How do interest groups legitimate their policy advocacy? Reconsidering linkage and internal democracy in times of digital disruption

Abstract

The ongoing embrace of interest groups as agents capable of addressing democratic deficits in governing institutions is in large part because they are assumed to contribute democratic legitimacy to policy processes. Nonetheless, they face the challenge of legitimating their policy advocacy in democratic terms, clarifying what makes them legitimate partners in governance. In this article we suggest that digital innovations have disrupted the established mechanisms of legitimation. While the impact of this disruption is most easily demonstrated in the rise of a small number of ‘digital natives’, we argue that the most substantive impact has been on more conventional groups, which typically follow legitimation logics of either representation or solidarity. While several legacy groups are experimenting with new legitimation approaches, the opportunities provided by technology seem to offer more organizational benefits to groups employing the logic of solidarity, and appear less compatible with the more traditional logic of representation.

Connecting Society and Policymakers? Conceptualizing and Measuring the Capacity of Civil Society Organizations to Act as Transmission Belts

“…From an organizational perspective, Passive CSOs may be evolving toward one of the three typologies that are regarded as legitimate in the EU environment (Hannan and Freeman 1977). However, an alternative explanation could be that these younger organizations use new, less-formalized, or untraditional mechanisms to communicate with their members and policymakers (cf., Fraussen and Halpin 2018). Regarding the amount of resources, it is only significantly and positively related to Representative organizations; that is, CSOs that actively involve their members 8 The internal validity of the results of the cluster analysis is analyzed by testing the differences between the clusters and the variables used to obtain the clusters.…”

Professionalization and its consequences: how active advocacy may undermine democracy

“…Advocacy research tells us that sport actors may be right to regret this development. According to Fraussen and Halpin (2018), policy-makers 'cannot possibly speak to every group vying for their attention' (p. 2). They therefore need to determine which advocate provides 'the most accurate representation of the interests and preferences of [a] particular segment of society', thereby evaluating the 'claims to democratic legitimacy' (Fraussen & Halpin, 2018, p. 2).…”

“…They therefore need to determine which advocate provides 'the most accurate representation of the interests and preferences of [a] particular segment of society', thereby evaluating the 'claims to democratic legitimacy' (Fraussen & Halpin, 2018, p. 2). Access to decision makers for advocates that have an identifiable membership, such as organizations in federative sport systems, is based on a representation logic (Fraussen & Halpin, 2018). This means that advocates signal their input legitimacy (Sam & Ronglan, 2018) through membership density and internal democratic processes, indicating that advocacy claims correlate to the constituent's interests.…”

“…While this is a demonstration of how professionalizationand its attendant efficiency-democracy trade offmay travel, this development could also have implications for sport's future possibility to conduct advocacy per the prescription of the Active Advocate role. In particular, should sport fail to exhibit 'proof' of its internal democracy, its legitimate access to decision makers according to the representation logic (Fraussen & Halpin, 2018) may be undermined.…”

“…In addition, board members are seen as important in meetings with elected politicians because they give democratic legitimacy (Clear et al, 2017). Importantly, this indicates an appreciation for the role that elected board members can play in signaling member-based organizations' input legitimacy in advocacy processes (Fraussen & Halpin, 2018). The third advocacy role is played by top-management personnel.…”