What factors explain interest groups’ policy preferences articulated in the EU environmental policy area, during the policy formulation stage? Under what conditions do interest groups decide to express preferences on some policy issues rather than others, and what explains the nature of these policy preferences? The paper addresses these questions by proposing a systematic, empirical analysis of the effects the policy context, interest groups’ characteristics and the policy network environment have on groups’ preference articulation, during the public consultation stage of eight environmental policy proposals. The analysis is based on an original dataset, providing detailed information about interest groups’ policy preferences and network ties. Preliminary results show that both contextual factors and interest groups’ structural characteristics and critical resources have (to different degrees) an impact on both the likelihood of preference articulation, and on a group’s preference for different regulatory regimes of environmental issues.
