This article investigates participation bias in the European Commission's online consultations by focusing on issue characteristics and using a cost–benefit framework. The main assumption is that a group will choose not to participate when their participation costs exceed the expected benefits. This leads to a more biased participation pattern. We expect this to hold when the proposal discussed in a consultation is more complex, whereas the opposite is the case if the proposal is more salient. Furthermore, we expect there to be an interaction effect between complexity and salience. We test and find support for these expectations in an analysis of more than 350 consultations held between 2001 and 2012.

This article examines political parties’ approach to trade unions and the role of private and public party finance in contemporary democracies. We suggest that both unions’ direct donations and states’ party finance regimes may account for variation in the strength of parties’ organizational links to unions. We investigate this argument with a new data set covering parties historically aligned with trade unions and union confederations in 12 mature democracies. Our empirical analysis provides support for the hypothesis that financial contributions are positively associated with stronger organizational links but also suggests that this relationship is constrained by the level of public subsidies and state regulation of donations. The findings point to the need for more research on how private and public money affects parties’ interactions with civil society actors.

Although research on interest group influence has had a revival in recent decades, little is known about interest group influence on political parties. This study considers how parties' goals can affect interest groups' ability to influence these actors. Interest groups are expected to be more likely to influence parties that are ideologically approximate to the interest groups as well as parties that are more willing to make policy compromises; the access that interest groups have to parties mediates these effects. Results from the empirical analysis of 5000 party-interest group observations from Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom support these expectations. In addition to contributing to the literature on parties and interest groups, the findings shed light on party position taking and when the link between citizens and parties is likely to be affected by interest groups.Research on interest group influence has had a revival in recent decades (e.g.

This paper examines when parties listen to interest groups and adopt their input. Interest group information can help parties bolster their positions, and by taking their input into account, parties show that they are responsive to the groups’ interests which can increase their appeal to their constituents. Listening to interest groups can, however, also repel voters who disagree with the groups’ positions. This paper argues that party and issue-level characteristics affect whether the benefits of listening to interest groups exceed the costs. Examining more than 25,000 party-interest group observations on 88 Norwegian policy proposals and using a text reuse approach to measure interest group influence, the findings indicate that public salience, party issue emphasis, interest group coalitions, and government status affect parties’ propensity to listen. This implies that interest groups can be a pertinent source of information for parties under certain circumstances which affects the link between voters and parties.

The commitment to make provision for huge numbers of asylum seekers challenges Norway’s welfare state. Each year central government requests most local governments to receive a certain number of refugees. Local governments are free to accept or decline, and many are hesitant. The ensuing implementation gap stems from this central-local goal conflict and a decentralized decision-making system, embedded in an ideology of local autonomy and in local authorities seeking to accommodate state goals through feasible solutions. The focus is on the Chief Municipal Executive (CME, ‘rådmann’), the head of the municipal administration who exercises agency over government affairs. How do central state instruments influence this local agent and what are the consequences for settlement decisions? Economic incentives are the most important state tools in settlement decisions. Central information strategies, government appeals and persuasion seem, how- ever, to be less effective. In line with agency theory, CMEs’ sovereign assessments of the impact of state requests on local burdens and benefits are shown to be the main factor determining settlement decisions.