Interest Groups & Lobbying Influence

Abstract

This panel addresses a central question in the study of interest representation: how, through which mechanisms, and under what conditions do interest groups exert influence on political decision-making. Rather than equating influence with access or formal policy change alone, the contributions examine lobbying influence as a multi-dimensional and often indirect process that unfolds across arenas, venues and stages of the policy cycle. A first unifying theme concerns the mediation of influence through attention, perception, and interpretation. Several papers show that interest groups shape policymaking not only by altering material incentives or policy options, but by influencing how decision-makers perceive public opinion, issue salience, feasibility, and risk. This includes shaping politicians’ estimates of societal preferences through digital communication, crowding out disfavored issues via competition for limited agenda space, and constructing expectations about future policy consequences during implementation phases. Influence thus operates by structuring what policymakers notice, how they interpret information, and which issues appear politically viable. Second, the panel emphasizes the importance of multi-arena and multi-venue strategies. Interest groups combine public communication, litigation, consultations, and implementation-stage advocacy to reinforce their influence. Influence is rarely confined to a single institutional setting; instead, it emerges from the interaction between arenas such as legislatures, bureaucracies, courts, and the media. Third, the papers highlight structural and relational conditions that systematically advantage some actors over others. Resource endowments, organizational capacity, and embeddedness in exchange relationships with the state shape groups’ ability to sustain influence across arenas and over time. At the same time, influence may arise from systemic dynamics rather than deliberate dominance, such as agenda saturation. Finally, the panel broadens the temporal scope of lobbying influence. It demonstrates that influence extends beyond formal decision-making to include agenda-setting, implementation, postponement, and regulatory revision, thereby challenging linear models of the policy process. By tracing influence across time, the panel offers a more comprehensive account of how interest groups shape political outcomes in modern democratic systems. Together, the papers advance theoretical and methodological debates on lobbying influence by unpacking the often subtle, indirect, and cumulative processes through which organized interests shape political decision-making.

Title	Details
Ex-Post Lobbying on Due Diligence Regulations – The Central Role of Expectations	View Paper Details
Too Many Issues, Too Little Attention: Interest Groups and Negative Agenda-Setting in the EU	View Paper Details
Social Media, Interest Groups, and Perceptions of Public Opinion	View Paper Details
Resource Exchange Revisited: Mapping Interest Group Influence Across Multiple Arenas	View Paper Details
Unlocking Litigation as Political Influence: A Multi-Venue Perspective on Corporate Lobbying	View Paper Details