Economic and humanitarian interest group positions: Evidence from the German Supply Chain Act

The amount of scholarship regarding the argument articulation by interest groups has steadily increased over the past years. For Germany in particular, however, there is a strong imbalance regarding the interest groups examined. Most prior studies have focused on interest groups acting in the fields of economic and labour policy, fewer have researched stakeholders in foreign policy. Findings of these studies demonstrate that patterns of lobbying considerably differ between these groups. Yet, it is so far unknown how interest groups act on issues that lie at the intersection of these policy fields. Since stakeholders always represent social groups and their interests, the question of which of these stakeholders can or cannot successfully enforce their positions is also a question that touches on the important issue of the democratic quality of states. This study contributes to closing this research gap by investigating the positions by interest groups and NGOs in the recent case of the German Supply Chain Act (“Lieferkettengesetz”) as a prime example of national foreign economic policy. Increasingly accessible documents of formerly unavailable interest group positions, as well as a vast coverage by the public and media alike, render this case study particularly useful to identifying common topics. While following the bill’s policy process, we investigate the interest groups’ main positions in respect to the German Supply Chain Act, how these actors articulate them and how they ultimately find their way into the final legislative text. We achieve this by analysing the groups’ statements for the ministerial draft, invited and non-invited statements for the Bundestag committee’s public hearing, as well as public statements in media.