Interest Groups & Lobbying in Times of Turbulence & Crisis

Abstract

This panel examines how periods of crisis, disruption, and instability reshape patterns of interest representation. While much of the lobbying literature implicitly assumes relatively stable institutional environments, the contributions to this panel foreground turbulence as a defining condition of contemporary politics and analyze how interest groups adapt their strategies and experience changing influence opportunities when political equilibria are unsettled. A first shared theme concerns the reconfiguration of access patterns under crisis conditions. Several papers investigate whether and how established advantages persist when policymaking becomes more centralized, urgent, or security-driven. Across different types of crises, including war, geopolitical instability, and major policy ruptures, the papers probe whether turbulence reinforces existing hierarchies of access or opens temporary windows for new or previously marginalized actors. Second, the panel highlights mobilization and adaptation as key responses to turbulence. Crises alter the incentives and capacities of interest groups to engage politically, often requiring rapid organizational adjustment, coalition-building, and strategic reprioritization. Contributions show how interest groups recalibrate their lobbying portfolios, redeploy resources, and adjust claims-making when facing sudden policy disturbances, regulatory uncertainty, or shifting governmental priorities. Third, the papers emphasize the interaction between turbulence and political context. By covering a wide range of empirical settings, from EU-level lobbying and post-Brexit environmental governance to full-scale war in Ukraine and geopolitical insecurity in Central and Eastern Europe, the panel demonstrates that the effects of turbulence are contingent on institutional resilience, state capacity, and regime characteristics. Finally, the panel advances a dynamic understanding of lobbying that is sensitive to time and sequence. Rather than treating crises as discrete events, the contributions examine how prolonged or overlapping disruptions reshape interest group systems over time, with potential long-term consequences for access, representation, and influence.

Title	Details
When Stability Shifts: How Interest Groups React to Policy Disturbances Across Europe	View Paper Details
Wartime Lobbying: How Full-Scale War Impacts Interest Group Mobilization in Ukraine	View Paper Details
Multiple Faces of Turbulence: Interest Groups Responses to Political Instability and Geopolitical Challenges in Poland, Lithuania and Estonia	View Paper Details
Organisational Adaptation and Turbulence: Shaping (Post-)Brexit Environmental Policy Developments	View Paper Details
Do Crises Change Access? Tenure, Insidership and Incumbency in EU Lobbying	View Paper Details