Looking for ‘Voice’ in Business and Citizen Groups: Who’s Being Heard?

Abstract

Why do some associations provide members with an effective voice whereas others appear to have internal democracy in name only? We theoretically combine population ecology with Hirschman’s strategic response model. This leads us to hypothesize that in dense, competitive organizational environments, the effective alternatives available make it likely that dissatisfied members respond with exit rather than voice. However, in low-dense, monopoly-like situations dissatisfied members demand and receive effective voice options. We further hypothesize that the particular sets of incentives of firms and individuals as members moderates this effect. We assess our argument on the basis of the Comparative Interest Group elite survey among interest group leaders in five European countries and at the EU level. We control for the level of professionalization and use country dummies to identify country-level differences. We find strong empirical support for our theoretical argument. The contribution of this article is to theoretically connect macro-level population-level factors to micro-level intra-organizational processes and specifies the nature of the organizational link between interests in society and those represented in the interest group system.

The Representative Potential of Interest Groups: Internal Voice in Post-Communist and Western European Countries

“…Organisational leaders can respond more effectively if they address the potential threat of members exiting their organisation in favour of a similar one. We concur with these arguments on exit, but as this hypothesis has been already broadly tested in the literature (for an overview, see Berkhout, Hanegraaff, & Maloney, 2021), we further develop the second component voice of Hirschman's model in this article, namely "voice. "…”

“…In this article, we extend earlier studies (e.g., Berkhout, Hanegraaff, & Maloney 2021;Binderkrantz, 2009;Bolleyer & Correa, 2022;Stavenes & Ivanovska Hadjievska, in press), further develop a so-called organisational view on interest group politics and situate interest groups more centrally in an understanding of the quality of democracy. This contribution of the study is especially relevant due to the process of democratic backsliding that is currently occurring across several EU countries.…”

“…In simple terms, interest groups should be able to respond to changes in the relationship with their members, supporters or, more broadly, their constituents. Hirschman's (1970) Exit, Voice and Loyalty presents a classic conceptualisation of organisational responsiveness that can be used in interest group studies (e.g., Barakso & Schaffner, 2008;Berkhout, Hanegraaff, & Maloney, 2021). Hirschman noted that consumers of a good respond to dissatisfaction by choosing alternative suppliers and exiting or discontinuing a prevailing relationship (see also Warren, 2011).…”

Exploring the domestic and international drivers of professionalization of Central and Eastern European interest groups

“…Moreover, we encourage researchers to develop more exact measurements of population density and more systematically assess its effect on professionalization. Scholars should also further pursue the already developing research agenda on the relationships between professionalization, (hierarchical vs. bottom-up) internal organizational decision-making, and membership (Albareda, 2020;Heylen et al, 2020;Berkhout et al, 2021). The question of internal organizational democracy (or the lack of) is particularly relevant in the CEE context where interest organizations were historically appendages of the party-state bureaucracy and lacked traditions of directly incorporating members into decision-making.…”

“…High organizational densities also limit interest groups' access to policymakers . We argue that the competitive environment may reverberate at the level of organizations (see Berkhout et al, 2021 for a recent study), as the quest for survival in dense environments and heavy competition from rivaling organizations may prompt them to optimize their structures and operations.…”