Behind closed doors: Exploring the role of interpersonal relationships for interest group access and influence during coalition negotiations

Interactions between political parties and interest groups are typically theorized as an exchange of organizational resources—expertise, information, and legitimacy in return for access and influence further facilitated by ideological proximity and organizational ties. This literature, however, has focused mainly on routine policymaking, yet little is known about how access and influence materialize in more closed-off settings such as coalition negotiations. Therefore, this paper takes an exploratory approach to interpersonal—as distinct from inter-organizational—relationships between interest group representatives and political actors, asking how they arise and shape access to, and influence over, political decisions, drawing on face-to-face interviews with high-level interest group representatives and politicians involved in the coalition negotiations following Belgium’s June 2024 national elections. Preliminary findings suggest that interpersonal relationships constitute a distinct dimension of interest group access to this closed-off setting. These relationships form through diverse pathways, including career mobility, local political networks, and repeated professional interactions. Interpersonal relationships also enable influence by reducing uncertainty and creating trust and familiarity in informal exchanges over sensitive trade-offs, sometimes blocking unwelcome provisions rather than securing new ones. Absent such personal connections, access and influence both appear markedly harder to achieve.