Information or context: what accounts for positional proximity between the European Commission and lobbyists?

The European Commission’s environmental stakeholder consultations: Is lobbying success based on what you know, what you own or who you know?

“…There is good reason to believe that rational stakeholders would consistently make the same recommendations in all of the EC's discussion fora (however, a stakeholder may frame its recommendations differently or supply different supporting arguments, in particular if addressing another institution than the EC) and that the documents capture the bulk of recommendations. As the best way to directly observe the recommendations made by stakeholders, these documents have previously been used by Klüver (2013), Bunea (2013) and Bernhagen et al (2015) (in the latest study only as a validity check for interviews). By iterated reading, coders identified 8450 recommendations in the documents in favour of 618 distinct policy alternatives, the success of which serve as the unit of analysis.…”

“…This study aims to shed more light on this question, given these contradictory results. Some limitations of Bernhagen et al's (2015) otherwise excellent study also indicate a need for additional investigation. The central variable of the study, interest group knowledge, is defined as 'the level of technical knowledge each organisation holds with respect to this policy proposal'.…”

“…However, the project leaves open the question of other sources of interest group influence, in particular the provision of expertise, which makes it difficult to judge the full extent of any potential probusiness bias. Bernhagen et al (2015) represents the most advanced attempt yet to establish whether interest group influence over the EC is based on what you know or who you know, in other words whether it is based on the provision of relevant expertise or an insider system. They also evaluate whether business groups enjoy more or less success than other groups.…”

“…These are avenues of influence which are based on what big businesses own and that other interests in society do not have, potentially leading to slanted, inefficient or dysfunctional policies. Partly because of these concerns, Bunea (2013), Klüver (2013), Dür et al (2015) and Bernhagen et al (2015) have investigated specifically whether business actors have more (or less) success than other actors, finding contradictory results worthy of further analysis. If success is based on what you own, the following hypothesis should hold true:…”

Agenda-setting by the European Commission. Seeking public opinion?

“…In addition, we compare the established variation with the degree to which the DG relies on expert groupsthe main alternative source of input. Finally, previous research and expert surveys have pointed out that some DGs are more business-oriented, while others are more NGO-oriented (Bernhagen et al 2015). In a similar vein, some DGs are supposed to be receptive to an economic interest frame, while others are more receptive to a public interest frame (Klüver et al 2015).…”