When do parties grant access to more interest groups?

Interest groups can influence policies by giving input to political parties. Groups possess expertise and information that can help parties develop more efficient and representative policies. But the information provided reflects the policy goals of the group and not the society as a whole. To compensate for this, a party needs input from several groups. But parties have limited capacity and must be selective about what groups they grant access to. The interest group literature on access has devoted little attention to parties beyond general organizational ties. This paper adds to the literature by examining how party and policy specific factors affect the number and composition of groups a party grants access to. Building on theory of parties as rational goal-seeking actors, I theorize that parties will spend more time on policy areas that are important to them and thus grant access to more groups in these areas compared to others. Furthermore, parties will minimize the risk of public criticism and grant access to a more diverse set of groups on these policy areas. The hypotheses are tested by combining the PAIRDEM interest group survey dataset covering seven Western democracies with party salience data from the Manifesto Project. Multiple regression analysis controlling for country fixed effects, media salience and party size, show some support for the hypotheses. Parties grant access to more groups and gather more information on policy areas that are important to them. This implies that policies related to the areas the party prioritizes are the most well-grounded.