Interests groups in Parliament: Exploring MPs’ interest affiliations (2000‐2011)

Abstract

This research note presents an innovative dataset

How corporatist institutions shape the access of citizen groups to policy-makers: evidence from Denmark and Switzerland

“…We have witnessed the advent of new values (e.g., environmentalism), new cleavages (e.g., authoritarian-libertarian) and new political issues (e.g., immigration, morality or cultural issues), all of which are not or loosely related to neo-corporatist issues. Even if collective action problems are more difficult to overcome for groups mobilized on these bases, new groups are actually formed (see Jordan et al 2012 for the UK and USA; Fisker 2015 for Denmark; Gava et al 2016 for Switzerland). Citizen groups may not be as strong as economic associations in terms of delivering expertise, but they do possess some of the resources demanded by decision-makers (e.g., information about public mood, legitimization of political decisions and electoral support, cf.…”

“…Swiss decision-making processes are also directly affected by Europeanization, as is obviously also the case for EU member state Denmark. In Europeanized policies, pre-parliamentary negotiations between national neo-corporatist actors are weakened (Mach et al 2003;Sciarini 2014), parliamentary oversight of Europeanized processes is increasing over time, and citizen groups aim at contributing to this scrutiny exercise (Gava et al 2016).…”

More equal than others: Assessing economic and citizen groups' access across policymaking venues

“…Similarly, Binderkrantz et al (2015, p. 109) conclude that the "provision of access to different group types on different political arenas can be seen as a pluralist trait." Others discuss the "pluralization" of different (formerly) neo-corporatist systems of interest intermediation when focusing on the citizen groups' access to parliament in a diachronic perspective (Christiansen, Mach, & Varone, 2017;Gava et al, 2017;Rommetvedt et al, 2012).…”

Political or Financial Benefits? Ideology, Tenure, and Parliamentarians’ Choice of Interest Group Ties

“…Some IGs, like firms, primarily offer financial benefits while others, like labour unions, primarily provide political benefits. In return, MPs become interest groups' advocates in parliament (Gava et al 2016;Niessen and Ruenzi 2010) which often has a direct impact on their behaviour in parliament (Arnold et al 2014;Gagliarducci et al 2010;Staat and Kuehnhanss 2016). Yet, although there are clearly good reasons for representatives to pursue both political and financial goals, existing studies have so far primarily looked at this relationship through the lens of access-seeking IGs and attributed the agency accordingly (Fouirnaies 2018;Fouirnaies andHall 2014, 2018;Neff Powell and Grimmer 2016).…”