The Evolving Landscape of Interest Group Politics: Navigating a Research Area of Increasing Complexity and Unprecedented Importance

It is undeniable that the study of interest groups, lobbying and advocacy is rapidly becoming a central research field in the political sciences and beyond. First, the crisis of representation within traditional political organisations and democratic institutions has given prominence to organised interests both nationally and internationally. Second, new actors, firms and multinational corporations have cemented their role of policy stakeholders, domestically as well as in relation to globally salient policy issues such as climate change and public health. At the same time, new actors are making an entrance with social movements and ordinary citizens discovering lobbying as a form of political participation. Third, lobbying and advocacy by organised interests, once seen as a form of democratic participation, has been increasingly observed in non- (or less) democratic contexts. This has shed new lights on the complexity of lobbying as a form of political participation but also highlight the challenges and constrains organised interests face outside the democratic context. Finally, new media platforms and technologies, in particular, artificial intelligence, is making an abrupt entrance into the world of public affairs with consequences for the profession but also for the democratic process that cannot yet be understood.