Something New on the Western Front: Twenty Years of Interest Group Research (1999–2018)
| Author | Andrea Pritoni,Giulia Vicentini |
| Date | 01 February 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920943502 |
| Published date | 01 February 2022 |
| Subject Matter | State of the Art - Review Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920943502
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(1) 36 –46
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920943502
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Something New on the
Western Front: Twenty Years
of Interest Group Research
(1999–2018)
Andrea Pritoni1 and Giulia Vicentini2
Abstract
In a book published in 1998, Baumgartner and Leech argued that interest group research was
characterized by “elegant irrelevance.” Ten years later, Beyers and colleagues linked this to a
number of conceptual, methodological and disciplinary barriers which render(ed) the accumulation
of knowledge in this bulk of literature difficult. Are those same challenges still slowing down the
study of interest groups and lobbying? The main aim of this article is to review all interest group
scientific articles published in the top 50 political science journals between 1999 and 2018 in
order to answer this question. Our results show a growing community focusing on many themes,
preferring quantitative approaches, and analyzing more and more case studies. Interest group
research has never before been so lively.
Keywords
interest groups, lobbying, literature review, methods
Accepted: 30 June 2020
Introduction
In a famous book written in 1998, Baumgartner and Leech (1998: 17) defined research on
interest groups in the United States as being characterized by “elegant irrelevance.” Ten
years later, Beyers et al. (2008: 1103) recognized that interest group research—both in
America and in Europe—continued to represent a “niche field” in political science. The
difficulties encountered by interest group research are not fortuitous. Beyers and his col-
leagues focused on four main challenges which interest group scholars have had to con-
front and which rendered the accumulation of knowledge in this bulk of literature arduous.
First, “this phenomenon [. . .] is largely an artefact of size: fewer scholars work in the
1Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
2Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Corresponding author:
Andrea Pritoni, University of Turin, 10124 Turin, Italy.
Email: andrea.pritoni@unito.it
943502PSW0010.1177/1478929920943502Political Studies ReviewPritoni and Vicentini
research-article2020
State of the Art – Review Article
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