The Driving Forces of Stability

• Date: 01 September 2013
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399712438377
• Author: Caelesta Braun
• Subject Matter: Articles

Administration & Society

45(7) 809 –836

© 2012 SAGE Publications

DOI: 10.1177/0095399712438377

aas.sagepub.com

438377AAS45710.1177/009539971

2438377BraunAdministration & Society

© 2012 SAGE Publications

1University of Antwerp, Belgium

Corresponding Author:

Caelesta Braun, ACIM—Antwerp Centre for Institutions and Multi-Level Politics, Department

of Political Science, University of Antwerp, De Meerminne, Room M.286, Sint-Jacobstraat 2,

2000 Antwerp, Belgium.

Email: caelesta.braun@ua.ac.be

The Driving Forces of

Stability: Exploring the

Nature of Long-Term

Bureaucracy–Interest

Group Interactions

Caelesta Braun1

Abstract

This article explores the nature of long-term interactions between bureau-

crats and interest groups by examining two behavioral logics associated with

stability in public policy making. In addition to the implicit short-term strategic

choices that usually feature in resource-exchange explanations of interest

group access to policy makers, this article shows that bureaucracy–interest

group interactions are likely to be dictated by routine behavior and antici-

pating future consequences as well. By drawing on survey and face-to-face

interview data of Dutch senior civil servants and interest groups, the analyses

reveal that a practice of regular consultations, the need for political support,

and a perceived influential position together explain why bureaucrats maintain

interactions with interest groups. The combination of these behavioral logics

adds important explanatory leverage to existing resource-exchange explana-

tions and shows that organizational processes as well as long-term strategic

considerations should be taken into account to fully explain bureaucracy–

interest group interactions.

Article

810 Administration & Society 45(7)

Keywords

administrative behavior, bureaucratic politics, interest group inuence

Introduction

Public bureaucracies often consult interest groups, such as business associa-

tions, labor unions, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and work

together with them on a regular basis. These consultation practices not only

provide an important opportunity for interest groups to exert influence on

public decision making (Beyers & Kerremans, 2004; Maloney, Jordan, &

McLaughlin, 1994) but also provide interest groups an opportunity to main-

tain access to public policy making over an extended period of time, thereby

enhancing their potential influence on policy outcomes (cf. Baumgartner,

Berry, Hojnacki, Kimball, & Leech, 2009). Most studies of interest group

access to policy makers, however, aim to explain why interest groups obtain

access rather than why they maintain access. So-called resource-exchange

approaches of interest group access to policy making hypothesize that by

offering useful policy information, such as expertise and information about

constituency support, commonly known as access goods (Bouwen, 2004),

interest groups are able to get a foot in the government’s door because policy

makers lack such policy information (see Dur, 2008; Hall & Deardorff, 2006,

for a discussion). The central mechanism that drives these explanations is the

assumption that public officials deliberately choose a certain set of interest

groups with which they prefer to interact, based on the type and quality of

the policy information they have to offer. This implies that policy makers

deliberately choose certain interest groups with which they interact and that

they can end these interactions as soon as these interest groups are no longer

capable of offering the required policy information.

This implication contrasts with the everyday reality of policy making,

where policy communities, in which public agency officials, politicians, and

interest groups commonly figure, are quite stable and only occasionally inter-

rupted by major changes. This pattern of policy stability and occasional punc-

tuations (Baumgartner et al., 2009; Baumgartner & Jones, 1993) suggests

that the strategic implications associated with policy good exchanges only

partially explain bureaucracy–interest group interactions. Furthermore, most

aggregate analyses of policy networks and communities cannot reveal

whether the individual interactions that add-up to stable policy communities

are always characterized by mutually beneficial exchanges or whether other

behavioral mechanisms underpin such interactions.