Interest Group Success in the European Union

• Author: David Marshall,Patrick Bernhagen,Andreas Dür
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414014565890
• Published date: 01 July 2015
• Date: 01 July 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

Comparative Political Studies

2015, Vol. 48(8) 951 –983

© The Author(s) 2015

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414014565890

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Article

Interest Group Success

in the European Union:

When (and Why) Does

Business Lose?

Andreas Dür1, Patrick Bernhagen2,

and David Marshall3

Abstract

Business lobbying is widespread in the European Union (EU). But because

not all lobbying is successful, the following question arises: When does

business win and when does it lose in the context of legislative policy making

in the EU? We argue that business actors are, overall, less successful than

citizen groups in the European policy process. However, they can protect

their interests if interest group conflict is low or the role of the European

Parliament is restricted. A new data set on the positions of more than 1,000

non-state actors with respect to 70 legislative acts proposed by the European

Commission between 2008 and 2010 allows us to evaluate this argument.

Empirical support for our expectations is highly robust. Our findings have

implications for the literature on legislative decision-making in the EU and

for research on non-state actors in international organizations.

Keywords

business and politics, European Union, interest groups, lobbying success

Business interests’ attempts at influencing public policy are ubiquitous in the

European Union (EU). The EU is sufficiently important to attract lobbying

1University of Salzburg, Austria

2University of Stuttgart, Germany

3University of Aberdeen, UK

Corresponding Author:

Andreas Dür, University of Salzburg, Rudolfskai 42, Salzburg, 5020, Austria.

Email: andreas.duer@sbg.ac.at

565890CPSXXX10.1177/0010414014565890Comparative Political StudiesDür et al.

research-article2015

952 Comparative Political Studies 48(8)

from a large number of business interests: Its institutions legislate on the

terms under which goods and services can be produced and traded in what, if

considered a single unit, is the largest economy in the world. To illustrate, in

late 2012 and early 2013, the EU institutions were the target of a massive

lobbying campaign by Internet companies, including Facebook and Google,

asking for changes to a proposed data protection directive. More than 3,000

proposals for amendments were forwarded to the European Parliament alone.

But lobbying frequently takes place in contested environments, so that not all

lobbyists can expect to be equally successful. Therefore, the question arises:

How successful are business actors in getting what they want? Or, formulated

differently, when and why does business win or lose in the policy struggle?

We argue that, in the EU, business actors are more often than not unsuc-

cessful in achieving their desired policy outcomes. Most legislative proposals

in the EU concern market regulation, which is frequently opposed by a large

majority of business actors. Therefore, business routinely faces a defensive

battle from the moment the European Commission puts forward a proposal

for new legislation. As most Commission proposals eventually lead to legis-

lation, we argue that business frequently loses compared with the status quo

and at best manages to limit the size of its losses. Citizen groups, by contrast,

frequently support new regulation. Once the Commission fields a legislative

proposal, these groups can expect considerable gains compared with the sta-

tus quo. In these situations, business actors may still be able to defend their

interests as long as policy is agreed upon in relatively closed elite circles

involving few interest representatives and executive officials. In the context

of the EU, this is the case when a policy episode is marked by low levels of

controversy or when the role of the European Parliament is limited.

A new data set containing the positions of 1,043 non-state actors on 112

controversial issues included in 70 different legislative proposals introduced

by the European Commission between 2008 and 2010 allows us to assess this

argument.1 We find that on much of EU legislation the Commission, in alli-

ance with citizen groups and the European Parliament, wants to change the

status quo while business interests seek to defend it. The legislative outcomes

tend to shift policy closer to the preferences of citizen groups and further

away from the preferences of business interests. This tendency is amplified

by increased levels of conflict and enhanced institutional powers of the

European Parliament. Our findings are robust to controlling for conflict

among business actors and varying the measurement of success.

Our study is one of the first to systematically assess the success of a large

number of actors across many policy issues for the case of the EU. The two

studies that come closest to our analysis both conclude that group type does

not matter for success (Klüver, 2013; Mahoney, 2008). Contrary to these

Dür et al. 953

studies, we argue that group type is a key variable in explaining interest group

success. Furthermore, we move beyond these earlier studies by arguing that

business success is conditional on the level of conflict. Additional strengths

of our approach include the assessment of success at the level of unidimen-

sional issues, the use of a more fine-grained measure of success, and control-

ling for what would happen in the absence of legislative agreement.

In showing that the success of business actors in EU legislative lobbying

is actually quite limited we shed light on a long-standing debate about the

role of business in EU politics. On one hand, a considerable body of research

suggests that business interests are the most powerful non-state actors in cap-

italist democratic systems (see, for example, McFarland, 1991; Olson, 1965;

Schlozman & Tierney, 1986). This should be no different in the case of the

EU. Indeed, a considerable number of observers suggest that business inter-

ests are more influential than other types of actors in the EU (Dür & De

Bièvre, 2007; Schneider & Baltz, 2003; Streeck & Schmitter, 1991). Business

interests have been portrayed as a major influence on the Single European

Act (Cowles, 1995). They have also been shown to enjoy better access to the

EU than citizen groups (Beyers, 2002; Rasmussen & Carroll, 2014). The

EU’s institutional bias in favor of policies promoting market efficiencies

(Scharpf, 2002) and a regulatory race to the bottom caused by capital market

liberalization in the EU may further facilitate business success.

On the other hand, several studies have pointed out that the EU’s institu-

tional structure allows citizen groups—defined as groups advancing interests

that are not directly related to the vocations or professions of their members

or supporters (Berry, 1999)—to be particularly effective (Geddes, 2000;

Mazey, 1998; Mazey & Richardson, 1993). The EU’s multiple tiers of gov-

ernment provide numerous access points that these diffuse interests can use

to influence decision-makers. The Commission is sympathetic to citizen

groups because they serve as allies in its attempts to enhance its competences

and legitimacy (Pollack, 1997). The growing powers of the European

Parliament, which offers particularly easy access to citizen groups (Kohler-

Koch, 1997), further aids diffuse interests in pursuing their political goals.

Last, the increasing politicization of at least some aspects of EU politics,

which leads to greater public attention to EU policies, may also favor citizen

groups (Dür & Mateo, 2014). Our argument is sympathetic to this second line

of reasoning, but adds important qualifications.

In addition to speaking to the debate about business power in the EU, our

theoretical argument and the operationalization of lobbying success also con-

tribute to the broader literature on interest group success and influence

(Bernhagen, 2012; McKay, 2012; Nelson & Yackee, 2012). Furthermore, our

study is of interest to the wider literature on legislative bargaining in the EU

(e.g., Golub, 2012; Thomson, 2011). In particular, it adds a crucial