Interest Groups and Policy Issues

Abstract

Issues are central to Interest Group politics. First, organised interests need to define their issue portfolio, that is, the set of policy issues in which these organisations invest resources (staff, money, time), indicating the scope of the niche in which they are active (Beyers and Kerremans 2007). This decision needs to take into consideration both external factors, such as the governmental agenda, and internal elements, such as the desires of their constituency (Schmitter and Streeck 1999). Therefore, one important question in this regard is how interest groups determine their policy portfolio, which has an important signaling function towards their (potential) members and policymakers (Strolovitch 2007). Do they opt for a more generalist approach, or do they specialise in a certain niche (Heaney 2004; Halpin and Binderkrantz 2009)? Second, issues are found to be a vital factor for explaining interest group politics. When seeking to explain interest group behaviour and the nature of policy communities, issues (or policy topics) appear to be an important explanatory factor (Berkhout 2009; Baumgartner et al. 2009). Depending on the issue at stake, differences in interest group strategies are observed and different patterns of interest intermediation are identified. As a result, the nature of policy issues, and how they structure interest group politics, deserves closer investigation from interest group scholars. This panel scrutinises the relation between issues portfolios, interest group characteristics and political strategies. In particular, the nature of issue portfolios and the reasons or examine why policy topics are such an important structuring factor in interest group politics.

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