the Swiss context. Thesefindings demonstrate that public interest groups orchestrate sequences of complementarystrategies across the policy cycle, optimizing their influence according to issue salience, institutionalopportunities, and organizational capacities. The article contributes to interest group research byconceptualizing strategy as dynamic and context-sensitive, and to policy process theory by linkinginstitutional opportunity structures to stage-specific advocacy strategies.