Public support and advocacy success across the legislative process

Abstract

This paper examines how public support affects interest groups' advocacy success across three distinct stages in the legislative process. We hypothesize that public support is vital for advocacy success when coalition agreements are negotiated, and it has a weaker effect when legislation is introduced in parliament by the governing majority but becomes stronger again when legislation is adopted. We assess these expectations for 55 Belgian policy issues. We combine evidence on legislative outcomes with public opinion data and a mapping of interest groups' positions in the news. The results indicate that public support is key for advocacy success in the coalition agreement. However, the positive effect of public support weakens when legislation is introduced in parliament -the effect only materializes for initiatives by the opposition -and public support has no significant effect on advocacy success in adopted legislation. Instead, aligning with other groups and political parties becomes more consequential for advocacy success in later legislative stages. Still, on average, interest groups attaining their preferences in adopted legislation enjoy considerable public support. Our results thus underscore the relevance of distinguishing between legislative stages when analyzing interest groups' advocacy success.

The people versus the money: What drives interest group influence in the European Union?

“…Our results highlight that resources matter considerably for interest group influence – something which has often been ignored in EU studies. In line with recent empirical findings, our study also confirms the importance of congruence with public opinion and further explored its contingent effects (Rasmussen et al., 2018; Willems & Beyers, 2022). However, our study has limitations and further research is necessary.…”

It's about time! Temporal dynamics and longitudinal research designs in public administration

“…We follow Ancona et al (2001: p. 513) in defining the concept of time as “a non‐spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.” While this continuum is often viewed as involving a linear progression with time moving “forward” (i.e., in one direction), this need not necessarily be the case. Public budgets, for instance, follow a well‐defined set of stages every year (Rubin & Bartle, 2023), the development of legislation typically requires passing a pre‐set series of stages (Willems & Beyers, 2023), while the “policy cycle” describes the various stages of public policy development (Howlett et al, 2009). Similarly, many phenomena—including the evolution of public sector organizations—follow a developmental pattern across their “life cycle” (MacCarthaigh et al, 2012).…”

Affluence, congruence, and lobbying success in EU climate policy

“…Indeed, recent research shows that groups whose position resonates with public opinion are more likely to achieve their policy goals (Rasmussen et al 2018, De Bruycker and Beyers 2019). However, others have found that this success may depend on policy positions supporting the status quo (Rasmussen et al 2021) or the stage of the policy cycle (Willems and Beyers 2023).…”

“…In contrast to research that conceptualises political resources as active resources, for example, groups’ ability to signal their constituencies’ interests (Bouwen 2002; Braun 2012; De Bruycker 2016; Flöthe 2019), we follow the literature on congruence with public opinion that sees this more as a “passive” resource: a resource that groups benefit from, but without specifically controlling. The literature on congruence does not require groups to signal this congruence to policymakers; it is enough that the positions that they communicate to policymakers align with public opinion (Rasmussen et al 2018; Willems and Beyers 2023). Previous research has also highlighted that individual groups do not have much power over salience or public opinion (Dür and Mateo 2014).…”