Interest Groups, Social Movements, Advocacy and Elite Networks

This section invites contributions that analyse interest representation by corporate actors, advocacy networks and social movements in the European Union. The study of organised interests in the European Union is consistently interested in the difference between corporate interest representation and voices that originate from grassroots mobilisation and citizens. In part, this division also appears in the study of organized action at the EU level with studies of lobbying and policy-oriented interest representation on the one hand, and studies of movements and citizen protest on the other. In this section we would like to bring together scholars working in the subfield of studies of interest groups and those of social movements and civil society. We aspire to engage in fruitful discussions on questions about coalitions being formed between corporate interests and civil society associations, policy specific group-influence on the future agenda of EU policies in new areas such as sustainable development, digital transformation and artificial intelligence, and how EU-level interest groups and intermediation adapt to new challenges and regulatory demands. This includes an understanding of how networks of elite actors in the bureaucracy, corporate public affairs and activist groups are tied to one another as well as the emerging controversies and ambiguities within the complex and dynamic field of multi-level interest representation in the EU (such as the appropriation of “common good causes” by corporate actors as in the case of the “Green Deal” or the capture of activist repertoires by radicalized groups and their illiberal agendas).