Abstract
Studies of the political role of interest groups rely on mapping their presence in politics. This article presents the INTERARENA research project which mapped interest group access to the administration, parliament and the news media across several countries. The project departed from a definition of access that emphasized the role of gatekeepers in different political arenas. The article discusses the ambitions of the research project and the subsequent choice of empirical indicators for political access. In addition, it presents the data sources used and provides an overview of the data collected. The described datasets are available online for other researchers interested in empirical mapping of group access to politics.
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Notes
In addition to the authors of this article, the project team included: Darren Halpin (Australian National University), Anne Rasmussen (University of Copenhagen and Leiden University) and Helene Fisker (Aarhus University). Laura Chaqués-Bonafont (The University of Barcelona) participated in the media study.
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Funding was provided by the Danish Council for Independent Research, grant no. 0602-01212B.
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Binderkrantz, A.S., Christiansen, P.M. & Pedersen, H.H. Mapping interest group access to politics: a presentation of the INTERARENA research project. Int Groups Adv 9, 290–301 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-020-00095-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-020-00095-9