Bringing the middleman back in: EU umbrella organizations and interest group access in the European Union
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Bringing the middleman back in: EU umbrella organizations and interest group access in the European Union Marcel Hanegraaff1 · Jens van der Ploeg1,2 Accepted: 4 September 2020 © Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract Over the past decade, we have seen a sharp increase in studies focusing on the activities of national interest groups in the European Union. One important question relates to the access that these national groups gain to European policymakers. Building on this literature, we innovatively explore differences in access to European policymakers between national groups that are members of EU umbrella associations and organizations that are not members of EU umbrellas. To study this, we rely on survey data of more than 1600 national interest groups active in the EU. The results indicate that organizations which are members of umbrella organizations gain more access to European policymakers. Furthermore, we demonstrate that financial resources and professionalization, common determinants of access, only have an effect on access for organizations that are members of umbrella associations. These findings highlight the importance of umbrella organizations for EU lobbying. Keywords Interest groups · Umbrella organizations · Lobbying · Access · European Union
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1057/s4129 5-020-00220-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Marcel Hanegraaff [email protected] Jens van der Ploeg https://www.linkedin.com/in/jens-van-der-ploeg-8a0ba2ba/ 1
Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 19268, 1000 GG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2
Present Address: Netherlands Court of Audit, The Hague, The Netherlands
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M. Hanegraaff, J. van der Ploeg
Introduction Over the past decade, we have seen a sharp increase in studies focusing on the activities of national interest groups in the European Union, which is not surprising given its explicit multilevel structure (e.g., Berkhout and Lowery 2010; De Bruycker 2016; Beyers 2004; Kriesi et al. 2007; Beyers and Kerremans 2012; Klüver 2010; Dür and Mateo 2012; Eising et al. 2017; Berkhout et al. 2017; Hanegraaff and Berkhout 2018). Such national interest groups organize at the national level and represent constituencies from within one country, rather than across countries, for example, the Royal Belgian Association of the Chocolate, Praline, Biscuit and Candies Industry. One important question in this now burgeoning literature is the access that these national groups gain to European policymakers. This is an important question because gaining access is crucial for interest groups. Groups cannot exercise power without gaining access to relevant decision-makers in government, so which groups gain more access is a first indication of their influence (Truman 1951; Bouwen 2004; Dür and Mateo 2016). To explain the access national interest groups gain to EU institutions, we provide a novel argument. Former researc
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