Interest group survival: Explaining sources of mortality anxiety

Abstract

Executive Summary In order to engage in public policy, interest groups need to survive and thrive as organizations. What factors shape perceptions of group entrepreneurs as to the future prospects for their groups' survival? The careful and ambitious work of Gray and Lowery (and others working in the population ecology paradigm) has drawn attention to that fact that not all groups that are born survive. This observation raises the question: what leads groups to 'feel' anxiety about their organizational mortality? In their 1997 article, utilizing survey data on the organizational characteristics and situational dynamics of a sample of groups lobbying in several US states, Gray and Lowery asked just that question: what are the levels of 'mortality anxiety' among groups still alive? In this article, we revisit this question using similar data, but with some additional variables, and for a non-US case (namely, post-devolution Scottish public policy). In sorting out what factors are associated with anxiety, our analysis seeks to weigh up the existing ecological emphasis on broad shifts in population-level forces (that is, competition) with group-level variables reflecting adaptive changes (that is, identity, uniqueness, changes).

Interest Organization Demography Research in Europe

“…Consistent with population ecological research, Halpin and Thomas (2012) find that groups compete for members rather than policy attention. Such competition produces anxiety among groups about their survival, especially, and this is a contribution, when past organizational change has been unsuccessful.…”

The moving stages of public affairs in the Netherlands

“…Thus, research on the success and survival of public and private organizations engaged in interest representation casts a systematic light on how, for example, commercial industries employing non-commercial activities and run corporate social responsibility programs to build social and political capital, and in this way strengthen the prospect of continuity in the long run (Bernhagen, 2007;Anastasiasis and Wagner, 2013;Den Hond et al, 2014). Likewise, research on organizational survival of interest groups can inform decisions on what activities and investments will pay off (Halpin and Thomas, 2012).…”

Public opinion and interest groups’ concerns for organizational survival

“…This growing body of work, however, has overlooked the questions of whether and how public opinion affects advocacy groups' concerns about their own survival as organizations and what implications these concerns might have for these groups' strategic choices (but see Dür and Mateo, 2016;Flöthe and Rasmussen, 2019 for an exception). While the interest group literature has long assumed that advocacy groups are primarily motivated by a desire to influence public policy (Hansen et al, 2005), a growing number of works stress the importance of reformulating this research agenda by assuming that advocacy groups are fundamentally survival-maximizing organizations (Gray and Lowery, 1997;Lowery, 2007Lowery, , 2013Halpin and Jordan, 2009;Halpin and Thomas, 2012;Dür and Mateo, 2016). As Lowery (2007: 46-47) puts it, 'the most fundamental goal of organizations must be to survive as organizations.…”