Information is the currency of lobbying in Brussels. Interest groups provide policy-relevant information to decision-makers in exchange for legitimate access to the EU legislative process. While the importance of information has long been recognized in the scholarly literature, a systematic examination is still missing. Using data from elite interviews and a large-scale on-line survey of eleven different types of interest groups I propose to assess the process that sees interest groups transmit information to decision-makers. The framework I use to assess information transmission turns on three related questions: what type of information is being transmitted? What tactics are used to transmit the information? And, at which decision-makers is the information being targeted? In short: types, tactics, and targets. I use this framework in two ways. First, to determine how strategic choices about targets determine information types and tactics. Second, to test the assumption that an interest group’s choice of information types, tactics and targets is mainly a function of that group’s membership structure. In short, private interest groups are assumed to transmit technical information to the Commission using inside-tactics what diffuse interest groups are assumed to transmit information about public opinion to the European Parliament using outside-tactics. Empirical analysis suggests that membership structure does not determine the information transmission process. Rather, most interest groups in the EU strategically transmit a whole host of different information types, using a range of tactics and targeting decision-makers in many of the EU’s main institutions.
