Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

studying interest groups: methodological challenges and tools

  • Symposium
  • Published:
European Political Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Research on interest groups has evolved from a focus on small-N studies to larger-N studies in the past 15 years. While both European and American research has become more sophisticated and aware of methodological aspects, there is yet no specialized literature on methods regarding how to study interest groups. Only few studies discuss the methodological implications of interest group studies, as well as the transferability of methods employed in other areas of political science to this research area. The contributions in this symposium focus on major problems and topics in interest group research and elaborate methods to deal with them: (1) the identification of the relevant interest group population, (2) the analysis of interest group strategies such as access, (3) the identification of interest groups positions and frames, and (4) the measurement of interest group success and influence. The introduction outlines these research problems and describes how the contributions to this symposium address them. The aim of the symposium is to increase awareness of the intricacies of these research problems, outline suitable practices to handle them, and stimulate debate on these methodological aspects.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. On the relation between power and luck, see Barry (1980a, 1980b) and Dowding (1996).

References

  • Barry, B. (1980a) ‘Is it better to be powerful or lucky? Part 1’, Political Studies 28(2): 183–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barry, B. (1980b) ‘Is it better to be powerful or lucky? Part 2’, Political Studies 28(3): 338–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baumgartner, F.R., Berry, J.M., Hojnacki, M., Kimball, D.C. and Leech, B.L. (2009) Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baumgartner, F.R. and Leech, B. (1998) Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Berkhout, J. and Lowery, D. (2008) ‘Counting organized interests in the European union: A comparison of data sources’, Journal of European Public Policy 15(4): 489–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beyers, J. (2004) ‘Voice and access. Political practices of European interest associations’, European Union Politics 5(2): 211–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beyers, J., Chaqués Bonafont, L., Dür, A., Eising, R., Fink-Hafner, D., Lowery, D., Mahoney, C., Maloney, W. and Naurin, D. (2014a) ‘The INTEREURO project: Logic and structure’, Interest Groups & Advocacy 3(2): 126–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beyers, J., Dür, A., Marshall, D. and Wonka, A. (2014b) ‘Policy-centred sampling in interest group research: Lessons from the INTEREURO project’, Interest Groups & Advocacy 3(2): 160–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beyers, J., Eising, R. and Maloney, W. (2008a) ‘Researching interest group politics in Europe and elsewhere: Much we study, little we know?’ West European Politics 31(6): 1103–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beyers, J., Eising, R. and Maloney, W. (2008b) ‘Conclusion: Embedding interest groups research’, West European Politics 31(6): 1292–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binderkrantz, A. (2005) ‘Interest group strategies: Navigating between privileged access and strategies of pressure’, Political Studies 53(4): 694–715.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binderkrantz, A. and Pedersen, H. H. (2016, this issue of European Political Science) ‘What is access? A discussion of the definition and measurement of interest group access’, European Political Science, doi: 10.1057/eps.2016.17.

  • Boräng, F., Eising, R., Klüver, H., Mahoney, C., Naurin, D., Rasch, D. and Rozbicka, P. (2014) ‘Measuring frames: A comparison of methodological alternatives’, Interest Groups & Advocacy 3(2): 188–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bouwen, P. and McCown, M. (2007) ‘Lobbying versus litigation: Political and legal strategies of interest representation in the European union’, Journal of European Public Policy 14(3): 422–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bunea, A. and Baumgartner, F. (2014) ‘The state of the discipline: Authorship, research designs, and citation patterns in studies of EU interest groups and lobbying’, Journal of European Public Policy 21(10): 1412–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bunea, A. and Ibenskas, R. (2016, this issue of European Political Science) ‘Estimating interest groups’ policy positions through content analysis: A discussion of automated and human-coding text analysis techniques applied to studies of EU lobbying’, European Political Science, doi: 10.1057/eps.2016.15.

  • Chalmers, A.W. (2011) ‘Interests, information and influence: Comparing the influence of interests groups in the European union’, Journal of European Integration 33(4): 471–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Figueiredo, J.M. and Richter, B.K. (2014) ‘Advancing the empirical research on lobbying’, Annual Review of Political Science 17: 163–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowding, K. (1996) Power, Buckingham: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dür, A. (2008) ‘Measuring interest group influence in the EU: A note on methodology’, European Union Politics 9(4): 559–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dür, A., Bernhagen, P. and Marshall, D. (2015) ‘Interest group success in the European union: When (and Why) does business lose?’ Comparative Political Studies 48(8): 951–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dür, A. and Mateo, G. (2014) ‘The Europeanization of interest groups: Group type, resources and policy area’, European Union Politics 15(4): 572–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eising, R. (2008) ‘Interest group in EU policymaking’, Living Reviews in European Governance 3(4): 7–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eising, R. and Spohr, F. (2015) The more, the merrier? Interest groups and legislative change in the public hearings of the German parliamentary committees. Presentation at the 6th ECPR Standing Group Summer School on Interest Groups, 20–28 July, Hamburg.

  • Eising, R., Rasch, D. and Rozbicka, P. (2015) ‘Institutions, policies, and arguments: Context and strategy in EU policy framing’, Journal of European Public Policy 22(4): 516–533.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gais, T.L. and Walker, J.L. (1991) ‘Pathways to Influence in American Politics’, in J.L. Walker (ed.) Mobilizing Interest Groups in America, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, pp. 103–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, V. and Lowery, D. (1996) The Population Ecology of Interest Representation: Lobbying Communities in the American States, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grimmer, J. and Stewart, B.M. (2013) ‘Text as data: The promise and pitfalls of automatic content analysis methods for political texts’, Political Analysis 21(3): 267–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halpin, D. and Jordan, G. (eds.) (2012) The Scale of Interest Organization in Democratic Politics, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hojnacki, M., Kimball, D.C., Baumgartner, F.R., Berry, J.M. and Leech, B.L. (2012) ‘Studying organizational advocacy and influence: Re-examining interest groups research’, Annual Review of Political Science 15(9): 1–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jordan, G., Darren, H. and Maloney, W. (2004) ‘Defining interests: Disambiguation and the need for new distinctions’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 6(2): 195–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, S. (2008) ‘Framing contests: Strategy making under uncertainty’, Organization Science 19(5): 729–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klüver, H. (2009) ‘Measuring interest group influence using quantitative text analysis’, European Union Politics 10(4): 535–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klüver, H., Braun, C. and Beyers, J. (2015) ‘Legislative lobbying in context: Towards a conceptual framework of interest group lobbying in the European union’, Journal of European Public Policy 22(4): 447–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klüver, H., Mahoney, C. and Opper, M. (2015) ‘Framing in context: How interest groups employ framing to lobby the European Commission’, Journal of European Public Policy 22(4): 481–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohler, B., Quittkat, C. and Kurczweska, U. (2013) ‘Interest intermediation in the European Union revisited: Report on a survey study’, Arbeitspapiere des Mannheimer Zentrums für Europäische Sozialforschung 151.

  • Krippendorff, K. (2013) Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology, 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA; London: SAGE Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latham, E. (1952) ‘The group basis of politics: Notes for a theory’, American Political Science Review 46(2): 376–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laver, M., Benoit, K. and Garry, J. (2003) ‘Estimating the policy positions of political actors using words as data’, American Political Science Review 97(2): 311–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lehmbruch, G. (1979) ‘Wandlungen der Interessenpolitik im liberalen Korporatismus’, in U. von Aleman and R.G. Heinze (eds.) Verbände und Staat, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 50–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lukes, S. (1974) Power: A Radical View, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mahoney, C. (2008) Brussels versus the Beltway: Advocacy in the United States and the European Union, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Majone, G. (1989) Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • March, J. (1955) ‘An introduction to the theory and measurement of influence’, American Political Science Review 49(2): 431–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salisbury, R.H. (1984) ‘Interest representation: The dominance of institutions’, American Political Science Review 78(1): 64–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sartori, G. (1976) Parties and Party Systems. A Framework for Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C. and Goodin, R.E. (2006) ‘It Depends’, in R.E. Goodin and C. Tilly (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vannoni, M. (2016, this issue of European Political Science) ‘Studying preference attainment using spatial models’, European Political Science, doi: 10.1057/eps.2016.13.

  • Varone, F., Ingold, K. and Jourdain, C. (2016, this issue of European Political Science) ‘Studying policy advocacy through social network analysis’, European Political Science, doi: 10.1057/eps.2016.16.

  • Voltolini, B. (2016, this issue of European Political Science) ‘Framing processes and lobbying in EU foreign policy: Case study and process tracing methods’, European Political Science, doi: 10.1057/eps.2016.18.

  • Wonka, A., Baumgartner, F.R., Mahoney, C. and Berkhout, J. (2010) ‘Measuring the size and scope of the EU interest group population’, European Union Politics 11(3): 463–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Helene Helboe Pedersen and the contributors to this special issue for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. Helene and the author are grateful to those colleagues who have taken on the task of peer reviewing the articles in this symposium. They would also like to express their gratitude to the authors and commentators who delivered their insightful draft articles impeccably. They are also thankful to the participants of the workshop on methodological aspects of interest group research at the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops in Salamanca in April 2014, which was the starting point for this symposium issue. Last not least, they would like to thank the European Political Science editorial team for their continued support. Research for this article has been funded by the German Science Foundation (grant EI 461/6-1) and the European Science Foundation (grant 10-ECRP-008).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Science, Ruhr-University Bochum, University St. 150, GC 04/146, Bochum, D-44801, Germany

    rainer eising

Authors
  1. rainer eising
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

eising, r. studying interest groups: methodological challenges and tools. Eur Polit Sci 16, 291–305 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2016.14

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2016.14

Keywords

Search

Navigation