Congruence Analysis and Scaling Qualitative Content Analysis as Toolset for Institutionalized Policy Coordination in Interest Group Influence Research

Interest group research is still considered to be a niche field. New approaches advanced our understanding of numerous factors of interest group influence. However, strong theoretical expectations continue to be mismatched by contradictory and inconclusive results. In dealing with this issue, institutionalized policy coordination between government actors and interest groups allow for new insights. They appear to serve as focal point at which formal and informal interactions are pooled. As part of the German energy transition (“Energiewende”), policy coordination committees are employed on state level to involve key interest groups institutionally in deliberation and decision-making processes. These committees showcase the interplay between governments and interest groups from both the ‘conventional-energy’ and the ‘renewable-energy’ policy coalitions. Exemplarily, the “climate protection plan” in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as “Energie Innovativ” in Bavaria – both with boards and working groups – include the state government and a selection of trade and business associations, environmental groups, unions and other representatives. The project uses congruence analysis (CON) as a theoretical toolset to improve our understanding of policy coordination and political context as a condition for interest group influence. Following CON’s logic, the project applies discursive and actor-centered institutionalism to harness the conflicting priorities of arguments versus interests to explain coordination. Using scaling Qualitative Content Analysis, its conclusions are drawn from the differences in the level of (non-)congruence between theoretical expectations and empirical observations. All cases are located within a cluster of German states with similar properties and context, defined descriptively by using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The cases vary in their outcome, based on a theory-guided typology: joint policy recommendation, procedural agreement and symbol politics. The case selection follows the ‘most-similar different-outcome design’ (MSDO) with small-n. Sources for data generation are expert interviews and reports and statements from within these coordination committees.