Breaking New Ground in Interest Group Research

The study of interest groups has traditionally focused on key topics like access, influence, and lobbying strategies. However, the rise of new technologies, in conjunction with shifts in power dynamics, and increasing societal challenges such as inequality and climate change, necessitates breaking new ground in this research field. This section aims to do so by both exploring emerging themes and revisiting established ones from fresh perspectives. New disruptive technologies are changing how interest groups engage with their members, the public, and policymakers. While countless contributions have focused on the governance of artificial intelligence (AI), its effects on policymaking in general, and lobbying in particular, have received relatively little attention. AI can help interest groups better understand member preferences, predict legislative outcomes, generate and disseminate highly targeted content on social media, and facilitate the production of policy expertise more broadly. While some civil society groups rely on algorithms to detect hate speech in social media, others might use them to produce deepfakes. While AI has the potential to benefit disadvantaged segments of society, it could also become an exceptionally powerful tool in the hands of already influential actors. OpenAI’s usage policy, for instance, explicitly states that its API platform should not be used to “engage in political campaigning or lobbying, including generating campaign materials personalized to or targeted at specific demographics”. While the tech press regularly highlights the potential risks of AI tools in policymaking, interest group scholars can provide much-needed empirical evidence on their use by lobbyists. Recent studies have already highlighted AI’s potential as an effective lobbying instrument (Chalmers and Chen, 2024). Submissions that explore the use of AI and social media in lobbying are thus particularly encouraged. New technologies are reshaping how interest groups operate, but interest groups are also facing important challenges in addressing urgent global issues. The climate crisis presents a significant challenge for policymakers and society. Research has shown that the mobilisation of climate policy supporters is positively related to national climate policy production (Böhler, Hanegraaff, and Schulze, 2022). We invite contributions that further explore how interest groups engage in climate politics, focusing on the challenges and strategies related to advocating for timely policy responses to environmental change. Moreover, we also encourage contributions that engage with less-studied contexts, such as interest group activities in non-Western settings, less established democracies, and autocracies. Considerable efforts have been undertaken to understand how lobbying occurs under non-democratic regimes (Hanegraaff and De Bruycker, 2023; Wang and Duckett, 2023), and identify the conditions that might affect civil society groups’ lobbying success (Grömping and Teets 2023). The next step lies in empirically validating these insights. In addition to examining underexplored contexts, we also encourage research that addresses the internal dynamics of interest groups themselves. We invite papers exploring gender and diversity in interest group politics, examining the representation of different social groups within interest organisations and its implications for advocacy strategies and policy outcomes. While certain studies started mapping the demographic composition of the interest community (LaPira, Marchetti, and Thomas 2020; Junk, Romeijn, and Rasmussen 2021; De Bruycker 2024), the effects of these imbalances on agenda-setting and political decision-making remain largely understudied. Research on interest groups intersects with many other fields. The section aims to explore these intersections by incorporating perspectives from areas such as party competition, political economy, public administration, and management. By building cross-disciplinary perspectives, the goal is to uncover new insights into the role of interest groups in politics and policymaking. Finally, we encourage a wide spectrum of methodological approaches. While new and experimental methods are welcome, we also aim to revisit established approaches like qualitative case studies, highlighting their potential to provide nuanced insights into contemporary challenges faced by interest groups. By integrating these emerging themes and perspectives, we wish to build upon the traditional focus on access, influence, and lobbying strategies, while responding to the shifting dynamics and new challenges that define today’s interest group landscape. We hence suggest the following non-exhaustive list of themes for our panels, while encouraging further panel proposals: New technologies and lobbying strategies Social media and interest group mobilization Lobbying for and against artificial intelligence The return of qualitative case studies interest group research Lobbying and diversity Interest groups and the climate crisis: advocacy in the age of urgency Interest groups and political parties