Influence, affluence and media salience: Economic resources and lobbying influence in the European Union
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116520944572 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
European Union Politics
Influence, affluence
2020, Vol. 21(4) 728–750
! The Author(s) 2020
and media salience:
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Economic resources
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116520944572
and lobbying influence
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in the European Union
Frederik Stevens
Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp,
Antwerp, Belgium
Iskander De Bruycker
Department of Political Science, Maastricht University,
Maastricht, the Netherlands
Abstract
This paper evaluates the circumstances under which affluent interest groups wield influ-
ence over policy outcomes. Interest group scholarship is ambiguous about the beneficial
role of economic resources for lobbying influence. Economically resourceful groups are
often presumed to provide more and better expert information to decision-makers and,
in exchange, receive more favourable policy concessions. We argue that the beneficial
role of economic resources is contingent on the media salience of policy dossiers. We
expect that resourceful groups are more influential when issues are discussed behind the
public scenes, while their competitive advantage dampens once issues grow salient in the
news media. We test our expectations in the context of European Union policymaking,
drawing from 183 expert surveys with lobbyists connected to a sample of 41 policy
issues. Our empirical findings demonstrate that economic resources matter for lobbying
influence, but that their effect is conditional on the media salience of policy issues.
Keywords
European Union, influence, interest groups, lobbying
Corresponding author:
Iskander De Bruycker, Department of Political Science, Maastricht University, Grote Gracht 90-92, 6211 SZ
Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Email: i.debruycker@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Stevens and De Bruycker
729
Introduction
Influencing policy decisions is one of the main objectives of interest groups (Du¨r,
2008a; Klu¨ver, 2011), which we conceive of as all organisations with political
objectives and which aggregate political preferences, including business associa-
tions, labour unions, civil society organisations and social movement organisations
(Beyers et al., 2008). Conventional wisdom holds that rich interests prevail and
that policies will ultimately benefit the highest bidder. Furthermore, academic
debates often presume that policymakers respond almost exclusively to the eco-
nomically advantaged (Gilens, 2012). Various studies have therefore highlighted
the relevance of economic resources to explain interest groups’ success or influence
(Baumgartner et al., 2009; Binderkrantz et al., 2015; Gerber, 1999; Hall and
Deardorff, 2006; Kohler-Koch, 1994). This ‘transaction cost’ perspective reflects
an elitist understanding of interest group politics in which lobbyists ‘buy’ attention
and cooperation from politicians (Lowery and Gray, 2004: 165). However, this
understanding of lobbying is problematic for democratic governance, as it implies
that policies are biased towards well-endowed interests, undermining majority rule
and jeopardising the public interest. This pessimistic perspective contrasts with the
pluralist thought, which perceives the population of organised interests to validly
reflect the distribution of salient interests in society (Truman, 1951). Baumgartner
and Leech (1998: 48) summarised the pluralist account: ‘one of the explanations of
America’s success in maintaining democracy [. . .] is the vibrant group system based
on competition and independence from the state’. Yet, the pluralist view of interest
representation does not take into account that some interests organise themselves
more easily than others (Olson, 1965). As Schattschneider famously observed in
the early 1960s, ‘the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus
sings with a strong upper-class accent (1960: 34–35)’. In other words, a pluralist
system ultimately produces elitist influence distributions biased in favour of ‘the
happy few’.
Building on the deeply engrained tensions between pluralist and elitist thought,
several studies have attempted to empirically clarify the role of economic resources
in political influence. However, interest group scholarship has yet to reach a
consensus about the validity of either the elitist or pluralist perspective and the
corresponding role of economic resources in political influence. This disagreement
is due in part to differing operationalisations of political success and influence,
calling for the combination of different measurement methods (Du¨r, 2008b).
Meanwhile, the more recent neopluralist stream of research embodies this dis-
agreement and posits that ‘the most telling trait of the influence enterprise is its
contingency’ (Lowery and Gray, 2004: 167). Neopluralist research emphasises the
moderating role of the issue context (see Klu¨ver, 2011; Mahoney, 2007) and anal-
yses ‘when, why, and to what extent interest groups are powerful on what types of
issues’ (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998: 134). In the neopluralist vein, this research
asks whether economic resources are more important in some issues with specific
characteristics than in others. The aim of this article is to contribute to
730
European Union Politics 21(4)
understanding the role of economic resources and to assess under which conditions
economic resources lead to lobbying influence. In line with previous studies on
issue salience (Beyers, 2008; Du¨r and De Bievre, 2007b; Klu¨ver, 2011; Mahoney,
2007), we examine whether the role of economic resources in interest group influ-
ence is contingent upon the media salience of policy issues in the context of
European Union (EU) public policy.
Addressing this question in the context of the EU is particularly relevant
because of the criticism regarding its democratic deficit (Follesdal and Hix,
2006; Michalowitz, 2004). Despite the considerable regulatory scope of the EU,
scholars have pointed to the absence of a clear link between the public sphere and
decision-making processes (Kohler-Koch, 2010). In the past two decades, the
European Commission (EC) launched several initiatives, such as the White
Paper on European Governance (or the Transparency Register (TR)), to make
the EU more participatory and to improve the legitimacy of its policies (European
Commission, 2002, 2018; Kohler-Koch and Finke, 2007). However, as it is still
largely resourceful insiders who gain access to EU decision-making bodies, these
initiatives have not served their purpose (Beyers et al., 2008: 1117; Eising, 2007).
By combining two different measurement methods of lobbying influence and by
drawing on 183 expert surveys, our results show that, indeed, affluent groups are
more influential than less-endowed groups. But, the benefits of economic resources
weaken and eventually disappear when issues become more salient in the news
media. More precisely, the findings demonstrate that on more salient issues, weal-
thy groups are not significantly more influential than resource-poor interest
organisations.
Conceptualising influence
To assess under which conditions economic resources impact the degree of interest
group influence on EU policy, we must first conceptualise the abstract idea of
influence. Most studies that have investigated the extent to which economic resour-
ces matter have done so with regard to access (Eising, 2007). However, although
many groups find contacts with policymakers necessary in their efforts to shape
EU policy, access is not equal to influence. Indeed, influence can be gained through
other strategies as well, such as through outside lobbying to communicate infor-
mation about the organisation’s preferences or through impacting the selection of
political candidates (Bouwen, 2002; De Bruycker and Beyers, 2019; Du¨r, 2008a;
Eising, 2007). In short, there are several pathways to influence (Du¨r, 2008a: 1221).
As a result, there is no single common understanding of the concept of influence
and how to gain it (Bouwen, 2002; Du¨r, 2008b; Du¨r and De Bievre, 2007b; Helboe
Pedersen, 2013). Despite the existence of various definitions of influence, Du¨r
(2008a: 1221) suggested to ‘consciously focus on specific aspects of the concept
(of influence), therefore making it amenable to empirical research’.
Influence is often associated with power as its more abstract, overarching coun-
terpart (Du¨r, 2008a; Helboe Pedersen, 2013). The literature provides a variety of
Stevens and De Bruycker
731
interpretations with respect to power, which lies at the heart of the political science
discipline (Baldwin, 1971). Generally, scholars perceive power in three possible ways,
the ‘three faces of power’ (Gilens and Page, 2014: 576). The first face of power refers
to a competition with winners and losers in which the winners are considered to be
those who are able to force other actors to do what they would not do otherwise
(Dahl, 2007: 202–203). Bachrach and Baratz (1962) criticise this conception and
argue that power also can be seen as the ability to set the political agenda or the
second face of power. Finally, Lukes (2004) argues that even the second face of
power is inaccurate and defines power as the capability to manipulate preferences of
weak actors to the extent that they do not recognise their own genuine interests.
The first face of power is similar to the basic definition provided by Berry (1979:
183), who defined interest group influence as the achievement of interest fulfilment,
which brings us closer to an empirical observable phenomenon. The assumption
here is that each interest group has (a)...
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