Neglecting results? A critical view of the literature on organised interests in the European Union

• Published date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1588
• Date: 01 August 2016
• Author: Morten Jarlbæk Pedersen

■Commentary

Neglecting results? A critical view of the

literature on organised interests in the

European Union

Morten Jarlbæk Pedersen*

Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen K, Denmark

Much research has been undertaken to cast light on to the role of interest groups in the European Union and else-

where. However, only a few researchers have focused their energy on the practical effects of involvement—effects

on the legal output of the political process. Thus, we have a good knowledge of interest groups as input factors,

and we have a language to asses their weight in terms of input legitimacy. However, we do not understand their ac-

tual impact on the substance of legislation: does involvement make laws more efficient? This question seems espe-

cially relevant in the European Union as this organisation is often said to be much dependent on the effective and

efficient functioning of its rules—its output legitimacy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: European Union, Lobbying, Output legitimacy, Policy output, Organised Interests

INTRODUCTION

Since the 1920s, the political role of interest groups

has been a subject of research (Herring, 1929,

1933a, 1933b; Schattschneider, 1935). This is perhaps

unsurprising given the vast and increasing amount

of organised interest trying to influence decision-

making in modern democracies (Greenwood &

Thomas, 1998) not least in the European Union

(EU) as Brussels has evolved into an anthill of

organised interests, especially since the introduction

of the Single Market (Broscheid & Coen, 2003; Coen,

1997a, 2007; Eising, 2004; Greenwood, 2002b, 2007a;

Knodt, Greenwood, & Quittkat, 2011). This has led

to the role of organised interest in the EU being a

subject of tremendous scrutiny as recently exempli-

fied by the INTEREURO project (INTEREURO,

2014).

However, and perhaps because of the obvious

difficulties with such research, few scholars have

engaged in truly cross-disciplinary endeavours to

study legal and regulatory effects of stakeholder

involvement. Instead, researchers have been preoc-

cupied with questions of input and power driving

attention away from regulatory consequences. But

an important argument for such involvement is that

it makes laws more efficient and effective, thus

enhancing output legitimacy. On that background,

the neglect of legal results in research seems

rather peculiar. This paper presents this claim

through an—from the practical perspective of this

author—overview of the literature and point to a

need for further exploration of effects.

Of course, thorough literature reviews already

exist. Baumgartner and Leech’s seminal book going

through the literature on interest groups since the

1940s up until the 1990s is a noteworthy example

(Baumgartner & Leech, 1998). Woll (2006) is another:

drawing on Almond’s terminology of ‘waves’in

the study of interest groups (Almond, 1983), Woll

states that we are now experiencing a fourth such

*Correspondence to: Morten Jarlbæk Pedersen, Department of

Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farigmagsgade

5, 1353 CopenhagenK, Denmark.

E-mail: mjp@ifs.ku.dk

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 16 Number 3 pp 270–278 (2016)

Published online 2 November 2015 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1588

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.