what is access? a discussion of the definition and measurement of interest group access

Abstract

Interest group research has focused extensively on political access. While access does not guarantee influence, it is customarily seen as a crucial step towards gaining political influence. It is argued that groups with access are, all else equal, more likely to be influential than groups without access. Biased access may thus result in biased influence. On the basis of a review of this literature, the article shows how the concept of access rests on an intuitive understanding rather than an explicit definition. This hampers methodological discussions of measurement. We propose to define access as instances where a group has entered a political arena (parliament, administration, or media) passing a threshold controlled by relevant gatekeepers (politicians, civil servants, or journalists). On the basis of this discussion, we compare operationalisations based on our proposed definition with some of the major alternatives found in the literature.

studying policy advocacy through social network analysis

“…Different theoretical, but also institutional elements are driving the definition of network boundaries. One fundamental difference between decision makers and IGs is that the first have final decisional control, whereas the second can only try to impact decisions by accessing decision makers and institutional arenas (Pappi and Henning, 1999 , Binderkrantz and Pedersen, 2016). Derived from that, network boundaries are strongly driven by institutionalised power devices and would typically be drawn around all active IGs as well as the responsible decision makers (e.g., MPs, elected officials, high civil servants, judges, head of regulatory agencies, etc).…”

studying interest groups: methodological challenges and tools

“…within these contexts. Binderkrantz and Pedersen (2016) sample interest groups based on their presence in three different arenas in the Danish political system. The other contributions sample the organizations based on the issue(s) they study.…”

“…For example, Members of Parliament are not normally inclined to grant insight into their personal calendars that would enable researchers to study the politicians' contacts with interest groups (see Binderkrantz and Pedersen, 2016). Baumgartner et al (2009) suggest that it is probably easier to identify the activities of challengers to the status quo than those of its defenders because the former (need to) act more overtly.…”

“…One implication is a focus of interest group studies on the more readily identifiable presence of actors in government or parliament committees, their participation in and submissions to official consultations, as well as their registration in door-pass registers (Binderkrantz and Pedersen, 2016;Berkhout and Lowery, 2008). However, the information in these sources can be incomplete or misleading.…”

“…Notably, the articles discuss research methods to establish the population of policy advocates in public policy-making processes (Varone et al, 2016) and of interest groups that are politically active in major national arenas (Binderkrantz and Pedersen, 2016). Thus, in their research design proposal for social network analyses that draws on a study of publicy policymaking in California, Varone et al (2016) suggest to take into account all relevant institutional venues and make a systematic inventory of all interest groups that sought to influence the binding policy decisions that were made on a studied policy issue in these venues: the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, regulatory agencies, and the institutions of direct democracy.…”