The Fate of Diffuse Interests
Policy Framing and Lobbying Success in Multi-level Decision-Making:
The Case of EU Consumer Protection Policy
Paper prepared for the 2nd Research Conference on
Civil Society and Democracy
Austrian Research Association – Working Group on Democracy
November 9–10, 2012
Vienna
Work in progress – Do not cite or circulate without the author’s permission
Jan Henning Ullrich, M.A.
Doctoral Candidate
Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences
[email protected]
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Abstract
Convention has it that the multi-level governance structure of the EU political system
enhances the chances of representatives of diffuse interests, such as consumer demands, to
successfully compete with strong specific interests, e.g. producer interests, in the political
arena. Some scholars argue that the fragmented decision making structures and dispersed
authority distribution at and across many levels, which are characteristic of such a political
entity, provide advocates of rather hard-to-mobilize societal demands with myriads of entry
possibilities to the policy making process. Thus, multilevelness is considered to increase the
chances for a broad range of interests to be heard by important political personnel when
formulating new rules to govern social transactions. Yet political authorities at the
supranational level are continually exposed to harsh criticism voiced by official consumer
representatives with advocates pointing to the adoption of regulations and directives that
mirror industry and producer interests, oftentimes at the expense of vital consumer interests.
How can we account for this puzzling phenomenon given that EU policy makers frequently
express the priority of consumer safety? What is further puzzling is that we lack theories that
explain, firstly, why political actors take on positions revealed by particular non-state actors,
and, secondly, why the latter actors would most likely be representatives of diffuse interests
only? I argue that what has been fairly overlooked in the literature on lobbying success so far
is the crucial importance of issue framing tactics employed by interest groups and the
possibilities and determinants of policy calibration through such processes of collectively
establishing images of issues and forming diverse lobbying coalitions that (temporarily)
represent these policy images. Hypotheses which are derived from the theoretical model will
(eventually) be tested against the case of the 2011 EU regulation on food labeling. For data
collecting purposes detailed computer-assisted document analysis is used and I combine
preference attainment with process tracing methods to reveal the crucial causal mechanisms
behind
lobbying
success
in
EU
consumer
protection
policy.
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1.
Introduction
Convention has it that so called multi-level governance structures can enhance the chances of
representatives of marginalized, weak or, put in classical terms, diffuse interests, such as
consumer demands, to successfully compete with strong specific interests, e.g. producer
interests, in the political arena. Some scholars argue that the fragmented decision making
structures and dispersed authority distribution at and across many levels, which are
characteristic of such a political entity, provide advocates of rather hard-to-mobilize societal
demands with myriads of entry possibilities to the policy making process. Thus,
multilevelness is considered to increase the chances for a broad range of societal interests to
be heard by important political personnel when formulating new rules to govern social
transactions (Pollack 1997; Strünck 2006). What is puzzling, though, is that we lack theories
that explain, firstly, why political actors take on positions revealed by particular non-state
actors, and, secondly, why the latter actors would most likely be representatives of diffuse
interests only. Here I argue that what has been fairly overlooked so far is the crucial
importance of issue framing and, thus, the possibilities and determinants of policy calibration
through processes of collectively establishing images of issues and forming diverse lobbying
coalitions that (temporarily) represent these policy images. I build on a recently established
research program on lobbying success and policy framing in the EU and the US
(Baumgartner/Jones 2009 [1993]: Chap. 2; Baumgartner et al. 2009; Chong/Druckman 2007;
Daviter 2007, 2011; Lowery 2009; Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010) and I argue that what is
further needed is a theory that links established concepts developed by various interest group
researchers with a framing approach that puts emphasis on the concerted selection of single
aspects of a particular policy issue, to account for the understudied phenomenon of
(un)successful lobbying efforts of diffuse interest groups in multi-level settings. Besides
seeking to enhance the theoretical knowledge of how framing constitutes a major type of
lobbying strategy and how it increases the chances to successfully sway policy outputs, I aim
to show how argumentation in general has to be seen as a central element of politics
(Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010: 8).
1.1
The significance of policy framing approaches in the analysis of
lobbying success: Outline of the argument
Policy issues are usually characterized by multidimensionality, i.e. the possibility of several
“policy images” (Baumgartner/Jones 2009 [1993]: 25–27), “readings” or “conceptualizations”
of the same issue (Chong/Druckman 2007: 104). I put forward the argument that whether a
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certain frame can successfully compete with other possible “images” of an issue voiced by
other sides of the competitive regulatory spectrum is a crucial determinant of lobbying
success. To successfully sway policy is highly contingent on whether a selected frame can
survive political debates at the various stages of the policy-formulation process while other
frames are omitted or remain rather irrelevant. I develop two theoretical concepts and argue
that in conjunction they help explain lobbying success: the level of frame communality and
the level of lobbying coalition (or side) heterogeneity. Still researchers also have to take into
account the institutional particularities of political systems and their decision-making rules,
especially when dealing with the EU’s multi-level structure.
Thus, my main research question reads as follows: Why and how exactly do advocacy groups
collectively employ issue framing strategies to successfully shape decision-making processes
in EU consumer protection policy? Or, put in simpler language:
When and why does a frame help advocacy groups to successfully shape policy?
Posing this question touches on further puzzles that will be investigated. Further questions
are: Does the type of framing selected also have an impact on the success of lobbying efforts?
Do lobbying sides increase their chances by collectively promoting one major reading of an
issue that is communicated toward decision makers (leading to high levels of frame
communality)? And does the composition of lobbying sides (i.e. their level of side
heterogeneity) also play a role in these processes?
To find answers I build on a new interest group success research program that brings together
recently developed concepts of lobbying coalitions and policy framing. When it comes to
measuring success, the analysis relies on a preferences attainment approach. Thus, a group is
considered influential when its preferences are reflected at the various stages of the decisionmaking process and, most importantly, in the final policy output of this process. Mainly
dealing with concepts used in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) context, I
develop my own approach to explain lobbying success that conceptualizes lobbying in the
field of consumer protection policy as a process and a collective enterprise with interest
groups forming temporary lobbying coalitions (or sides) with other non-state and state actors.
Thus, when dealing with the question of the determinants of lobbying in general, relational
aspects have to be considered rather than individual organizational properties of groups or
structural attributes of interest group representation systems. I argue that in multi-level
systems of governance in particular and, thus, in settings of complex policy-making
processes, interest groups try to exploit the venues that are most promising for them to see
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their preferences represented by decision makers. They do so by forming lobbying coalitions
with other interest groups at and across several levels to be able to establish powerful “policy
images” which are less vulnerable to competing lobbying strategies which aim at establishing
their own “image” of the same issue to have their preferences represented in the final policy
output. Individual characteristics of interest groups, such as the resources they can provide or
their informal and formal domestic and supranational ties to decision makers, can only be
seen as necessary, but never as sufficient conditions of a broader explanatory framework to
account for interest group or lobbying success. Accordingly, I argue building effective
lobbying coalitions is also only one necessary condition to win the regulatory competition
against counter-lobbying activities. Expert politicians who are responsible for drafting policy
proposals and highly depend on interest groups’ policy specific technical expertise only
follow the policy preferences of non-state actors and exert influence on their fellow nonexpert colleagues (Ringe 2010) when they are either already ideologically leaning toward
their position, or adopt particular policy frames represented by advocacy groups that have
high levels of both frame communality and lobbying side heterogeneity. That is, politicians
rather listen to arguments posed by sides that, first, collectively highlight the same aspect(s)
of an issue and, second, represent both private and public interest groups. It is crucial though
to recognize again that whether powerful policy images can be employed and sustained
throughout the entire policy process is contingent on institutional characteristics of the
political system in general and it decision-making rules in particular.
This important relationship between the dynamics of forming lobbying coalitions, framing
strategies and the rules of the decision-making process has mainly been overlooked in interest
group research so far. Thus, we have to combine the merits of the framing literature with
those of interest group research (lobbying coalitions) to create satisfactory causal accounts
that help to explain why groups are sometimes more successful than their competitors and
why their roles can change over time (Baumgartner 2007).
The paper will proceed with a selective overview of the recent literature on interest group
politics and advocacy in the EU and the problematization of current approaches and empirical
findings regarding the chances of diffuse interests’ representatives. I will concentrate on the
EU since it is by far the best studied multi-level governance system and still attracts the most
scholarly attention with regard to dynamics of multi-level interest group politics. I will then
briefly discuss why a focus on consumer protection policy makes sense when the research
focus is on the success of lobbying strategies, followed by a short part on consumer protection
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politics as an example of interest group based regulatory politics. I will then elaborate in more
detail on the analytical framework and offer information on the conceptualization and
measurement of the dependent and the independent variables eventually used in the empirical
study. After the introduction of the concepts of frame communality and side heterogeneity I
formulate testable implications in the form of hypotheses derived from this model of lobbying
success. I then discuss conceptualizing and measuring lobbying success as preference
attainment, followed by a section where I offer insights into issues of case selection, data
collection, and methodology. The paper concludes with a short discussion of the new
approach’s potential to serve as a starting point for a true comparative theory of interest group
influence in multi-level systems of governance and its links to recent research programs. The
paper is completed by a brief outline of the case study (the 2011 EU food labeling regulation)
which I will conduct eventually, and some information on the first results of this paper
project.
1.2
Studying multi-level advocacy and diffuse interests in EU public
policy: A brief selection of existing concepts and empirical research
1.2.1 Input-oriented research perspectives
Researchers who study interest group politics at the national level and in contexts of multilevel policy-making have relied on several theoretical strands in their empirical analyses.
Among others, the availability of access goods, issue characteristics, venue shopping
strategies, and factors that lead to the formation of ad hoc lobbying coalitions have been at the
center of theoretical accounts and empirical research based on them. Before I turn to a broad
selection of recent research on interest group activities mainly in the EU context, I will first
briefly introduce some main theoretical concepts used in the literature and some of the related
variables will also be taken into account as controls during the empirical analysis.
Mahoney and Baumgartner (2008: 1264) emphasize different characteristics that help to
explain why some polities produce certain public policies and some do not. Among others
they introduce institutional and issue characteristics. For instance, policy-makers who were
elected to enter their offices face electoral pressure under particular circumstances and are
rather responsive to interest groups and their demands since the latter may have influence on
policy makers’ constituencies and their voting behavior (also see Dür/de Bièvre 2007: 7; Dür
2008a: 1216–1217; Mahoney 2008). Thus, they are approached differently by interest group
representatives than appointed policy-makers who do not feel such pressures given that there
is no re-election motive. The latter can thus be approached by offering them valuable
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information
about
policy
feasibility
and
other
policy-related
knowledge
(Mahoney/Baumgartner 2008: 1264–1265; Mahoney 2008). Mahoney (2007b), for instance,
studies the formation of ad hoc issue coalitions in the EU and the United States and argues
that the institutional structure of the political system, interest group characteristics, and issue
specific factors have to be considered to be able to explain why groups sometimes decide to
join a coalition and sometimes do not. Her results indicate that US groups engage in ad hoc
coalition-building more frequently than their European counterparts. She argues that this
pattern can be explained with reference to the different levels of democratic accountability of
policy-makers in the two systems. US policy-makers are mainly driven by the goal to be reelected, whereas the most important EU officials are usually appointed and do not feel any
electoral pressure (also see Mahoney 2007a, 2008).
Another institutional characteristic is whether policy-making rules rather contribute to
revisions of policy proposals or to the complete “killing” of proposed changes
(Mahoney/Baumgartner 2008: 1265; Mahoney 2008). Furthermore, multi-level systems of
governance
provide
interest
groups
with
more
opportunities
to
“venue-shop”
(Baumgartner/Jones 2009 [1993]) than centralized systems, since private actors can identify
the level that is most promising to be used (or even created) in order to get the desired
outcome (Richardson 2000: 1011–1013; also see Dür 2008a: 1218; Verdun 2008: 135–136).
Princen and Kerremans point out: “In most of the literature on venue shopping such shopping
is seen as the result of a rational decision by political actors. Always on the search for the
most attractive venue, they shift their attention to whichever location offers the best
opportunities for achieving their objectives” (Princen/Kerremans 2008: 1137). Some authors
argue that this increased potential for “vertical venue shopping” (Princen/Kerremans 2008:
1137) particularly strengthens diffuse interests (Pollack 1997; Strünck 2006). However, multilevel systems can also create new hurdles for some interest groups, especially for
representatives of rather diffuse interests, who lack the capacities to efficiently and
successfully navigate the different tiers (Mahoney/Baumgartner 2008: 1266).
Bouwen’s (2002; 2004) analysis of the multitude of access opportunities for and the access
goods used by private actors to exert influence in the EU‘s multi-level system finds that it is
crucial for business associations to be able to provide EU institutions, such as the
Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament, with information (“access goods”)
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that the latter demand1. Otherwise organized interests will hardly manage to find access to EU
decision-making processes.
Looking at the cases of Germany, Great Britain, France, and the EU, Eising (2007a; 2007b)
analyzes the determinants of business associations’ access to EU institutions and generally
finds that institutional characteristics, resource dependencies, organizational structures, and
tactical choices of interest groups have to be considered. He also finds that the EU’s
competences in regulatory politics are the major incentive for interest groups to lobby at the
EU level. Only if national associations are affected by EU regulation and, thus, find the
European Commission and the European Parliament important, they will try to find access to
these supranational bodies. Another finding shows that well-endowed organizations have
better chances to influence policy-making than poorer ones without significant resources.
Therefore, Eising doubts that the EU, especially the Commission and the Council, can be seen
as facilitating weaker interests of European civil society, although the European Parliament
seems to be more attentive to diffuse interests. Yet the latter finding has recently been
questioned by Smith’s (2008) and Rasmussen’s (2012) work on the role that EP committees
play for organized interests. Especially under codecision, which has become the EU’s
ordinary legislative procedure, their analyses cast doubt on the assumption that
representatives of diffuse interests can heavily rely on the support of the EP when facing
major opposition voiced by the industry.
In their empirical analysis of the determinants of direct corporate lobbying in the EU,
Bernhagen and Mitchell (2009) find little support for theories that try to account for interest
group behavior at the EU level by emphasizing national (corporatist or pluralist) traditions of
interest intermediation. Applying a profit-seeking model to firm lobbying activities in the EU
they find that firm size and involvement with governments help to explain direct lobbying
strategies of large firms. The bigger a firm is, the more likely it is that it tries to lobby at the
supranational level. Furthermore, the more a firm is affected by EU regulatory action, the
more it tries to directly influence decisions taken at the supranational level. Here the authors
report that such firms do not rely on national associations as representatives anymore, but
more and more engage in individual activities to compensate the lack of support by these
associations. Thus, notwithstanding national patterns of interest intermediation firms affected
1
Bouwen defines access goods as “goods provided by private actors to the EU institutions in order to gain
access. Each access good concerns a specific kind of information that is important in the EU decision-making
process. The criticality of an access good for the functioning of an EU institution determines the degree of access
that the institution will grant to the private interest representatives” (2002: 370).
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by EU regulations and large firms in general tactically adapt to the new environment to seek
maximum profits.
In an analysis of Belgian domestic interest groups and their European networks, Beyers
(2002) also tests whether the latter should be interpreted as being built on already existing
strong national networks that help to access the EU level (“persistence hypothesis”) or rather
as a part of a “compensation strategy” to make up for the lack of access to decision-makers at
the domestic level. Furthermore, he examines whether differences between diffuse and
specific interest organizations can be identified. He finds that domestic structural conditions
have indeed an important effect on policy-making processes at the EU level, and that specific
interest organizations gain more domestic access than representatives of diffuse interests, with
the result of the former being more successful in constructing EU level networks which
operate in their favor. Beyers research contradicts the findings of Eising or Bernhagen and
Mitchell, and thus supports arguments that interest group access to EU institutions and
networks is dependent on domestic conditions and, with regard to specific interests, he points
out that domestic access is “mainly related to the robust institutionalised and neo-corporatist
connections they seem to have with domestic public decision makers” (Beyers 2002: 608).
Diffuse interests, on the contrary, do not enjoy such historically evolved and institutionalized
networks at the domestic level and, hence, are represented less effectively at the EU level.
Unlike Bouwen, Beyers states that to hold access goods, in the sense of policy-relevant
expertise and information, is not a necessary condition to obtain access since gaining access is
not the same as having influence on concrete policy outcomes (Beyers 2002: 587).
Most of the research reviewed in the preceding section mainly deals with interest group
influence in terms of their own resource endowment or in terms of the access of non-state
groups to decision makers. Only recently have scholars begun to deal explicitly with the
question of interest group influence on policy-making processes and their outcomes. Hence
now they pose the general question of who the non-state groups are that win in (regulatory)
politics and why. What has been rather lacking so far is the sound analysis of the output
dimension. Hence, what has to be studied more carefully is “the degree to which these
[interest group] efforts translate into policy outputs” (Smith 2008: 79, FN 1; also see Daviter
2011: 9), and what factors have causal effects on it. Accordingly, I will now turn to a recent
and still rather small body of research that approaches the question of interest group success
in terms of preference attainment rather than from an input-oriented perspective. I will discuss
the theoretical underpinnings of this new research program, which in part can be found in US-
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related research, and furthermore its hitherto empirical findings with regard to US and EU
interest group politics.
1.2.2 Output-oriented research perspectives
In their study of lobbying success in the United States, Baumgartner et al.’s (2009) main
finding is what they label “the power of the status quo”. Interest groups that simply try to
defend the status quo “usually win in Washington” (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 239). Studying
98 different and diverse policy proposals and their longer-term fate over four years (19992002) under two different presidents and administrations, the authors argue that every
decision that is open to debates and disputes in Congress is linked to existing public policies,
or “status quo policies”. The bias in favor of the status quo, as they put it, “is already reflected
in the status quo policy” (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 240), making some groups in society more
effective than their competitors who favor changing the way things are. Furthermore, they
find that who wins and who loses in Washington cannot be attributed to the resources that
lobbyists have at their disposal. Despite some privileges of the ‘wealthier’ groups which can
be turned into advantages, “public policy may be moved sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, with each individual shift not necessarily reflecting the overall bias in
the system, but rather temporal fluctuations in power related to new information, attentionfocusing events, and the crush of other issues on the agenda” (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 241).
The lack of significant policy changes, the authors argue can oftentimes simply be explained
by politicians’ scarcity of attention to new policies or proposals. They point out that what is
most important for policy change to happen is the allocation of attention to new proposals
which are in most cases kept out by influential gatekeepers: “The barbarians at the gates
cannot always be ignored, but congressional policy making is very much a competition
between what will be heard by legislators and what will be left aside, and there are vastly
more proposals for change than there are opportunities to discuss them (…) Mobilization by
advocates can push gatekeepers to promote their issues to active consideration, but most
interests in Washington are not strong enough by themselves to force a proposal onto the
agenda of a committee or an agency” (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 245). Later the authors argue:
“In fact, the problem is rarely the scarcity of information, but rather its overabundance –
policy makers don’t know how to make sense of it all, being overwhelmed with so much
information coming at them from lobbyists on all kinds of issues” (Baumgartner et al. 2009:
246). To overcome such equilibriums, two major thresholds have to be passed: first, policymakers as gatekeepers have to be convinced that a problem is really a problem and needs to
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be dealt with, and, second, advocates of the new view have to get party leaders on board, who
control the committees, and especially what leaves these committees to be voted on. With
regard to differences between specific and diffuse interests, Baumgartner et al. admit that their
research strongly suggests that business, corporate, and trade groups have an advantage over
labor or citizen groups. Even if the former do not always and automatically win, they still
seem to be better equipped to set the lobbying agenda (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 257). But,
that said, it should not be generally theorized that diffuse interests cannot win. The authors
therefore write, “studies of lobbying should not always be expected to show the continued
power of the wealthy over the weak, the mobilized over the unmobilized, as these biases
should already be apparent and there is no reason why the next step in the process should
point in one direction or the other” (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 259).
Michalowitz (2007) analyzes under what conditions interest groups try to exert particular
kinds of influence in EU decision-making to change legislative acts. Based on three case
studies in the fields of transport and information technology she finds that the decisionmakers’ initial interests and technical rather than directional influence dominated the
decision-making processes, meaning that interest groups might not always want to change the
very core of a proposed legislative act (“directional influence”), but try “to invoke a mind
change in decision-makers”, while “this mind change does not touch upon the preference for
the policy outcome” (Michalowitz 2007: 136). The more congruent interest group preferences
are with the initial interests of public actors, the more likely it is that strategies of exerting
rather “technical influence” will be successful. Michalowitz generally concludes, that
“directional influence seems to be highly unlikely in the EU” (2007: 149).
With regard to issue specific characteristics which can affect lobbying activity, Mahoney and
Baumgartner argue that “the composition of the various sides on an issue influences advocacy
behaviour” (Mahoney/Baumgartner 2008: 1268), meaning that it definitely plays an important
role whether one (supporting) lobbying coalition is the only relevant player, or another
(opposing) interest group (coalition) tries to influence an upcoming decision as well. Thus,
allies and opponents have to be taken into account when one tries to identify the results of an
(probably intense) political fight over potential outcomes. A relational approach that
emphasizes the role of lobbying coalitions and counter-lobbying dynamics seems to be a
promising strategy to identify the mechanisms which make some winners and others losers.
Mahoney and Baumgartner (2008: 1269; emphasis added) put it as follows: “While most
aspects of interest groups have been recognised and studied, it is important to remember that
groups do not often work alone, they have allies, both in government and outside, so when
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studying how a group’s characteristics and resources impact on their advocacy and on the
policymaking process it is imperative that we also consider the resources and characteristics
of the others involved in the same debate”.
In a series of recent articles Klüver (2010; 2011a; 2011b; 2011c; 2012) shows that we have to
consider patterns of building lobbying coalitions and counter-lobbying coalitions to explain
who wins and who loses in EU legislation. Here the main question is how interactions
between competing interest group coalitions and, thus, relational aspects rather than
individual group characteristics shape outputs (Klüver 2011c: 499–500). Building on the
concept of lobbying coalitions, defined as “a set of actors who share a policy goal”
(Baumgartner et al. 2009: 6), Klüver focuses her analyses on the policy formulation stage in
the EU using an own large new dataset of interest group submissions to EU Commission
consultations that covers more than 50 policy issues and positions of almost 2700 interest
groups active in the EU’s multi-level opportunity structure. In one of her latest contributions
to the debate of interest group influence in EU decision-making processes, Klüver (2012) uses
her new dataset and tests whether lobbying success in the EU differs according to different
interest group types and finds that it is neither the type of a group that matters nor information
supply or resources, but whether cause and/or sectional groups belong to the larger lobbying
coalition concerning a policy proposal at hand. She points out that, based on her analysis
different interest groups are equally capable of shaping policy formulation in the EU. Thus,
lobbying success in the EU does not vary systematically with different interest group types,
but with regard to the situational factor of what side a group is on. In another paper Klüver
finds, more specifically, that “the positive effect of lobbying coalition characteristics cannot
be explained by the properties of a small number of strong groups” (2010: 22) which would
dominate a coalition of various interest groups. Diffuse interests or cause groups can be as
successful as specific interests or sectional groups. In another recent article on interest group
influence in the EU and building on the same own dataset, Klüver (2011c) shows again that
“lobbying success cannot be understood by solely looking at individual group characteristics”,
and instead that “the relative size of lobbying coalitions has a robust positive effect” (2011c:
499) on lobbying success. She basically sums up the main finding of her research project
when she writes: “Thus, in order to understand what makes an interest group a winner or a
loser, we cannot simply refer to group characteristics, but we have to acknowledge the issuespecific grouping of interest groups into lobbying coalitions. More specifically, we have to
take into account the aggregated efforts of likeminded interest groups that fight for the same
policy objective on any given policy issue” (2011c: 499–500; also see Klüver 2011b: 12–13).
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The main idea behind this new research on interest group influence is the conceptualization of
interest group behavior as shaped by a “unidimensional structure of conflict” (Klüver 2011c:
491; also see Baumgartner et al. 2009: 7), meaning that whenever a policy proposal is debated
by concerned interest and political groups, each group will more or less be on either the one
or the other side of an issue at stake2. Thus, interest groups are either a member of a lobbying
coalition that is in favor of changing the status quo in their respective policy field of interest,
or they are mobilizing their resources and members against a proposed change of the things as
they are (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 7).
The recent output-oriented literature discussed in the last section reveals the importance of
considering relational aspects of lobbying activities and the crucial role that building lobbying
coalitions plays. Combining these concepts with a theory of issue framing can enrich the
analysis of lobbying success in multi-level governance settings. I argue that only if our
models account for the dominant policy frames employed at every single stage of the entire
policy process, we can come up with satisfactory causal explanations of policy outputs and
how and by what interests they are actually shaped. I will get back to a more detailed
discussion of issue framing in the theory section of this paper. Now I turn to answering the
question why consumer protection serves as a good policy field to eventually test the
theoretical propositions developed in the theory section.
2.
Consumer protection policy as interest group based regulatory policy
Again, one of my main research questions is, when and how exactly can different groups
(especially public interest groups) actually make use of the EU’s “multilevelness”, here
defined as the existence of multiple access points at various levels? Why would 1) multiple
levels which offer various non-state actors several potential venues or access points to the
policy-making process, 2) a high level of territorial fragmentation, and 3) a complex system
of the separation of powers between the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive help
particular groups more than others? What does it take to successfully navigate one’s own
cause through the multi-level structure of such a system? And do diffuse interests really
benefit significantly from the availability of multiple venues? I propose to study regulations in
the field of consumer safety to answer these questions.
2
With regard to their own dataset, Baumgartner et al. (2009: 7) argue that despite the fact that in the real world
“[t]he number of sides per issue ranges from just one to as many as seven”, the “typical” pattern only knows two
sides that fight over whether to keep or to change the status quo.
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I first turn to the definition of regulation as interest group-based process and then to ways of
distinguishing between competing types of interests. I will argue that consumer protection
policy represents a major kind of regulatory politics in the EU which involves these interest
types respectively and can thus serve as a policy field well-suited for comparisons within and
across cases.
Since the EU is a “system (…) based around regulation”, in my analysis “interest groups
become significant actors due to the ways in which regulation typically distributes costs and
benefits upon, and between, such actors” (2011: 21). Regulation always brings with it high
levels of interest activities (Lowi 1964) and thus a pattern of competitive lobbying and
counter-lobbying activities, with business associations, companies and public interest groups
lining up to build temporary lobbying coalitions or going against each other to become
“winners” or, at least, to avoid being the loser after a regulatory decision has been decided
upon. Especially with regard to consumer protection issues, the EU has gradually centralized
regulatory policy-making (Vogel 2003: 577) with party competition playing only a minor role
when deciding on regulatory measures. This development opens up a huge potential for
regulatory competition between various (opposed) interest groups (Strünck 2006: 46–47).
In general, I conceptualize regulatory politics as public interventions in market processes for
the benefit of particular actors. I deliberately avoid the phrase in “favor of the public good”
which is a common part of definitions of regulation (Döhler/Wegrich 2010: 31; Francis 1993:
5; Hood et al. 2001: 3; Majone 1994: 81). Regulation usually happens serving the interests of
some member(s) of society but not all. Thus regulatory politics produces “winners” and
losers”, or beneficiaries and those who are disadvantaged. This concept of regulatory politics
is particularly useful in the case of product safety regulation since here politicians are seen as
primarily responsible to make sure that products are safe (to a certain degree and depending
on definitions of “safety standards”) and that the market functions as desired (Folke Schuppert
2006: 584–585). Regulations are usually directed to economic actors who want to sell their
products but whose actions (or better: whose neglect of compulsory actions) can now and then
lead to market failures at the expense of consumers. In this regard John Francis states:
“Regulation is frequently associated with what is called “market failure” – a situation in
which the market fails to produce goods and services at appropriate prices” (1993: 2) and/or at
appropriate safety or transparency levels. Döhler and Wegrich (2010: 31) argue that
regulation has thus become an increasingly dominant type of public actions and in another
contribution Döhler defines regulation as “binding public provisions and standards of
behavior which are mainly directed at companies” (2006: 208; own translation).
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We can distinguish between economic and social regulation. While the former refers to state
activities which are supposed to protect consumers from inappropriate prices, the latter targets
market outcomes that are seen as involving risks to an individual’s health and other risks
(Francis 1993: 2–3; Mitropoulos 1997: 387). Social regulation, which is at the center of
analysis here, occurs in two ways: on the one hand in the form of providing consumers with
the necessary information to bridge the information asymmetry gap between producers and
buyers (Mitropoulos 1997: 341; Schatz 1984). This usually happens via labeling products to
inform about their contents. On the other hand social regulation can be directly targeted at the
ways of production of certain products through defining binding minimum standards which
have to be met by producers before putting their goods into the market. Such regulations can
also include prohibitions of whole products and certain ingredients or the setting of maximum
permissible values of ingredients or substances which run certain risks of damaging people’s
health (Schatz 1984: 32). The first way of social regulation can be referred to as “informal
strategies” and the latter as “prescriptive strategies” (Francis 1993: 3, 10, 14-16). I put
emphasis on the fact that decision making processes leading to particular types of regulatory
actions have to be seen as involving high levels of conflict between the non-state actors
involved. Thus, it can be argued that regulation cannot be assumed as being a neutral process
whose outcomes aim at serving the common good of a society. Another argument that follows
is that the common view of regulatory politics which gained momentum in academic
discourses over the past two decades is plain wrong when it sees regulation as such neutral
interventions in market procedures to overcome problems with products which are more and
more characterized by complex production procedures, technologies and hard to oversee
production chains (Czada et al. 2003). Instead the highly conflict-laden character of
regulatory politics, especially in the case of consumer protection issues, suggests a focus on
the strategies of competing organized interests within existing rules to exert influence on
decision makers debating regulatory measures to account for particular regulatory outcomes.
Thus the question why regulation takes the form it does becomes relevant in social analysis,
rather than asking how regulation should be carried out.
2.1
Consumer protection policy as playing field for traditional types of
interest groups
In the concluding paragraphs of his seminal contribution to the logic of collective action
Mancur Olson discussed those kinds of interests which he saw as unlikely to be organized
efficiently and referred to them as the “forgotten groups” (Olson 1971: 165–167). Among
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others, for instance migrant and white-collar workers, peace activists and the taxpayers, he
introduced the consumers as a major example for such a group. They are “at least as
numerous as any other group in the society, but they have no organization to countervail the
power of organized or monopolistic producers” (Olson 1971: 166). According to Olson’s
theory of collective action rational individuals who are members of such a large group,
representing a rather common and thus diffuse interest, hardly ever start to act in order to
advance this particular common goal or form organizations to do so. This view is built on the
rationalist assumption that individuals do not take action if the expected gains from an
individual contribution to achieving the common goal do not exceed the costs which result
from acting in the first place (Olson 1971: 2).
Another well-known interest group typology is quite similar to Olson’s work and is used by
Heike Klüver (2012) in her research on interest group characteristics and their impact on
policy outputs. In general, two different kinds of interest groups can be distinguished:
sectional groups and cause groups. While sectional groups represent special and, thus,
concentrated or specific interests, for instance the ones of farmers or the pharmaceutical
industry, cause groups, by contrast, usually represent rather diffuse interests, such as
consumer, health or environmental related interests. These interests have different chances to
be organized effectively and convention has it that sectional groups are usually more
successful than cause groups.
With regard to concepts of collective action and the problems that diffuse interests face in the
EU context, Jordan and Maloney (2007: Chap. 2) discuss several incentives that can help
marginalized or hard-to-mobilize interests to overcome the collective action dilemma of
diffuse interests posed by Olson (also see 1995: 57–62). They argue that various membership
generating incentives, such as, among others, selective material, solidarity, and/or general
purposiveness can do the trick to motivate people to mobilize against all (theoretical) odds
(Jordan/Maloney 2007: 46–49). Aspinwall and Greenwood (1998) also use collective action
concepts and apply them to the European Union context to explain why national organizations
decide to join and become an active member of a Euro group, i.e. an association active at the
supranational level (also see the other contributions in Greenwood/Aspinwall (1998);
(Sadeh/Howarth 2008: 1–2)).
In their quantitative analysis of European social movements and protest Imig and Tarrow
(2001a) find that contention strategies and campaigns still focus on the national level rather
than on the new opportunity structures the supranational level of the EU offers. This
phenomenon is referred to as a “domesticated” kind of reaction to European grievances
- 15 -
(Tarrow 2001: 235). Nevertheless, Tarrow (2001), summing up the major findings of an
important edited volume on contentious politics in the EU (Imig/Tarrow 2001b), in general
argued (in the early 2000s) that this domesticated mode of responding to European challenges
involving rather diffuse interests could change in the years to come. While business
associations seemed to have well-adapted to the new multi-level character of decision-making
processes in the new European system of governance, representatives of public and, thus,
rather diffuse interests could catch up by slowly learning “how to use Europe’s dispersed and
competitive institutions” (Tarrow 2001: 238).
Here I also argue that it cannot be assumed that “diffuse” cause groups are usually or
“naturally” less successful than their more “specific” counterparts, i.e. representatives of
sectional groups. Their “fate” has to be studied empirically. And since consumer protection
policy is a field involving numerous battles between sectional and cause groups, and since the
EU has committed itself to consumer protection policy as one of its core tasks3, it makes sense
to pick cases from this policy area for the empirical analysis. Though, analyses have to be
guided by sound theorizing. This is why I now turn to the theory section of this paper.
3.
Theory, Conceptualization, and Measurement
3.1
Policy framing and lobbying coalitions: An analytical framework to
study lobbying success in EU regulatory policy
The main idea behind my analytical framework is that given the constraints imposed by
different decision-making rules on all the actors involved in advocacy processes, policy
calibration through policy framing and forming lobbying coalitions can happen at the various
stages of the EU decision-making process. Thus, both representatives of diffuse and specific
interests can be successful in shaping policies if they collectively manage to navigate their
side’s frames through the various policy arenas. As I will show in the following, the two most
crucial and interrelated variables of my analytical framework are the communality of a frame
adopted by a lobbying side and established at the different stages of the policy formulation
process in the EU, and the composition of such a lobbying coalition which I refer to as the a
side’s level of heterogeneity. Thus, despite the fact that multiple access points at various
3
In the EU’s „Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union“ (TFEU), Article 12 says that consumer
protection has to be generally applied when defining and implementing policy, and the first paragraph of Article
169 (Title XV) reads: “In order to promote the interests of consumers and to ensure a high level of consumer
protection, the Union shall contribute to protecting the health, safety and economic interests of consumers, as
well as to promoting their right to information, education and to organise themselves in order to safeguard their
interests“.
- 16 -
levels are available for different non-state actors, “multilevelness” may turn out to have
different implications for actors depending on their argumentation and lobbying strategies.
Before I turn to my own concept of lobbying success in more detail I will first introduce the
main assumptions of framing approaches and why such an approach can enhance analyses of
interest group activities and their impact on policy.
In general, the concept of framing “offers a way to describe the power of a communicating
text” (Entman 1993: 51). Thus, I follow Entman’s (1993: 52; emphasis in the original)
definition of framing who points out:
To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating
text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation,
and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.
Thus, framing implies that since policy issues are almost always multidimensional, interested
groups can be expected to highlight certain aspects of an issue while deliberately omitting
others to make sure that policy makers are pushed more toward their own frames of an issue
and, at the same time, away from the images advocated by other competing proponents in a
policy debate4. For instance, when politicians deal with issues of environmental protection
advocates of stricter regulations will try to emphasize that current practices lead to the loss of
habitat while other sides of the debate point to the danger of job losses and significant
negative impacts on the competitiveness of entire industries if new regulations are passed
(Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010: 4). Hence, these competing perceptions, policy images or
frames help to define a policy issue in particular ways and constitute how an issue is
understood and discussed in a policy debate. This gives specialists in a particular area the
advantage over others who depend on this expertise and have to rely on the information
processed to them to come up with collectively binding decisions (Ringe 2010). Yet not every
politician can have the same knowledge about an issue and the levels of decision-makers’
interest in certain rather non-political technical areas are usually quite low, which opens up
opportunities for specialists who, “[s]ince they know the issue better, (…) are sometimes able
to portray the issue in simplified and favorable terms to nonspecialists” (Baumgartner/Jones
2009 [1993]: 25). Thus, information can be seen as “the key currency in policy making
interactions” since “[p]olicy-makers require scientific, technical, legal, economic and social
(and implementation) advice and expertise as well as guidance on constituency preferences”
(Lowery 2009: 4). This information is presented in the form of arguments pushed forward by
various interest groups. The latter direct their policy images to pivotal policy-makers through
4
For classical scholarship on issues of framing see Kahneman/Tversky 1984; Riker 1986; Schattschneider 1957,
Schattschneider 1960.
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a process of argumentation that is shaped by frames which simplify definitions and
explanations of the debated phenomenon. Hence, how a problem, which has to be politically
dealt with, is defined and linked to a possible governmental solution is conceptualized as a
“process of image making” (Stone 1989: 282). Involved sides “deliberately portray” (Stone
1989: 282; emphasis in the original) issues in favorable ways to gain support for their cause
and their policy position. Thus, at the heart of the policy process are advocacy group
strategies that involve argumentation and the creation of particular understandings of an issue.
To manipulate the “allocation of attention can be a powerful strategy in policymaking”
(Baumgartner/Jones 2009 [1993]: 30)), a strategy that is most promising for interest groups
who aim to sway policy. How many sides form around one particular issue can vary from case
to case and has to be studied empirically. The amount of sides is usually linked to the number
or set of (competing) policy images created in a policy debate which describe and understand
the issue at hand in different ways. This brings me to the second major dimension of my own
theoretical framework of lobbying success: the significance of lobbying sides or coalitions.
How a policy issue is defined does not only structure political conflicts between various
actors, it also “influence[s] the formation and organisation of interests and shape[s] political
coalitions and alliances” (Daviter 2011: 3). One way of framing an issue almost always leads
to other actors contesting it through promoting their own policy image. Thus, one lobbying
coalition or side usually sees itself up against at least one competing group that engages in the
same policy battle by constructing their own main image of the issue at stake (Baumgartner et
al. 2009: 7). Studying lobbying success thus does not only demand that the researcher is
aware of framing dynamics, it also requires studying the characteristics of the competing sides
which form around a particular issue. How lobbying coalition and framing dynamics play out
in a fragmented and multi-tiered political system can vary significantly from one issue to the
next depending on the issue-specific grouping of interest groups and their framing efforts.
Hence, taking into account advocacy strategies is the main task when dealing with the
determinants of lobbying success. Again, “we have to take into account the aggregated efforts
of likeminded interest groups that fight for the same policy objective on any given policy
issue” (Klüver 2011c: 500).
After this broad introduction to the benefits of framing analysis and the role lobbying
coalitions play, I will now turn to a more precise elaboration on my own theoretical approach,
its causal significance when studying lobbying success, and a specification of its
measurement.
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3.1.1 The concepts of frame communality and side heterogeneity as
determinants of lobbying success
Despite recent increased interest in policy framing processes and analysis we still know little
about what frame wins over (competing) other frames and why they do so both in the EU and
other political entities (Baumgartner/Mahoney 2008; Daviter 2011; Lowery 2009;
Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010). Thus, what types of frames and framing activities increase the
likelihood of dominating policy debates which eventually lead to (more or less) favored
outcomes? And does the grouping of interest groups in issue-specific alliances also have an
effect on the success of particular framing strategies?
Here one main assumption is that despite the fact that interest group resources matter to a
certain degree, the significance of argumentation and strategy should not be left out of policy
analyses that try to capture interest group impact on policy outputs. To be more precise, my
main points are that the more cohesive a lobbying side represents their image of an issue, and
the more diverse a side is, with high levels of diversity meaning the membership of many
different types of interest groups (public and private, or consumer and industry for instance)
in one alliance, the more likely it is that pivotal decision-makers will pay attention to their
claims and formulate policy accordingly. Thus, while people can be vulnerable to certain
frames, we should keep in mind that frames can be vulnerable, too, depending on who is
communicating them and how.
I introduce a rather simple model of lobbying success that is built on two concepts which I
call frame communality and side heterogeneity. Both are characteristics attributable to
lobbying coalitions and their strategies as collectives. The first term refers to how unified a
group of actors, that shares the same policy goal, is in promoting a particular image of an
issue debated during the decision-making process. Hence, lobbying sides where almost every
single “member” organization repeatedly and solely uses the same policy image (while
collectively omitting other potential alternative frames) to address policy-makers have a high
level of frame communality. The level decreases if the number and the frequency of other
frames employed by the members of one side increases. Side heterogeneity refers to the
composition of a lobbying coalition whose individual members share the same policy goal. If
a side represents various types of interest groups and, thus, when the scope of the rather
heterogeneous actors mobilized on one lobbying side expands, the level of side heterogeneity
rises. It follows logically that a coalition of interest groups that is composed of very
homogenous actors (only toy manufacturers, for instance), has a low level of side
heterogeneity.
- 19 -
I argue that with the help of these two simple concepts it can be studied how sticky frames
can really be at the various stages of the policy process and in different institutional settings, a
phenomenon that, according to Baumgartner, “is poorly understood” (2007: 485) so far. If
they are represented by lobbying coalitions with a high level of side heterogeneity, frames that
also exhibit a high level of frame communality do well in keeping competing issue frames off
decision-makers’ radars and increase the chances of their users to lobby successfully. Figure
1 shows the two dimensions of my lobbying success model and their ordinal scales.
Figure 1: A Model of Lobbying Success
Source: Own figure; Levels: 0 = Low, 1 = Medium, 2 = High.
This analytical framework serves as the basis for the analysis of selected policy-decisions. I
will now turn to the hypotheses derived from my theoretical model before I turn to questions
of measurement and operationalization.
3.1.2 Testable implications of the analytical framework and some tentative
hypotheses
I will now introduce some first ideas of testable implications derived from the analytical
model outlined earlier by formulating a set of main hypotheses which, as I argue, have to be
seen in causal conjunction to come up with a satisfactory explanatory model of lobbying
success in EU consumer protection policy.
- 20 -
The first dimension deals with the type of frame employed by one side. As spelled out above,
since decision-makers cannot be experts in every rather technical policy (sub-)field, such as
consumer protection, and given their cognitive limitations to deal with all the issues dealt with
by a political system, policy makers tend “to focus on just a few dimensions of an issue”
(Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010: 8; also see Ringe 2010). At the same time they often are
dependent on information provided by interest groups who are seen as experts in their areas.
Thus, especially when dealing with complex technical issues policy makers “need to take
mental short-cuts” (Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010: 8). Here the significance of interest group
strategies and their argumentation comes in, since these non-state actors can provide
politicians or bureaucrats with biased, i.e. framed images of an issue at hand. Thus, I
hypothesize that decision makers are more likely to adopt a lobbying side’s policy image and
the according line of argumentation, if the members of that coalition constantly and
exclusively share and use a common understanding of the issue. Otherwise a side’s
argumentation would run the risk to lose its punch and convincing straightforwardness that
makes things easier for decision makers with limited attention and temporal capacities.
Hence, Hypothesis 1 (H1) reads as follows:
H1: The higher the level of frame communality of one lobbying coalition, the more likely
it is that its lobbying efforts are successful.
The second dimension of the theoretical model deals with the composition of a lobbying side
and, thus, with the different types of interest groups that together form a (temporal and issuespecific) alliance. Here the argument underlying the hypothesis is pretty straightforward. If a
lobbying coalition is highly homogenous with regard to its members, policy makers could
easily interpret their argumentation as one only representing the special interests of a rather
small segment of society. Accordingly politicians could suspect their frames to be biased in
favor of only egoistic preferences, leading to a rejection of their arguments and positions.
Thus, I hypothesize that decision makers rather accept arguments put forward by larger and
more diverse sides consisting of representatives of both cause groups and sectional groups
(Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010: 7–8). My second hypothesis (H2) is thus formulated as follows:
H2: The higher the level of side heterogeneity of one lobbying coalition, the more likely
it is that its lobbying efforts are successful.
But I hasten to clarify that these two dimensions do not operate independent of each other
when it comes to assessing the determinants of lobbying success. They have to be studied in
conjunction which brings me to the formulation of the final and main hypothesis (H3) of my
research project:
- 21 -
H3: The higher the level of frame communality and the higher the level of side
heterogeneity of one lobbying coalition, the more likely it is that its lobbying efforts are
successful.
Thus, if both frame communality and side heterogeneity are high in conjunction, the more
likely it is that a side’s image of an issue becomes the dominant one in a policy debate,
contributing to a higher likelihood that this frame shapes the final output of the policy
process.
3.2
Dependent variable, the explanatory variables, and the controls:
Operationalization and measurement
Since my main goal is to identify lobbying success in the regulatory race between lobbying
groups active in consumer related policy processes, my study’s dependent variable will be the
actual movement of the policy position of the decision makers in a policy space of a particular
issue over the whole course of the legislative process. Thus, after I identified the location of
the different interest group’s policy positions and those of the various decision makers at the
outset of a legislative process, and after grouping the interest groups together into the
lobbying sides that form around an issue (given their respective common policy positions), I
will trace whether the original distance between a side’s position and the one represented by
the institutions involved in the decision-making process decreases over time. The side that
manages to move the final regulation (i.e. the final policy position adopted) closer to its
preferred outcome is considered successful. The side wins, whose original preferences (policy
positions) are eventually apparent in a regulation (or directive) after the decision-making
process has come to a close and a final output (a document) is available.
Locating the different groups’ and the policy-makers’ policy positions in a policy space is
done by coding their publications in a rather hermeneutical way. Thus, I will not assign values
from, for instance, 0 to 100 (which would represent the extreme poles of a unidimensional
policy space) to each actor involved at the different stages of the policy-making process in a
policy debate and then numerically measure the change in the distance between the positions
of a side and the position represented in the finally adopted regulation. Instead, I will use the
computer software Atlas.ti in order to handcode position documents, using codes to highlight
paragraphs which deal with the actors’ positions. Thus the main dimensions of conflict
between the competing sides can eventually be identified and these groups’ positions located
and compared to the decision-making institution’s views based on their own arguments. The
computer program is a tool that helps to deal with a larger number of documents and it allows
- 22 -
for linking the different coded passages to each other within a single document and across
various data sources. I will start with a rather simple preliminary version of a coding scheme
which will gradually be refined and made more precise over various rounds of going through
the whole universe of documents.
Building on the literature review in the first main part and on the introduction to the theory
section of this paper I identified four main sets of explanatory variables that can help to
account for lobby group success in general. Every variable is operationalized and measured as
evident in Table 1 which besides my own model’s main explanatory variables furthermore
maps the variables that have to be considered as controls when dealing with interest group
activities in multi-level advocacy. Words in bold represent the main explanatory variables put
forward by my own analytical model outlined above.
Table 1: Mapping the explanatory variables of lobbying success in multi-level advocacy
Variables
Advocacy strategies
Operationalization
Measurement
- Policy framing
- Level of frame communality
- Lobbying coalitions
- Level of side heterogeneity
- Share of votes of political
Institutions
- Decision-making rules (Veto potential)
groups in committees and
“chambers”
Advocacy group resources
Issue characteristics
- Financial resources
- Budget and revenue
- Jobs
- Number of staff
- “Constituency”
- Membership size
- Organizational structure
- Type of organization
- Issue scope
- Parties affected by a policy
- Issue salience
- Media coverage
- Level of conflict
- Number of opposing sides
- Focusing events
- Identification of “shocks”
Source: Own table.
The level of frame communality for each lobbying side of an issue is measured on an ordinal
scale ranging from levels of “low”, to “medium” and “high”. To decide in which category a
side falls, I will again use Atlas.ti to code interest group documents in a qualitative way to
identify the kind of argumentation used by the various actors which enables me to track the
types of frames present. The more the member organizations of one side collectively rely on
one and the same policy image in a debate, the better the chances that this side is assigned the
value of “high” on the frame communality variable. Low levels correspond with the presence
of a greater number of different types of arguments across the various side members.
- 23 -
Side heterogeneity measures are also presented on an ordinal scale from “low”, to “medium”
and “high”. A side is considered to have a high level of heterogeneity when its members
represent different types of interests, thus both public and private or cause and sectional
groups. Very homogenous coalitions score low on this dimension.
The other variables presented in Table 1 will be used as controls in the empirical analysis.
Their operationalization and measurement can be found in the table, too. I will not further
elaborate on each control variable in more detail here, and will now turn to the general idea
behind my way of conceptualizing and measuring lobbying success. After that I continue with
information on my case, the data sources used, and on the methods I apply.
3.3
Conceptualizing
and
measuring
lobbying
success:
Preference
attainment or influence as “control over outputs”
In their introduction to a 2007 special edition on interest group influence in Europe, Dür and
De Bièvre argue that despite the recent “demise of research on the influence of interest
groups” (2007: 2), which they ascribe to difficulties with identifying and measuring the
effects of concepts such as “influence” and “power” (Dür 2008a, 2008b; also see Mahoney
2007a), scholars should adopt a pragmatic approach when dealing with several concepts of
lobbying activity. As long as researchers are aware of what their concepts and research
designs do not cover and they explicitly refer to these shortcomings in their publications,
problems of generalizing findings become minor issues. Hence, we can emphasize that
instead of avoiding tackling the problem of measuring lobbying success altogether, scholars
should openly admit difficulties when studying phenomena of interest group power in policymaking processes, but pragmatically conduct empirical research nevertheless (Dür/de Bièvre
2007: 1–3; Daxhammer 1995: 29).
Power can have different “faces”, ranging from controlling resources and/or actors to the
control over policy-making outcomes (Dür 2008a: 1220–1221). I prefer the last
conceptualization to the former two and define power as control over political outputs. Thus,
power is assessed by looking at its effects and, according to this, if actors can achieve to make
sure that a particular outcome is close to their original ideal position at the outset of a
decision-making process they are considered powerful. I see actors as having clearly defined,
but not necessarily fixed, preferences over particular (potential) outputs and my concept of
- 24 -
lobbying success “focuses on its empirically observable effects in actual public policy, as if
actors were really powerful” (Dür/de Bièvre 2007: 3)5.
To measure the degree of lobbying success in decision-making processes three main ways of
assessing success have been put forward in the literature: process tracing, measuring
attributed influence, and assessing the distance between an interest group’s initial preferences
and the actual outcome of a policy-making process (Dür 2008a: 1223–1225, 2008b; also see
Klüver 2011c: 489–490). The power over outputs or preference attainment approach prefers
the last method over the two others, and especially criticizes the attributed influence method
for its liability to be biased by subjective perceptions (Dür 2008a: 1224; Klüver 2011a: 490).
Furthermore, many of its advocates remain skeptical of process tracing methods since, they
argue, process tracing makes generalizations of findings almost impossible due to the fact that
only a few cases can be covered qualitatively and important variables have to be held constant
which could be crucial for causal explanations of policy outputs (Dür 2008a: 1223–1224;
Klüver 2011c: 490).
I argue that process tracing can significantly enrich ways of measuring lobbying success.
Instead of seeing preference attainment and process tracing as mutually exclusive methods,
we should consider combining them to study interest group behavior as thorough as possible.
4.
Case selection, data, and methods
4.1
Ontological and methodological foundations of the study and their
implications
My concept and understanding of social science follows a community of researchers who, in
reaction and response to the publication and the impact of “Designing Social Inquiry” (King
et al. 1994), put emphasis on the autonomy of positivist qualitative research methods and
research designs (Brady 2004; George/Bennett 2005; Mahoney 2010). The ontology of this
research branch differs significantly from the one King et al. (1994) represent (see Hall 2003),
since it is not based on a view of “the political world as a sphere governed by immutable
causal regularities based on a few forceful variables” (Hall 2003: 387). This old ontology,
which is still built on the assumption of parsimonious, rather abstract theories which help to
identify causal variables that are conceptualized as being independent of each other, can be
challenged by a new one that is built on the general assumption that context matters and, thus,
5
Dür and De Bièvre are even convinced that their “control over outcomes approach” is “the epistemologically
most sound and empirically most pragmatic route towards assessing interest group influence” (2007: 3) despite
admitted limitations (Dür/de Bièvre 2007: 7–8).
- 25 -
that causal relations between factors identified in one case might not carry the same
explanatory power in another.
Thus, I rely on a case study design (George/Bennett 2005; Gerring 2004, 2007) that
investigates one configuration of the case selected (i.e. one EU policy in the field of consumer
safety) in detail over a longer period of the decision-making process and advocacy coalition
activity. The goal is to identify the causal mechanisms which connect each explanatory
variable with the others in a chronologically sound way to establish the causal chain that links
these explanatory factors with the dependent variable. The analytical framework of lobbying
success through policy framing and forming lobbying coalitions will guide this endeavor as a
kind of “typological theory” (George/Bennett 2005).
Thus, building on this theoretical model I first focus on identifying causal mechanisms which
Jon Elster (2007: 36) defines as “frequently occurring and easily recognizable causal patterns
that are triggered under generally unknown conditions or with indeterminate consequences”.
This implies, as Hedström convincingly argues (2008: 41–49; also see Hedström/Swedberg
1998; Tilly 2008), a skepticism towards explanations that rely on deductive-nomological
reasoning or statistical analysis. Instead, I will track down causal tendencies that contribute to
the explanation of concrete events on a case basis, without the ultimate goal of generalizing
correlations between variables or case-specific conjunctions to identify “covering laws” (Hall
2003: 377).
When it comes to lobbying activities, such ontological and methodological assumptions make
sense. To study lobbying activities within systems requires thinking of potential explanatory
factors not as independent variables which have single effects on the outcome to be explained
across a large number of cases. Context matters and it shapes multiple combinations of factors
which exert causal power simultaneously eventually leading to a particular outcome
(Baumgartner et al. 2009: 251). I doubt that statistical regression analysis can account for
these characteristics of lobbying activities and their results (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 252).
Instead, to uncover the many complex interdependencies and interactive effects at work I will
process trace different policy proposals and each one over a longer period of time.
Furthermore, as the discussion of lobbying coalitions has shown, different actors who are
involved in one particular policy process should not be seen as independent of each other.
Instead, their strategic lobbying and counter-lobbying activities have to be accounted for by
paying attention to their interactions and how they relate and respond to each other during
decision-making processes (Baumgartner et al. 2009: 253).
- 26 -
4.2
Mapping the research site: Case selection and the configurations of
the cases
In qualitative research researchers have to pay close attention to carefully constituting the
population (or the universe) of their cases to select the right cases for the study and to arrive at
valid causal inferences (Gerring 2007: 21–22; also see George/Bennett 2005: 83–84;
Mahoney 2007c: 128–131). It has to be clear of what the cases studied are instances of.
Furthermore, the scope conditions of the theoretical framework applied in a case study have to
be spelled out clearly and at the outset of the research. This identification of the scope
conditions of a theory is not only necessary when designing sound qualitative research in
general, but it also offers the researcher the possibility to clearly assess the causal arguments
made with regard to the particular cases under investigation. Whether an explanatory variable
really mattered to a particular outcome can thus be studied with confidence if the scope
conditions of the theory that predicted the causal effect of this variable are clear. But it has to
be kept in mind that while case study designs are strong when the goal is identifying that a
certain factor mattered for a particular outcome, they run into severe (but manageable)
problems when it comes to measuring how much, i.e. to what degree, a variable contributed to
the occurrence of outcomes across various cases (George/Bennett 2005: 25).
Recently qualitative researchers have found their own ways to constitute populations, to
establish the scope of their theories, and to make sure that case homogeneity, which is another
condition for the comparativeness of cases, can be assumed (Mahoney 2007c: 130). Here, the
contextualized, case-intensive knowledge of the researcher will be at the best secured by
detailed content analysis and provides for the achievement of measurement stability within
the case studied and for constituting fairly homogenous case populations. Hence, “by virtue of
developing contextualized knowledge about each of their cases, qualitative researchers are
less likely to exclude key variables or misspecify the interrelations among included variables”
(Mahoney 2007c: 131).
Table 2 shows a very preliminary version of my dissertation’s general comparative case study
design from which I select the EU food labeling regulation as single case study. Since I treat
the European Union as a multi-level political system that can be seen as similar and thus
comparable to federal states, the population, thus the universe of all the potential cases that
could have been picked (besides the United States), comprises the federal states around the
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globe6. Since all these systems offer multiple access points at various governance levels,
findings regarding lobbying success identified in multi-level systems such as the EU and the
US could furthermore be put to the test in other multi-level environments. My dissertation’s
overall sample consists of the EU and the US. Several “configurations of these cases”, or what
Gerring calls “groups of observations” (2007: 22) make these two selected cases. Hence, here
“configurations” refer to the regulatory decisions made in each of the two systems.
Table 2: Preliminary comparative case study design7
“Configurations”
(Regulatory
Decisions)
“Case
1”
(EU)
“Population”
(Multi-level
political
systems)
“Sample”
(Subjects
of the
study)
“All potential
cases”
“Selected
cases”
“Case
2”
(USA)
Food information
to consumers
(Regulation (EU)
No 1169/2011)
Explanatory
variable I
(Frame
communality)
Level for each
side involved
Explanatory
variable II
(Side
heterogeneity)
Control
variables
(Resources,
Issue
characteristics,
institutions)
Dependent
variable
(Lobbying
Success)
Level for each
side involved
Measures for
each side
involved
Closeness
score of
the final
legislative
act
Closeness
score of
the final
legislative
act
Child health
protection: safety
of toys
(Directive
2009/48/EC)
Level for each
side involved
Level for each
side involved
Measures for
each side
involved
“Configurations”
(Regulatory
Decisions)
Explanatory
variable I
(Frame
communality)
Explanatory
variable II
(Side
heterogeneity)
Control
variables
(Resources,
Issue
characteristics,
institutions)
Dependent
variable
(Lobbying
Success)
Level for each
side involved
Measures for
each side
involved
Closeness
score of
the final
legislative
act
Level for each
side involved
Measures for
each side
involved
Closeness
score of
the final
legislative
act
FDA Food Safety
Modernization
Act (2011)
Consumer Product
Safety Act (2008)
Level for each
side involved
Level for each
side involved
Source: Own table based on (Gerring 2007: 23).
6
According to the website of the „Forum of Federations“, a “Global Network on Federalism and Developed
Governance”, there are currently 24 (out of 193) federal political systems worldwide
(http://www.forumfed.org/en/federalism/by_country/index.php).
7
This is a very preliminary version of the comparative case study design which I will eventually use in my
dissertation. It is the result from a first online investigation of the online legislative datasets of the EU and US
official institutions. In the final design I aim at doing research on 3-4 policies for each political system paying
closer attention to the case selection criteria introduced here.
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Right now I plan to carefully study 6 to 8 policies and all the sides and their strategies
involved in them respectively. For every “configuration” the dependent variable (lobbying
success), the two main explanatory variables (frame communality and side heterogeneity for
every side), and the control variables (interest group resources, issue characteristics, and
institutions) introduced and operationalized in earlier sections will be identified and
measured.
For this paper I selected one of the EU “configurations” that I will eventually study:
Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, an EU regulation titled “Food information to consumers” that
was adopted in the fall of 2011 while the Commission proposal had already been released in
January 2008. Here the main conflict was about establishing an EU-wide food labeling
system. This highly salient EU case involved high levels of activity of many different interest
groups from both industry and consumer organizations, and received high rates of media
coverage as well.
To be considered for the analysis, the EU’s policy-making process has to be fully completed.
Thus, a policy has to be adopted by the official publication of the final legislative act that
makes an EU directive or regulation binding. Only by reducing the analysis to a finalized
decision I can study lobbying success accurately and in sync with the analytical framework
developed here. The regulation to be studied in this paper is also selected based on its level of
salience. The more interest organizations released positions on a particular issue and the more
press releases in EU wide press products dealt with an issue, the higher the level of saliency
of an issue. After consulting organizations’ websites and media products, and coding the
consumer related issues with regard to their saliency level, I made sure to pick a high-saliency
issue, as a “hard case” so to speak.
For qualitative researchers who mainly want to explain particular important outcomes it
makes a lot of sense to stick to a small number of well-known N and only to increase the
number of causal-process observations within a case that is being studied. This is the case
because of problems related to unit or case homogeneity problems, problems of measurement
validity when moving to new contexts (i.e. cases), and because of the general value that
already acquired case-specific in-depth knowledge of the researcher has (Collier et al. 2004:
262–263; also see George/Bennett 2005; Mahoney 2007c: 130–131). To collect as many
observations as possible I will rely on written online documents. I will turn to these data
sources now.
- 29 -
4.3
Data sources
I will conduct detailed in-depth document analyses of primary and secondary sources
published online by the media, interest groups, and official EU institutions. For the saliency
test of my case mentioned in the former chapter I will rely on archived stories published in
Agence Europe since it offers the only pan-European press product that frequently covers
almost everything that is going on in the EU.
In the EU interest groups, such as (peak) consumer or producer organizations active at the
various governance levels, public policy groups (NGOs), and individual companies frequently
release position papers on current issues and send out press releases which are publicly
available. For comparability reasons I will limit advocacy group publications to these two
types of releases (Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010: 9). To find the right interest groups and their
documents for the analysis, the “EU Transparency Register” serves as a starting point to
identify the relevant non-state actors. Furthermore, the website of the “Directorate General
Health and Consumers” (DG SANCO) also offers detailed information about consumer
organizations both at the national (all 27 member states plus Norway and Iceland) and at the
supranational level. The European Commission, the European Parliament committees, and (to
a somewhat lesser extent) the Council of Ministers make almost all of their policy-relevant
documents open to the public. In general, in the the EU the “Legislative Observatory”
database of the European Parliament and the Council’s “Public Register” (CONSILIUM) help
to track down EU decision-making processes by offering various documents online. These are
open to the public and thus also for scientific purposes. All Commission proposals for
directives or regulations and consultation submissions received from advocacy groups before
the first release of the proposal, the opinions released by the Council and the EP committees,
and the text of the legislation that is finally adopted can be downloaded free of charge from
these institution’s websites with the “Legislative Observatory” being the main source that
collects all the official documents of the whole policy-making process. I will consult these
websites to collect all the publicly available documents published with regard to the issue
studied. Here, the final goal is to compile a larger dataset that offers archived information
about the positions taken by interest groups on a particular issue, the policy images they try to
establish, and the decisions taken by decision-makers at the various policy-making stages.
4.4
Methods: Process tracing and within-case analysis
For the single case study I basically rely on within-case analysis that allows for the
identification of conjunctural causal paths (Aus 2009) and provides the researcher with high
- 30 -
levels of conceptual validity and in-depth case knowledge which can be an major asset when
trying to avoid omitted variable bias and related prevalent problems in case study research
(George/Bennett 2005). This is crucial when trying to track the causal mechanisms at work in
my case (George/Bennett 2005: 19). The decision-making process will be studied with the
method of process tracing (Collier 2011; George/Bennett 2005: Chap. 10; also see Checkel
2008; Hall 2003: 391–395). Based on and guided by my analytical framework, process tracing
helps to test the theoretical propositions formulated earlier by identifying the particular causal
mechanisms that link the explanatory variables across time and which eventually lead to the
particular outcomes to be explained.
Thus, I will cover the whole decision-making process from the point in time where the policy
was introduced for the first time via a Commission proposal until its final passage (the final
EU act passed). I will handcode and analyze all the documents released by the formal
institutions and the non-state actors involved to trace whether the types of frames promoted
by a side can sway the policy debates at the various stages of policy-making. Hence, I
compare the statements made by advocacy alliances with the contents of the official EU
institutions’ documents to find out whether lobbying success varies with the level of
communality of a side’s frame and a side’s composition while controlling for other interest
group characteristics proposed in the literature. A main empirical focus will be on the
activities of the European Parliament (EP) committees and their members (especially the
rapporteurs assigned to an issue), and on the positions taken and released by them. Thus I will
assess which lobbying side uses which types of frames and whether they can move policy
debates and the related outcomes closer to their ideal positions by this collective and selective
process of argumentation and of manipulating policy images adopted by decision-makers.
5.
Conclusions
So far political scientists who deal with the question of interest group lobbying success in
multi-level systems of governance have basically focused their analyses on input factors such
as individual interest group characteristics or structural attributes of interest intermediation
systems. Among other things they have theorized about different resource endowments of
groups, groups’ access goods which they can trade for access to decision makers, or the
embeddedness of non-state actors in their domestic environment. What is still missing,
though, is a sound comparative middle range theory that helps to explain outputs and, thus,
why decision-makers actually pay attention to some group preferences, especially to those
preferences voiced by public interest groups, rather than others, and, thus, why they follow
- 31 -
particular “images” regarding an issue at hand rather than a different one advocated by
competing groups. When taking a closer look at regulatory politics which constitute a main
part of policy types dealt with in the EU’s multi-level decision-making and which attract high
levels of interest group activity (Greenwood 2011: 21; Kelemen 2004; KohlerKoch/Rittberger 2006: 35–36), we find vast differences when it comes to successful lobbying
strategies within this system. Hence, anew raising the question of the fate of diffuse interests
in multi-level systems of governance and studying it empirically based on sound theorizing
represents a major task for scholars who aim at tackling the puzzle of interest group influence
and lobbying success more generally.
My own research will contribute to an ongoing research program on interest group politics led
by researchers from the US and Europe (The Lobby Project, INTEREURO) that aims at
answering the general questions of when frames actually do successfully change policy in the
EU and the US, and whether certain types of frames that are promoted by advocacy groups
and their alliances are more successful than others (Baumgartner et al. 2009; Lowery 2009;
Mahoney/Baumgartner 2010).
In the final version of this paper the case of EU nutrition labeling (2008-2011) will be studied
empirically. Here two lobbying coalitions were pitted against each other regarding the issue
whether a so-called “traffic light label”-system (or TL-system) should become mandatory for
foodstuffs sold in the European market, a solution highly favored by consumer organizations
(for instance the German NGO Foodwatch and BEUC (The European Consumers’
Organisation)), or whether to introduce the so called GDAs (Guideline Daily Amounts). The
latter option, favored by most parts of the European food industry, only contains nutrientbased information for the consumer without providing evaluations of healthiness at the
nutrient level on the package (TL-system). The final act which was signed and published in
October and November 2011 did not include the TL-system and the GDA solution became the
main “ingredient” of the regulation. Thus, according to my coding scheme this EU regulation
would be coded as representing a lobbying success of the industry side, leaving the consumer
side unsuccessful. Hence document analysis helps to, first, identify the main conflict line
around which the two sides form (type of labeling), second, locate the sides of the policy
debate (supporters of the TL-system and advocates of the GDA approach), and, third,
compare these with the final output of the decision-making process.
- 32 -
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