Interest Groups and other Political Organizations

Abstract

The lobby activities of interest groups are directly affected by the political activities of other actors, most notably political parties and social movements. Our understanding of the relationship between interest group politics, party politics and protest politics suffers from several conceptual and empirical caveats. Conceptually, we find differences between those focusing on (traditional) organizational relationships and issue-specific differences in, among others, agenda-setting. Empirically, the balkanization in separate fields of study has led to only few common research questions, such as those related to the institutionalization of movements into interest groups, or the nature of financial and electoral support by groups of (US) political parties. Why do the agendas of political parties, interest groups and social movements overlap on some issues but not on others? Why do we find strong organizational ties between parties, movements and groups in some political systems but not in others? Why are parties sometimes responsive to lobbying whereas in other times not? Why do some movements construct useful alliances with party elites and whereas other movements remain isolated? The contributors to this panel are invited to examine these kinds of questions on any of the relationships between lobby, party and protest politics.