Interest Group Politics: Normative and Conceptual Challenges

The study of interest group politics has become a burgeoning field within the discipline of political science. Recent advancements, such as state-of-the-art projects INTEREURO in the EU and ‘Lobbying and Policy Change’ in the US, provide comprehensive perspectives into the role of interest groups and lobbying in state governance. But while most of this research finds little evidence that interest groups and their various advantages bring about democratically undesirable outcomes, popular-scientific accounts suggest strong influence by particular types of interest groups. For example, the Corporate European Observatory and Transparency International have produced analyses regarding interest group involvement in the Volkswagen scandal, TTIP negotiations, and other topics. In short, there seems to be a paradox between the conclusions of the systematic, large-N studies of interest politics and popular-scientific accounts of individual cases of political advocacy. The Section evaluates the state and consequences of lobbying in a variety of national and transnational contexts. We note that many concepts of interest group influence have benefited from international cross-fertilization, including lobbying as resource exchange, venue shopping and agenda shaping. The chairs in this Section reflect a broad geographical spread, methodological variety and research interest.