The Capacities of Euro Groups in the Integration Process
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Author | Lara Stancich,Linda Strangward,Justin Greenwood |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00192 |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Capacities of Euro Groups in the
Integration Process
JUSTIN GREENWOOD,LINDA STRANGWARD AND LARA STANCICH
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
Building on a steady stream of earlier analysis, a good deal of research has been
invested in the study of European levelinterest representation during the 1990s.1
Mapping the details, issues and `routes' of interest representation, and debates
between pluralism and corporatism, characterized the ®rst phase of writing in
the early 1990s. More recent analysis has been directed at assessing the role of
interests in the process of governance, examining patterns of associability, and
evaluating the ability of collective actors to work coherently. Arising from these
exercises, either implicitly or explicitly, havebeen attempts to evaluate the extent
to which interests contribute to the integration process. This note seeks to
contribute to these debates by investigating the resources and capacities of Euro
groups and the dynamics of associability surrounding them. If Euro groups (not
the only, but the most signi®cant format of interest representation) face abiding
problems of capacity, coherence and associability, so the ability of key interests
to participate in tightly integrated policy networks (including those worthy of
the `corporatist' tag) seems correspondingly reduced.
McLaughlin, Jordan, and Maloney2argue of the constituency of Euro
groups that `in practice, Euro-groups, far from being dynamic agents of
integration, have tended to be rather ineective bodies unable to engage in
constructive policy dialogue with the Commission'. The claim of `weak Euro
groups' appears to havebecome a shared assumption, and part of a belief system,
among some researchers. If collective action issues in transnational groups are
irresolvable, so the capacity of groupsto participate in governance structures and
#Political Studies Association 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Political Studies (1999), XLVII, 127±138
1See, inter alia, practitioner guides by J. Gardner, Eective Lobbying in the European Community
(Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1991); C. Andersen, In¯uencing the European Community(London, Routledge,
1994); A. Stern, Lobbying in Europe After Maastricht: How to Keep Abreast and Wield In¯uence in
the European Union (Brussels, Club de Bruxelles, 1994); analytic and descriptive collections by
J. Greenwood, J. Grote, and K. Ronit (eds), Organised Interests and the European Community
(London, Sage, 1992); S. Mazey, and J. Richardson (eds), Lobbying In The European Community
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993); M. P. C. M. van Schendelen (ed.), National Public and
Private EC Lobbying (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1993); R. H. Pedler, and M. P.C. M. van Schendelen
(eds), Lobbying in the European Union: Companies, Trade Associationsand Issue Groups (Aldershot,
Dartmouth, 1994); J. Greenwood, European Casebook on Business Alliances (Hemel Hempstead,
Prentice Hall, 1995); J. Greenwood, and M. Aspinwall, Collective Action in the European Union:
Interests and the New Politics of Associability (London, Routledge, 1997); and dedicated books
by S. George, Politics and Policy in the European Community (Oxford, Clarendon, 1985), and
J. Greenwood, Representing Interests in the European Union (London, Macmillan, 1997); and a
plethora of journal articles, book chapters and conference papers on the subject.
2A. M. McLaughlin, A. G. Jordan, and W. Maloney, `Corporate lobbying in the European
Community', Journal of Common Market Studies, 31 (1993), 191±212.
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