The balancing act of establishing a policy agenda: Conceptualizing and measuring drivers of issue prioritization within interest groups

Abstract

Interest groups are important intermediaries in Western democracies, with the potential to offer political linkage and form a bridge between the concerns of citizens and the agendas of political elites. While we know an increasing amount about the issue-based activity of groups, we only have a limited understanding about how they selected these issues to work on. In this article, we examine the process of agenda setting within groups. In particular, we address challenges of conceptualization and measurement. Through a thorough review of the group literature, we identify five main factors that are hypothesized to drive issue prioritization. We operationalize items to tap these factors and then empirically assess this theoretical model relying on data from a survey of national interest groups in Australia. Our findings, from a confirmatory factor analysis, provide support for the multidimensional nature of agenda setting. We discuss how this provides a firm conceptual and methodological foundation for future work examining how groups establish their policy agenda. | I N T R O D U C T I O NStudents of political science have invested heavily in enumerating the observable lobbying activity of interest groups. Many studies chart the instances of evidence giving to legislative committees (e.g., Berry, 1999), participation in administrative consultations (e.g., Yackee & Yackee, 2006), and even the lodgement of amicus briefs (e.g., Box-Steffensmeier & Christenson, 2014). Such research has provided compelling evidence that underpins important findings in the field. For instance, such work leads to the consistent finding of mobilization "bias," with the largest volume of lobby activity accounted for by business interests (Baumgartner, Berry, Hojnacki, Kimball, & Leech, 2009;Schlozman, Verba, & Brady, 2012;Walker, 1991). It has also led to findings of skewed mobilization across policy issueswith most issues garnering little lobbying activity, but a small number attracting very high levels and demonstrating patterns of bandwagoning (Baumgartner & Leech, 2001 population-level analysis of the demographics of lobbying (Gray & Lowery, 1996). In short, this work has enabled the discipline to draw important conclusions regarding the nature of interest group activity in contemporary political systems. What this work cannot reveal, however, are the drivers that catalyze groups into the policy action we readily observe. We know that individual agents, political parties, parliaments, and bureaucracies, when faced with numerous calls on their attention, engage in a process of prioritization (Simon, 1957(Simon, , 1985 see Jones, 1999, for a detailed overview). They decide what to act on, and what to leave to one side for the moment. For instance, recent work in this journal demonstrates how elite politicians rely on organizational procedures, heuristics, and self-confidence to deal with information overload (Walgrave & Dejaeghere, 2016). They are extremely selective in identifying the pieces of information that are of relevance to them....

Connecting Society and Policymakers? Conceptualizing and Measuring the Capacity of Civil Society Organizations to Act as Transmission Belts

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Prioritizing professionals? How the democratic and professionalized nature of interest groups shapes their degree of access to EU officials

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Can sport clubs be represented? Pre-packed policy advocacy and the trade-offs for democratic responsiveness

“…This focus is important because it provides an assessment of if and how the views of sport's 'grassroots' are accommodated in the sport-internal formation of interest representation (cf. Halpin et al 2018). Perhaps more importantly, however, the question is significant because of the propensity for acts of representation to shape future meanings of representation, interests, and membership in a manner not necessarily foreseen, intended, or sought-after by advocates (Hay 2004, Halpin 2010.…”

“…However, it also raises questions regarding how the issues that make up the content of RSFs' messaging are derived. Our focus here is on this preparatory stage of advocacy termed 'issue prioritization' by Halpin et al (2018), and on the understandings of interests and responsiveness that are made visible from RSF representatives' descriptions of this stage. Admittedly, our focus on issue prioritisation may seem limited.…”