Explaining the patterns of contacts between interest groups and political parties: Revising the standard model for populist times

Abstract

Why do some groups and parties maintain contact whereas others do not? Recent studies explain party-interest group contact on the basis of power and ideological proximity. This 'standard' model provides reasonably good explanations for the general patterns of party-interest group interactions but requires specification to account for the profound political changes caused by the rise of populist parties. Our argument is (a) that populist ideology leads interest groups to have relatively infrequent contact with populist parties and (b) that strategic incentives related to populist parties moderate the effects of power and proximity. We examine the contact patterns of over 1600 interest groups and political parties derived from elite survey data from five European countries. We find empirical support for our arguments and relate these to normative concerns about the selective involvement of parties and groups in policymaking.

The Comparative Interest Group-survey project: design, practical lessons, and data sets

“…To date (2019) the CIG data have produced some outstanding research outputs, e.g. the role of interest groups as transmission belt in representative democracy (Albareda 2018); party-interest group interactions (Berkhout et al 2019); the effect of public opinion on organizational survival (Hanegraaff and Poletti 2019); coalition building (Hanegraaff and Pritoni 2019): interest groups system density and access : mortality anxiety of interest groups (Heylen et al 2018); the funding of interest groups (Heylen and Willems 2019); interest group access (Willems 2020) and development of national interest representation systems (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019a, b). Numerous other publications are being prepared and/or are under review.…”

Interest Groups in Multi-Level Contexts: European Integration as Cross-Cutting Issue in Party-Interest Group Contacts

“…This research integration, in the longer term, potentially im-proves our understanding of the outcomes of national and EU public policy and facilitates the normative evaluation of those outcomes. Second, we theoretically further develop issue-specific explanations for party-group contacts (e.g., Berkhout, Hanegraaff, & Statsch, 2019). We argue that party-group contact is importantly shaped by the particular constellation of actors within (multi-level) policy fields in combination with the longer term, dimensional structuration of political conflict in the party system.…”

“…We control for what we label the 'standard model' for party-group contact (e.g., Berkhout et al, 2019). This 'model' is the result of a wave of recent studies on policy-specific contacts and long-term organisational exchange-relationships between political parties and interest groups (Allern & Bale, 2012;Allern et al, 2019;Beyers et al, 2015;Bolleyer, 2017;de Bruycker, 2016;Otjes & Rasmussen, 2017;Rasmussen & Lindeboom, 2013).…”

Political Parties and Interest Groups

“…Their relationship is therefore "commonly theorized in terms of the mutually beneficial exchange of politically important resources" (Berkhout et al,. 2019).…”

“…Finally, it should be noted that a number of other studies have assessed the drivers of particular collaborative attempts to influence public policy. These studies have led to what some call the "standard model" of party-interest group contact, which include power and ideological proximity as two main explanatory factors (for an overview, see Berkhout et al 2019).…”