Pluralism, corporatism and perception of corruption

Abstract

When people know who is influencing the elected politicians and they may 'put the rascals out' in case they feel that the incumbents are corrupt, ceteris paribus, their perception of the level of corruption should not be affected by lobbying. If on the other hand people are not sure which or how many actors are influencing public policy and they are not able to hold the government truly accountable as interest group influence is constant with different governments, people will be more likely to perceive the government as corrupted. The former system is a characteristic of corporatism and the latter of pluralism. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that interest groups with resources such as business groups or firms in pluralist systems are more influential than groups with few resources. Thus, people may perceive pluralist policy-making system as more corrupt than corporatist policy-making system where fewer visible actors have more or less equal weight in the policy-making process.

The Varying Mechanisms of Media Access: Explaining Interest Groups’ Media Visibility across Political Systems

“…Furthermore, the fact that the insider status of the select groups is institutionalized through formal procedures, such as committees, also increases the transparency of interest group influence (e.g. see Kanol, 2015). By contrast, in pluralist systems, insider status is less institutionalized, and by definition, the competition for the representation of the same interests is fiercer; thus, it is less clear—for journalists or any other observers—which group is the most influential representative of certain interests.…”

Comparative lobbying research: advances, shortcomings and recommendations

“…More recently, Kanol () brought back the discussion about corporatism and pluralism, this time suggesting that the perception of corruption is ceteris paribus lower in corporatist countries. The author argues that the citizens perceive the business and labour associations in corporatist countries as legitimate players in the policy‐making process.…”

The impact of democracy on interest group system institutionalization

“…There is also a dearth of studies which analyse variation among countries using interest groups and advocacy either as the dependent or the independent variable (Pijnenburg & Thomas, ; Kanol ). Nevertheless, the number of comparative studies in interest group literature is slowly increasing (McGrath ; Mahoney ; Yadav ; Woll ; Klimovich & Thomas ; Kanol ). Despite this slow trend, however, no large‐N study exists, which attempts to explain interest group system institutionalization across countries.…”