Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The INTEREURO Project: Logic and structure

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Interest Groups & Advocacy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article outlines both the overall structure of the INTEREURO Project (Comparative Research on Interest Group Politics in Europe) and the theoretical foci, research activities and data sets generated by its several modules. We provide this description for two purposes. First, it provides a necessary backdrop for understanding the remaining essays in this special issue. Importantly, we do not believe that the methodological challenges we faced are unique to the INTEREURO Project. Rather, they characterize any large-N research project on interest representation. Thus, we hope that these articles based on the INTEREURO Project are useful to a broad range of scholars. Our second purpose is to describe for the wider community of interest organization scholars the INTEREURO Project and the data generated thereby.

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. Research by several of the core members of the project (teams from Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Sweden) was supported by their national science foundations under a European Science Foundation grant (10-ECRP-008). National, regional or university funding supports the research of three other teams – from the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain. The identification of the team leaders and their sources of research support are noted below in the discussion of the individual research modules.

  2. Note that this number is slightly different from the strategies module.

References

  • 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, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Berkhout, J. and Lowery, D. (2008) Counting organized interests in the E.U.: A comparison of data sources. Journal of European Public Policy 15 (4): 489–513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernhagen, P. (2007) The Political Power of Business: Structure and Information in Public Policymaking. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernhagen, P., Dür, A. and Marshall, D. (2014) Measuring interest group success spatially. Interest Groups & Advocacy: 202–218.

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

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beyers, J. (2008) Policy issues, organisational format and the political strategies of interest organizations. West European Politics 31 (6): 1188–1211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beyers, J., Dür, A., Marshall, D. and Wonka, A. (2014) Policy-centred sampling in interest group research: Lessons from the INTEREURO Project. Interest Groups & Advocacy 3 (2): 160–173.

    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 

  • Campbell, J.L. (1998) Institutional analysis and the role of ideas in political economy. Theory and Society 27 (1): 377–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Druckman, J.N. (2001) On the limits of framing effects: Who can frame? Journal of Politics 63 (4): 1041–1066.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dür, A. (2008) Interest groups in the European Union: How powerful are they? West European Politics 31 (6): 1212–1230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dür, A., Bernhagen, P. and Marshall, D. (2014) Interest Group Success in the European Union: When (and Why) Does Business Lose? Unpublished paper.

  • Entman, R.M. (1993) Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication. 43 (4): 51–58.

    Article  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 

  • Jordan, G. and Maloney, W.A. (1997) The Protest Business: Mobilizing Campaign Groups. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jordan, G. and Maloney, W.A. (2007) Democracy and Interest Groups: Enhancing Participation? Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kohler-Koch, B. (2012) Post-Maastricht civil society and participatory democracy. Journal of European Integration 34 (7): 809–824.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohler-Koch, B. and Buth, V. (2009) Civil Society in EU Governance – Lobby Groups like any Other? (TranState Working Papers, 108) Bremen, Germany: Sfb 597 ‘Staatlichkeit im Wandel’.

  • Kohler-Koch, B., Quittkat, C. and Buth, V. (2009) Civil society organizations under the impact of the European commission’s consultation regime. Paper presented at the Connex Final Conference; 7–8 March, Mannheim, Germany.

  • Kriesi, H., Tresch, A. and Jochum, M. (2007) Going public in the European Union. Action repertoires of western European collective political actors. Comparative Political Studies 40 (1): 48–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowery, D. and Gray, V. (2004) A neopluralist perspective on research on organized interests. Political Research Quarterly 57 (1): 163–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowi, T. (1964) American business, public policy, case studies and political theory. World Politics 16 (4): 677–715.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Michels, R. (1959 [1911]) Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Dover.

    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 

  • Schmitter, P.C. and Streeck, W. (1999) The organization of business interests. Studying the associative action of business in advanced industrial democracies. Köln, Germany: Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung.

  • Smith, M.A. (2000) American business and political power. Public Opinion, Elections and Democracy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wilts, A. and Quittkat, C. (2004) Corporate interests and public affairs: Organised business-government relations in EU member states. Journal of Public Affairs 4 (2): 213–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research 461-10-519 and Research Fund-Flenders G.A. 171-11N.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, ACIM – Antwerp Centre for Institutions and Multilevel Politics, Universiteit Antwerpen, Sint Jacobstraat 2, Antwerp, BE-2000, Belgium

    Jan Beyers

  2. Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 690, 08034, Barcelona, Spain

    Laura Chaqués Bonafont

  3. Department of Political Science and Sociology, University of Salzburg, Rudolfskai 42, Salzburg, 5020, Austria

    Andreas Dür

  4. Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, D-44801, Universitätsstrasse 150, Germany

    Rainer Eising

  5. University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva ploščad 5, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Danica Fink-Hafner

  6. Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16803, USA

    David Lowery

  7. Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics, Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy, University of Virginia, 109 Garrett Hall, Charlottesville, 22904, USA

    Christine Mahoney

  8. School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    William Maloney

  9. Department of Political Science, Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg, Box 711, Gothenburg, 405 30, Sweden

    Daniel Naurin

Authors
  1. Jan Beyers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Laura Chaqués Bonafont
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Andreas Dür
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Rainer Eising
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Danica Fink-Hafner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. David Lowery
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Christine Mahoney
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. William Maloney
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Daniel Naurin
    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

Beyers, J., Bonafont, L., Dür, A. et al. The INTEREURO Project: Logic and structure. Int Groups Adv 3, 126–140 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/iga.2014.8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/iga.2014.8

Keywords

Search

Navigation