Interest Groups and Public Opinion

Abstract

The existing literature contains no lack of criticism of the negative impact that interest groups may have on public policy-making. Groups may either promote special interests at the expense of the views of the general public or they may even manipulate public opinion in the worst case. Yet, there is still a lack of systematic evidence on the relationship between public opinion and interest groups since only a limited set of studies integrate both forces into the same research design. To fill this gap, the proposed panel includes five research papers that touch upon theoretical and empirical aspects of the relationship between public opinion and interest groups.

Title	Details
One for All? Public Confidence in National, Regional, and International Institutions	View Paper Details
Interest Groups as Transmission Belts? Comparing Policy Positions of Groups and the Public	View Paper Details
Lobbying for the People? Measuring substantive representation by interest groups	View Paper Details
Making Public Policy: A time series analysis of Public opinion, Interest groups and Policy-making in Sweden	View Paper Details
Reflecting the Public Interest? How European News Media Cover Public Opinion Cues on EU Legislative Politics	View Paper Details