The establishment of the European single market, the Maastricht accords and the development of a pan-European rm have all contributed to the creation of a European political marketplace with a myriad of access points. Why the large rm has changed its locus of political activity towards the European Union (EU), and what form this new political action has taken are the focus of this article. Based on a study of ninety-four of Europe's largest rms, this article outlines how rms, as individual actors, have come to play such a prominent role in the EU policy process, and assesses their current lobbying preferences for political channels to the EU. In recognizing the political sophistication of rms, the article concludes that rms are now able to recognize and construct strategic alliances with rival rms and countervailing interests to create European identities and facilitate access to new European policy forums. 1

European networks of regulators in industries such as telecommunications, securities, energy and transport have been cited as important examples of the growth of network governance in Europe. Using a principal-agent perspective as a starting point, the article examines why a double delegation to networks of regulators has taken place. It looks at how and why the European Commission, national governments and independent regulatory agencies have driven the creation of networks, their institutional character and their implications for regulatory governance in Europe. It argues that problems of co-ordination were the main factor advanced to justify establishing networks of regulators. The new networks have been given a wide range of tasks and broad membership, but enjoy few formal powers or resources. They are highly dependent on the European Commission and face rivals for the task of co-ordinating European regulators. Thus in institutional terms the spread of network governance has in fact been limited.

Firms are legitimate political actors, but few empirical studies examine how firms have re-structured their political organisation to maximise the political options in the constantly evolving European public policy system — or assessed the impact of these changes on the member states' industrial relations. Based on a study of Europe's largest firms, this article explores the degree to which the creation of the single market and the strengthening of European institutions has harmonised the firms' political activity across borders, sectors and issues. It concludes that multinationals have established a sophisticated political capacity that allows them to develop new multilevel and ad hoc political alliances and that this new political co-ordination has standardised political responses across issues and altered national public policy systems.

A B S T R A C TWe propose an informational model of lobbying to understand macro-characteristics of lobbying systems. We are particularly interested in the number of lobbyists in a system, and the distinction between insider and outsider lobbyists. Empirically, we seek to explain the post-Maastricht lobbying boom in the European Union and the concomitant establishment of European Commission forums for interest representation. Using a simple model of informational lobbying with many lobbyists, we show that there is a relationship between lobbying costs, the number of lobbyists, and the informational content of lobbying messages. In conclusion, we propose three different categories of lobbying systems.

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