Interest groups in EU policy-making

Abstract

There is a plethora of studies on interest groups in the European Union. While these studies have generated a wealth of insights, it is not actually clear what they have accomplished. This Living Review seeks to identify those areas of interest group studies in which our knowledge is fairly consolidated and in which major research gaps or major controversies can be noted. I argue that these research gaps and controversies stem from both the empirical variance in the interest group landscape and the theoretical segmentation of EU interest group studies. These have been shaped by influences from Comparative Politics, International Relations, Policy Analysis, and Democratic Theory. I suggest that future research should engage to a greater extent in cross-cutting theoretical debates in order to overcome the pronounced demarcation of research areas and in more rigorous theory testing than has sometimes been the case. The article starts by discussing the problem of conceptualizing interest groups before moving on to the fissured theoretical landscape. Thereafter, major research themes are discussed. First, I review the relation between EU institutions and interest groups. Here, I look both into multilevel governance and Europeanization studies that focus on the vertical interaction and into analyses that stress the horizontal segmentation of the EU system in different institutions and sectors. Second, I analyze core themes of EU and comparative interest group studies, namely the issue of collective action, the access of interest groups to policy-makers and their influence on EU policymaking. How to cite this articleOwing to the fact that a Living Reviews article can evolve over time, we recommend to cite the article as follows:Rainer Eising, "Interest groups in EU policy-making", Living Rev.

Societal Inclusion in Expert Venues: Participation of Interest Groups and Business in the European Commission Expert Groups

“…Studies of interest mediation at the European level concur in general that the presence of organised societal and private sector actors has developed into an institutionalized part of EU policy making (Greenwood, 2007(Greenwood, , 2011Mazey & Richardson, 2001) with the Commission as its most important contact point (Beyers, Eising, & Maloney, 2008). Considerable scholarship has established how the Commission and societal actors interact through a wide range of modes and means of consultation (see Eising, 2008), yet less is known about how societal actors feature as experts and how they participate in specialised, expert venues.…”

Civil Society and International Governance

“…(Weaver and Rockman 1993). The subject of their interest is to study how Europe, or the system of European governance, affects other actors: states and national institutions (Olsen 2002;Börzel 2002); sub-national entities, such as regions and territorial politics (Malloy 1997;Keating 2004aKeating , 2004bDobre 2005); representation structures, such as political parties and movements (Ladrech 2001;Roller 2004); interest groups (Sroka 2004;Eising 2008); and different segments of civil society (Warleigh 2001;. This chapter focuses on non-state actors (hereafter NSAs) and their responses to Europeanization.…”

“…There is wide-ranging consensus that EU institutions do not simply offer structural opportunities for interest groups (Marks and McAdam 19956;Eising 2008). They also shape the arenas of interest mediation in manifold ways.…”

How Common Is the East African Community’s Common External Tariff Really? The Influence of Interest Groups on the EAC’s Tariff Negotiations

“…Michalowitz (2007) shows that interest groups were mainly successful in targeting technical aspects of policy rather than more fundamental political directions. Yet, overall there is no clear tendency in the literature if integration has given interest groups better or worse access to political processes (Eising, 2008). This article may contribute to the overall discussion by discussing evidence from both the domestic and regional level in the EAC.…”