SYMPOSIUM

framing processes and lobbying

in eu foreign policy: case study
and process-tracing methods
benedetta voltolini
Centre d’études européennes, Sciences Po, 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, Paris Cedex 07
75337, France
E-mail: benedetta.voltolini@sciencespo.fr

doi:10.1057/eps.2016.18; published online 27 May 2016

Abstract
This article discusses the potential of case study and process-tracing
methods for studying lobbying and framing in the European Union (EU). It
argues that case studies and process tracing allow us to explore different
sets of questions than large-N and quantitative approaches and to shed
light on the mechanisms that contribute to policy change. Through these
methods it is possible to study long-term processes and under-researched
areas, to analyse the social construction of frames and to single out the
conditions that lead to successful framing. In order to show the advantages
of case studies and process tracing, illustrative examples drawn from the
case study of EU foreign policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are
provided.

Keywords framing; case study; process tracing; lobbying; EU foreign

policy

he literature on European Union which is reflected in the topics of research

T (EU) lobbying has blossomed over

the past two decades, increasingly
converging towards the long-standing tra-
dition of the United States (US) (e.g. Coen,
2007; Coen and Richardson, 2009;
Greenwood, 2003). This has led to a
‘fusion of US and EU interest group studies’
(Baumgartner and Mahoney, 2008: 1255),
354
as well as in the predominant theore-
tical and methodological approaches
adopted in these two sets of literature.
Theoretically, rationalist perspectives
tend to dominate the research on interest
groups in the EU. Lobbying is conceived as
a strategic relationship through which
non-state actors exchange certain goods,
european political science: 16 2017

(354 – 368) © 2016 European Consortium for Political Research. 1680- 4333/17 www.palgrave.com/journals
mainly information, with policymakers in
order to have access to the policy-making
process (e.g. Bouwen, 2004; Binderkrantz
and Pedersen, 2016). From this stand-
point, scholars investigate a variety of
topics ranging from, for example, access
to EU institutions (Bouwen, 2004) to lob-
bying strategies (Beyers, 2004; Bouwen
and McCown, 2007) and interest groups’
influence on policymaking (Dür, 2008;
Klüver, 2013). In line with this perspective,
framing, which has recently gained atten-
tion by interest group scholars, is con-
ceived as a spinning strategy used by
interest groups to shape the debate sur-
rounding a policy issue with the aim of
influencing policy outcomes towards their
preferred direction (Boräng et al, 2014;
Eising et al, 2015; Klüver and Mahoney,
2015).
Methodologically, the convergence bet-
ween the EU and US research agendas is
mirrored in the increasing number of large-
N studies and quantitative approaches
aimed at law-like generalisations (Beyers
et al, 2014; Klüver, 2013; Eising, 2016),
with a view to shifting from descriptive and
exploratory research to confirmatory the-
ory-testing (Beyers et al, 2008; Coen,
2007). Although the majority of works
between 1957 and 2013 employed case
study research design, after 2007 there
has been a significant increase in the per-
centage of inferential and statistical ana-
lyses (Bunea and Baumgartner, 2014).
While this trend clearly has the potential to
deliver new and important insights into the
study of EU lobbying, large-N studies and
statistical analyses also face some draw-
backs. Importantly, they do not shed light
on lobbying as a process, the causal
mechanisms behind successful lobbying
and the social construction of frames.
This article thus brings the attention
back to process tracing and case studies
and argues that these methods, which
have been largely used in past research
on lobbying, can still crucially contribute
to knowledge-building in interest group
‘…process tracing and
case studies offer
appropriate instruments
for investigating framing
as a process of knowledge
and meaning construction
that occurs through social
interactions between
policymakers and non-
state actors, focusing on
how frames evolve and
travel’.
research. More specifically, there are
important benefits that accrue from the
use of these methods. To start with, case
studies allow for the in-depth investiga-
tion of a phenomenon and, combined with
process tracing, for the analysis of long-
term processes of change. In particular, it
is possible to investigate the evolution of
frames over time and to observe the
impact of lobbying and framing not only
on single policy issues, but on the broader
frames shaping EU policies in the long run
(e.g. key frames that drive EU foreign
policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian con-
flict). Second, these methods are suited
for analysis in under-researched areas and
in policy domains in which it is more diffi-
cult to collect and standardise data, as well
as build reliable data sets for quantitative
approaches. For example, EU foreign pol-
icy is a domain in which many documents
are not publicly available, the type of docu-
ments used to investigate frames varies
substantially from issue to issue (e.g. dip-
lomatic demarches, Council conclusions,
cooperation agreements, etc.) and much
‘behind-the-scene’ lobbying takes place
(e.g. limited use of consultation proce-
dures). As a third advantage, process tra-
cing and case studies offer appropriate
instruments for investigating framing as
a process of knowledge and meaning
benedetta voltolini european political science: 16 2017 355
 construction that occurs through social
interactions between policymakers and
non-state actors, focusing on how frames
evolve and travel.1 Finally, case studies
and process tracing allow the researcher
to single out the conditions for successful
framing, looking at causal mechanisms
instead of frequencies of occurrence and/
or preference attainment.2
This article is structured as follows.
It first discusses the merits of case studies
and process tracing in the research on
EU lobbying.3 Examples from a case study
of lobbying and framing in relation to
EU foreign policy towards the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict, for which extensive
research was conducted between 2009
and 2013, are used to illustrate the differ-
ent points made throughout the text, but
they do not represent a fully fledged ana-
lysis, which is beyond the scope of this
article. Second, these methods are dis-
cussed in terms of validity and reliability.
Finally, the conclusions present some
reflections on the use of case studies and
process tracing, and on the complemen-
tarity of qualitative and quantitative
methods to enrich our knowledge of
lobbying.
LOBBYING AND FRAMING IN
THE EU: THE CONTRIBUTION
OF CASE STUDIES AND
PROCESS TRACING
CASE STUDIES AND PROCESS
TRACING
Case studies and process tracing have
long dominated research on EU lobbying,
but their use has started to decrease since
2007, when quantitative/inferential ana-
lysis saw a significant increase (cf. Bunea
and Baumgartner, 2014). This shift in the
methods used to investigate lobbying in
the EU is also reflected in the analysis of
framing, predominantly conceived as a
strategy that non-state actors employ to
356 european political science: 16 2017 framing processes and lobbying in EU foreign policy
highlight certain features of an issue in
order to shift the policy process in the
direction that would contribute to meeting
interest groups’ demands and interests.4
Framing in the context of EU lobbying has
mainly been studied through quantitative
methods or a combination of qualitative
and quantitative analyses with a view to
quantifying the influence of interest
groups and how their proposed frames
are reflected in the final policy outcome,
to identifying the determinants of suc-
cessful framing and to explaining varia-
tion across frames.5
This clearly emerges in the work of
Klüver (2009) and Klüver and Mahoney
(2015), who rely on computer-assisted
quantitative content analysis to research
how interest groups employ framing stra-
tegies to achieve their policy objectives.
With the help of software packages such
as T-LAB and Wordfish, they identify the
frames used by interest groups and the
dimensions that characterise a policy
debate with the aim of measuring the
success of interest groups’ frames. The
underlying idea is to identify the frames
by measuring the frequencies and co-
occurrence of words in the texts sub-
mitted by interest groups in the consulta-
tions promoted by the Commission and to
then identify how different frames are
positioned in relation to the dimensions
that characterise the policy discussion
(see also Bunea and Ibenskas, 2016).
These types of quantitative analysis,
combined with the use of software
packages, allow for the analysis of a large
amount of documents, but they also face
several limits, including the fact that they
can only identify manifest meaning and
frequencies of word, and cannot account
for informal and behind-the-scene lobby-
ing.6 Similarly, Eising et al (2015) iden-
tify frames with the help of the MAXQDA
software and then translate their quali-
tative data into quantitative data for
statistical analysis, arguing that the
institutional and policy context influences
the types of frames used by interest
groups. While they identify latent and
contextual meanings, this analysis
remains, like most quantitative analyses,
rather ‘static’, as the frames are taken as
fixed and their success is often measured
by matching them with the final legisla-
tive proposal.7
While these approaches aim at
standardising the analysis of framing
processes to ensure greater generalisa-
bility, validity and reliability, they are
less suited to answer questions concern-
ing, for example, the evolution and con-
struction of frames. As highlighted
above, case studies and process tracing
can help us shed light on these issues
and can offer complementary findings to
those of quantitative approaches. To
start with, case studies and process tra-
cing are particularly relevant when
investigating lobbying and framing in
policy areas that are still under-
researched and in which the collection
and quantification of data is not easily
achieved, so that large-N and statistical
analyses are quite difficult to conduct.
For example, policymaking in EU foreign
policy does not always translate into
legislation that follows a clear legislative
process (e.g. the EU’s ordinary legisla-
tive procedure), but can be charac-
terised by declarations and diplomatic
positions, agreements with third coun-
tries and/or documents that are not
publicly available (e.g. exchanges of let-
ters). It is thus very unlikely to be able to
find publicly available texts to trace
legislation from the draft proposal to
the final document and, even in those
cases, there is often no consultation
that provides sufficient interest group
documents to be analysed through
quantitative content analysis. The
extent to which different institutions
(e.g. European Parliament) are involved
also varies according to the issue dis-
cussed. The limited number of public
consultations, the more secretive nature
‘Case study research
provides rich and thick
descriptions and
analyses of the
phenomenon that is
studied, offering a
thorough understanding
of the factors and the
context leading to a
certain outcome’.
of documents and the common usage of
informal channels of lobbying thus make
data collection very complex such that it
is more difficult to standardise data and
build reliable data sets.
In contrast, case studies provide an
important tool to delve into the intricacies
of this policy area thanks to their more
in-depth focus and understanding of
the phenomenon at stake. Case study
research provides rich and thick descrip-
tions and analyses of the phenomenon
that is studied, offering a thorough under-
standing of the factors and the context
leading to a certain outcome (Gerring,
2007; Yin, 2003). In interest group
research, a case study approach makes it
possible to identify all relevant factors
that explain how non-state actors inter-
vene in the policy-making process, how
they lobby the EU and national institu-
tions, and how framing processes work.
Case study research has often been
combined with process tracing, that is,
‘the analysis of evidence on processes,
sequences and conjunctures of events
within a case for the purposes of either
developing or testing hypotheses about
causal mechanisms that might causally
explain the case’ (Bennett and Checkel,
2014: 7). By identifying the intermediate
steps between the supposed cause and
the effect, process tracing helps to check
benedetta voltolini european political science: 16 2017 357
 that the connection between the theoreti-
cally expected patterns and the data is
consistent and really in place (Checkel,
2008). In particular, this method rests on
a mechanismic and deterministic under-
standing of causality (there is a mechan-
ism that links A and B, and the co-variance
of variables is entirely explained) (Beach
and Pedersen, 2013). Instead of looking
for correlations, whereby the mechanism
is black-boxed, process tracing relies on
assessing the presence or absence of a
specific mechanism and uses what Collier
et al (2010) label causal process observa-
tions, that is, various pieces of informa-
tion that allow for an assessment of the
causal role of a certain factor. Process
tracing can thus be used to reconstruct
‘the story’ behind what we research, to
analyse long-term processes and to offer
an analytical explanation of the phenom-
enon under investigation. Regardless of
the type of process tracing we conduct –
theory-building, theory-testing or explain
outcome (cf. Beach and Pedersen, 2013)
– the goal is to provide a clear under-
standing of the causal mechanism that is
behind what we observe.
Case studies and process tracing are
therefore particularly suitable for investi-
gating the social construction of frames.
In a constructivist perspective, framing is
conceived as a social process during
which actors’ preferences are formed and
changed in discursive situations, and the
outcomes of this process reflect intersub-
jective interpretations and agreements of
meanings (Payne, 2001). Process tracing
help us to
identify and study complex […] agent-
structure relations [and to provide] a
way of studying not only the proposed
theoretical concepts and of testing
research hypotheses, but also of study-
ing ideational factors, the evolution of
social phenomena, and the influence of
these phenomena on actors’ behaviour.
(Lupovici, 2009: 202)8
358 european political science: 16 2017 framing processes and lobbying in EU foreign policy
A CASE STUDY OF EU FOREIGN
POLICYMAKING
The case study of lobbying in EU foreign
policy towards the Israel–Palestinian con-
flict is illustrative in this sense, as it shows
that there was a shift in the frame that
informs EU foreign policy towards Israel
over the decades. Process tracing made it
possible to reconstruct this process of re-
framing and to show the important role
that a Palestinian NGO called the MATTIN
Group played in the process (cf. Voltolini,
2015). First, process tracing served to
identify all the events and critical junc-
tures as well as the ways in which the
relationship among EU institutions and
non-state actors developed. Second, it
was used to investigate the social con-
struction of frames, how meaning was
attributed through social interactions that
allowed people to make sense of reality,
and the processes that led to the emer-
gence, codification and translation of new
frames into actual policies. Third, on the
basis of inductive and deductive forms of
process tracing (cf. Bennett and Checkel,
2014), it was also possible to identify an
ideational mechanism at stake. A new
frame of EU foreign policy emerged when
non-state actors and policymakers inter-
acted on a frequent, cooperative basis
and developed a common understanding
of the situation at hand through reciprocal
persuasion and deliberation.
In the past, the EU had constructed and
interpreted its relations with Israel in poli-
tical terms. Owing to historical guilt, eco-
nomic interests and the fear of being
marginalised from the Middle East Peace
Process, the EU preferred not to exert any
leverage on Israel and to maintain good
economic relations. Recently, this domi-
nant political frame has been replaced by
a new understanding of EU–Israel bilat-
eral relations. These are now defined
according to a legal frame, based on the
idea that the EU should construct its
relations and implement its bilateral
agreements with Israel in accordance with
its own law and its commitments under
international law and human rights law.
The EU wants to ensure that the ‘territorial
scope’ of EU–Israel agreements (i.e. the
territorial extent to which agreements are
applicable) is correctly defined and agree-
ments are implemented accordingly.
Starting in the late 1980s, the MATTIN
Group drew the attention of EU and
national officials to the fact that Israel
applied its bilateral agreements with the
EU to the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPTs) as well, although this was against
the EU’s position on these areas that are
considered as occupied land. Initially, the
MATTIN Group’s lobbying focused on
Israeli exports to the EU of goods from
Israeli settlements in the OPTs as if they
had been produced in Israel. This allowed
Israel to benefit from the preferential
treatment that was granted under the
EU–Israel Association Agreement. By
showing that certain goods were not pro-
duced in Israel as internationally defined,
the MATTIN Group highlighted that this
practice created a situation in which the
EU risked violating its own legislation as
well as its commitments under interna-
tional law and human rights law. The
frame proposed suggested that the EU
reworded its agreements with Israel so
that the territorial scope of these agree-
ments clearly excluded the OPTs. The
MATTIN Group discussed it in meetings
with numerous policymakers at both the
EU and national levels. On these occa-
sions, the NGO offered legal explanations
of the issue at hand, provided empirical
evidence of supposed violations of EU law
and supplied, for example, Members of
the European Parliament (MEPs) and
Members of National Parliaments with
questions to the Commission and their
respective governments on the topic.9
While reconstructing the story and the
process behind this case, it was possible
to see that the NGO met with or sent
documents to EU and national officials on
a regular and frequent basis, confronting
policymakers with its legal argument,
managing to build a strong reputation for
itself and establishing strong links with
various officials and politicians.10 Over
the decades, the MATTIN Group continued
to confront EU institutions and member
states with the idea that EU–Israel rela-
tions needed to be changed because of
their legal flaws and proposed this legal
frame in relation to all EU–Israeli bilateral
agreements (cf. Voltolini, 2016).
The process of re-framing EU–Israel
relations took place over several years.
Until the late 2000s the EU mainly found
temporary solutions to this problem, still
clinging to the political frame. The latter
only began to be openly questioned in the
European Parliament during the legisla-
tive procedure on the EU–Israel Agree-
ment on Conformity Assessment and
Acceptance (ACAA) of industrial products
in the pharmaceutical sector in 2012,
when the new legal frame made its
appearance in the parliamentary debate.
MEP Veronique De Keyser, with whom the
MATTIN Group was frequently in touch,
raised the issue of the territorial scope of
the agreement in the Working Document
that she presented in the European Parlia-
ment’s Committee on Foreign Affairs
(AFET), arguing that ‘a legal interpreta-
tion of certain articles of the Protocol
might allow Israel to implement the Pro-
tocol on the basis of its national law defin-
ing the territorial scope of its domestic
market, in other words including the terri-
tories occupied since 1967 not under
Palestinian economic administration’ (De
Keyser, 2012).11 This legal frame received
its final blessings in the Conclusions of
December 2012, in which the Council:
expresse[d] its commitment to ensure
that – in line with international law – all
agreements between the State of Israel
and the European Union must unequi-
vocally and explicitly indicate their inap-
plicability to the territories occupied by
benedetta voltolini european political science: 16 2017 359
 Israel in 1967, namely the Golan
Heights, the West Bank including East
Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. (Council
of the European Union, 2012)
Finally, the clearest expression of this
new legal frame in EU foreign policy is
offered by the Guidelines published in July
2013, which indicate how the Commission
executes the budget and implements EU
legislation on programmes, thus ensuring
an implementation that is consistent with
EU law and its commitment and obliga-
tions under international law. Israeli set-
tlements are explicitly excluded from
funding, prizes and grants given by the
EU under the 2014–2020 budget. This
new frame emerged through constant
interactions between the MATTIN Group
and EU/national policymakers who
reached a common understanding of the
existence of a problem in the definition of
EU–Israeli relations. This led to a redefini-
tion of the frame through which EU–Israel
bilateral relations are constructed.12
Through process tracing and case stu-
dies, it was also possible to single out
additional conditions for successful fram-
ing. Not only are frequent and cooperative
interactions crucial (as they can lead to
the construction of a shared understand-
ing of the situation at stake), but the
features of frames also play a role. While
the example above shows a long evolu-
tionary pattern that led to the re-framing
of EU–Israeli relations, it is also possible
to zoom-in on specific policy issues and
see which frames are more successful in
precise instances. This implies a compar-
ison of the different frames used by non-
state actors, as well as an investigation of
the ways in which they relate to EU and
national policymakers. In the case of EU
policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict, documents and interviews were
initially analysed with an inductive
approach, as the aim was to understand
how different actors perceived the issue at
stake.13 The components of the frames
360 european political science: 16 2017 framing processes and lobbying in EU foreign policy
were then refined by using the insights
from the literature on social movements
and on the EU. Recurrent words, refer-
ences to specific linguistic domains (e.g.
international law, accountability, anti-
Semitism), mentions of key values or
principles (e.g. the idea of free trade),
the presence of empirical details such as
figures or articles of legislation, ideas
of good/bad (expressed in the form of
ameliorative/pejorative words) or win-
ner/loser (if the discourse conveys the
sense of a zero-sum game, terms/sen-
tences referring to juxtaposition) were
identified. This inductive approach made
it possible to identify new elements that
had not been thought of in the beginning
and to investigate the latent – and not just
the manifest – content (cf. Halperin and
Heath, 2012; Koenig, 2006). In particular,
research showed that not only are fre-
quent and cooperative relations between
non-state actors and policymakers impor-
tant, but frames characterised by techni-
cal or legal nature, strong empirical
credibility, references to the core princi-
ples, values and interests of the EU, and
prognostic and diagnostic elements, that
is, an understanding of the problem and a
possible solution (Snow et al, 1986), have
more chances to success. For example, in
the case of the ACAA the MATTIN Group
proposed a legal frame, which was sup-
ported by empirical evidence and legal
explanations about the nature of the pro-
blem. It also made precise references to
the core principle of the EU as far as the
respect of its legal commitments and its
normative stance is concerned, and
offered a solution to the problem, namely
the re-drafting of one article of the agree-
ment. In contrast, other NGOs used
frames with a more political nature that
did not lead to much success. For instance,
the European Coordination Committee for
Palestine used a political frame calling for
the rejection of the agreement. The EU had
to ensure the coherence and consistency
of its policies, contrasting it with the ‘bad’
policies of Israel in the occupied territories
and making leverage on moral imperatives
for the EU (European Voice, 2012). There
was a strong reference to the idea of
‘good/bad’ and ‘right/wrong’, but neither
prognostic/diagnostic elements nor strong
empirical evidence were provided in rela-
tion to the frame.14
CASE SELECTION, VALIDITY
AND RELIABILITY OF
PROCESS TRACING AND
CASE STUDIES
Process tracing and case studies have,
like all other methods, limits and draw-
backs. Case selection is an issue of criti-
cism, especially in relation to external
validity (i.e. generalisability). No shared
rules exist on how to select the cases, as
the debate in the literature on case study
research shows. For example, Gerring
(2007) proposes a ‘regression logic’ in
the choice of the cases, discusses them in
terms of their representativeness and
treats them as ‘samples’ of a broader
class of phenomena. In contrast, Goertz
(2008) and Mahoney and Goertz (2006)
argue that a qualitative approach to case
selection looks at cases where the out-
comes we aim to study is present. Given
that the debate is still ongoing (cf. Bennett
and Elman, 2007; Freedman, 2008;
George and Bennett, 2005; Yin, 2003),
two issues are to be considered when
conducting case study research. First, it
is crucial to be clear about the approach
used, justifying why certain cases have
been selected and of which phenomenon
they are an instance. Second, contingent
generalisations, that is, limited to a subset
of cases and within specific time, contex-
tual and cultural limitations, are the
results of case study research. Although
Yin (2003: 10) argues that ‘case studies,
like experiments, are generalisable to
theoretical propositions and not to popu-
lations or universes. [… The] goal will be
to expand and generalise theories (analy-
tical generalisation) and not to enumerate
frequencies (statistical generalisations)’,
others are more cautious and argue
that case studies are good at refining
contingent generalisations (George and
Bennett, 2005; Lupovici, 2009; Mahoney
and Goertz, 2006). For example, the
research presented in this article on the
case of EU foreign policy towards the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict represents an
exploratory case study of an area (EU
foreign policy), where we find limited
research on the role of non-state actors
in the policy-making process. The Israeli–
Palestinian conflict has been a very central
issue on the EU’s agenda since the estab-
lishment of the European Political Coop-
eration in the 1970s and member states
share a common position towards it based
on the two state-solution and respect for
international law. This case also belongs
to the broader set of cases of EU foreign
policy towards conflicts and disputed/
occupied territories in the neighbour-
hood,15 thus defining the scope of the
generalisations that we can derive from
this case.
While process tracing and case studies
do not lead to law-like generalisations and
scholars need to be clear when general-
ising their findings, these methods score
much better in terms of internal and eco-
logical validity. As for the latter, this is
determined by the rich and detailed con-
textualisation offered by case studies
(Mills et al, 2010). In terms of internal
validity, the possibility of within-case cau-
sal inference is now widely recognised
and, in the words of Kittel and Kuehn
(2013: 2), ‘contrary to statistical analyses
[process tracing] allows the identification
of causal mechanisms and proximate cau-
sal relationships, and thus does not fall
prey to the correlation-causation fallacy’.
In the study of EU foreign policy towards
the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, within-
case variance was included in the
research by focusing on some specific
benedetta voltolini european political science: 16 2017 361
 policy issues. Following Mahoney’s (2008)
approach, non-state actors and policy-
makers were asked about the issues on
which interest groups tried to influence EU
policies, leading to the decision to focus
on the lobbying and framing patterns in
three specific policy issues (i.e. trade of
goods from the settlements, the Gold-
stone Report and the Agreement on Con-
formity Assessment and Acceptance),16
highlighting the factors and mechanisms
that accounted for the different roles
played by non-state actors in the
process.17
Reliability in the form of internal consis-
tency can be ensured by relying on trian-
gulation, using multiple sources, multiple
data types and different methods
(Bryman, 2004; Mills et al, 2010). In the
case of lobbying in EU foreign policy, there
are often challenges to the researcher in
relation to the access to documents and
interviewees. For example, many EU
documents or lobbying materials are not
publicly available. At the same time, not
all potential interviewees are easily
approachable or willing to share their
knowledge (see also Binderkrantz and
Pedersen, 2016), and there are always
problems of objective truth and dishonest
respondents (Morris, 2009). To obviate
these problems, for the study on EU
foreign policy towards the Israeli–Palesti-
nian conflict different types of data (e.g.
public documents, debate transcripts,
emails, etc.), different sources (inter-
views were conducted with 109 people,
representing both non-state actors and
policymakers/officials from EU institu-
tions and member states) and different
methods were combined (e.g. interviews,
process tracing and document analysis).
It was thus possible to cross-check infor-
mation and to have a comprehensive
picture that allowed to reconstruct the
story, as well as to understand the views
of the actors involved, how lobbying
works and how frames are constructed
and codified.
362 european political science: 16 2017 framing processes and lobbying in EU foreign policy
‘…these methods offer
significant advantages to
investigate what role
non-state actors play in
EU policymaking and how
framing processes work,
as they shed light on the
causal mechanisms that
lie behind what we
observe’.
CONCLUSIONS
This article reflected on the use of process
tracing and case studies in research on
framing and lobbying, especially in cases
of underexplored policy areas such as EU
foreign policy. By using examples from
research on lobbying and framing in EU
foreign policy towards the Israeli–Palesti-
nian conflict, this article argued that these
methods offer significant advantages to
investigate what role non-state actors
play in EU policymaking and how framing
processes work, as they shed light on the
causal mechanisms that lie behind what
we observe (instead of correlation/co-
variance). They also allow the researcher
to focus on the evolution of frames over
long periods of time and to understand the
dynamics of the framing processes. The
interest of this type of research is there-
fore on the process that leads to change
and on how social interactions between
non-state actors and EU/national policy-
makers lead to the social construction of
new frames.
While these methods allow for a clear
understanding of the causal mechanisms
and for a thorough explanation of the
dynamics of framing processes, their find-
ings are not generalisable to the entire
population of interest groups. Speaking
of contingent generalisation, limited in
time, space and in relation to the context
is therefore more appropriate. Although
this can be seen as a drawback, this
approach provides clear proximate causal
relationships that, despite being limited in
their scope, are generally robust because
of the level of knowledge of the cases and
of detail in the analysis.
In conclusion, case studies and process
tracing still have an important role to play
in the research on lobbying and framing.
Because of their different focus and their
suitability in shedding light on mechan-
isms and processes, they can enrich our
understanding of lobbying and framing.
Given the different types of questions that
qualitative and quantitative research
often ask, quantitative and qualitative
studies are thus complementary. A move
towards mixed methods approaches and
the complementary use of quantitative
and qualitative approaches could defi-
nitely lead to richer and more detailed
explanations of lobbying and framing.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Rainer
Eising, Helene Helboe Pedersen, the par-
ticipants of the 2014 ECPR Joint Sessions
Workshop in Methodological Challenges
and Contradictory Results in the Study of
Interest Groups in Salamanca and the
anonymous reviewers for their feedback
on previous versions of this article.

Notes

1 This is in line with a constructivist approach according to which lobbying is conceived as being a
constitutive and communicative relationship through which the actors define their preferences, identities
and understanding of the situation at stake.
2 Case studies and process tracing are also relevant in mixed-methods research designs and for
triangulation purposes, but this aspect is not discussed in this article.
3 Although the article focuses on EU lobbying, the methodological conclusions are applicable to other
contexts. The focus on EU lobbying also provides a clearer context for the empirical evidence used to
illustrate the methodological discussion. On the US context, see Thomas (2004).
4 Recent studies on framing in EU lobbying adopt the definition by Entman (1993) and highlight the
‘spinning’ element that framing entails (e.g. Klüver et al, 2015; Eising et al, 2015).
5 Causality is conceived in a frequentist logic, which views patterns of regular associations in probabilistic
terms (King et al, 1994).
6 For a critical discussion of quantitative content analyses, see also Bunea and Ibenskas (2015, 2016).
7 In the words of Kaplan (2008: 746), ‘the frames we observe empirically, particularly for quantitative
studies, are static depictions that are an artifice required for analysis but do not capture the dynamics of
the actual framing process’. The temporal dimension of these works relates to the legislative process, that
is, the fact that legislation moves from a draft to a final proposal and then an adopted text. However, the
focus is on specific ‘snapshots’ of the process: the frames proposed by interest groups do not change,
there is no consideration for their evolution over time (and how they have been received by institutions)
and the dynamic process of framing remains black-boxed.
8 For similar arguments, see also Vennesson (2008) and Bennett and Checkel (2014). This differs from
the study by Boräng et al (2014), whose aim was to identify frames as strategic tools that can be used to
influence policies by highlighting one aspect over another of a policy issue. Frames were here viewed as
‘static’, that is, they did not change during the lobbying process and interactions among actors did not play
a role in their analysis (cf. Kaplan, 2008).
9 Interviews with EU officials, Brussels, February–March 2011.
10 Interviews with EU and national representatives, Brussels and some member states’ capitals,
February 2011–March 2013. Regarding the strength and frequency of contacts see also Varone et al
(2016).
11 This part of the Working Paper refers to the argument made by the MATTIN Group. The documents
seen by courtesy of the MATTIN Group cannot be reproduced here.
12 For a detailed explanation, see Voltolini (2015).

benedetta voltolini european political science: 16 2017 363

 13 Interviews were not recorded, as most respondents refused to be recorded or did not feel at ease
knowing that the interview was recorded. The topic investigated is quite sensitive: Israel/Palestine has
always been a delicate issue and lobbying/advocacy is also covered by some secrecy. Notes were taken
during the interview and typed after each interview.
14 For details, see Voltolini (2016).
15 See Tocci’s (2007) work on EU and conflicts in the neighbourhood. Despite some differences across
these cases, the institutional context of EU foreign policy is the same for all of them.
16 This approach leaves out the non-decisions (Bachrach and Baratz, 1970), but this problem is not specific
to case study research or qualitative methods. Quantitative methods also suffer from this problem, with the
addition that these methods have even less chances to discover non-visible issues (cf. Klüver, 2013).
17 For a detailed account of these cases, see Voltolini (2016).

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About the Author

Benedetta Voltolini is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Centre d’études
européennes, Sciences Po. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London
School of Economics and Political Science. Before joining Sciences Po, she was Lecturer in
International Relations at Maastricht University. Her research interests include lobbying in EU
foreign policy, the Arab–Israeli conflict, EU external policies towards the Middle East and
North Africa, and processes of framing and knowledge construction.

366 european political science: 16 2017 framing processes and lobbying in EU foreign policy
comment on – framing
processes and lobbying in eu
foreign policy: case study and
process-tracing methods
rainer eising
Department of Social Science, Ruhr-University Bochum, University St. 150, GC 04/146,
Bochum D-44801, Germany
raming can play a crucial role in
F public policy debates. In public pol-
icymaking, actors employ frames to
highlight selected aspects of issues and
contribute to the emergence of intersub-
jective understandings of that issue.
In their effort to account for policy out-
comes, interest group scholars took
frames and framing processes more sys-
tematically into account when studying
interest group advocacy in recent years.
In general, this research was part of the
move towards large-scale quantitative
studies of interest groups in legisla-
tive politics. To identify a large number
of interest groups’ frames, compare
them and gauge their effects, scholars
have increasingly drawn on quantitative
content analysis, computer-assisted qua-
litative content analysis and expert inter-
views. This work sheds light on the frames
that are typically invoked in public policy-
making in the EU, it highlighted the proxi-
mity of the frames that different actors
and types of actors held on the studied
issues, and it outlined some conditions for
interest group influence and success.
In remarkable contrast to these
research design developments, Bene-
detta Voltolini employs a classic case
study design that draws on process tra-
cing and the inductive manual coding of
documents to identify frames and their
evolution. Her work succeeds in illustrat-
ing the usefulness of these methods for
the study of policy frames, notably when
policy documentation is scarce, informal
relations among interest groups and EU
institutions abound, and time horizons of
the study are long. Two general substan-
tial conclusions emerge from this study:
First, persistent frame entrepreneurship
can lead to frame changes in the EU.
Second, in the end, legal frames outper-
form moral frames in the EU.
However, these findings hinge on a
number of conditions that need to be
made explicit. As is the case with many
other case studies, the analysed policy
debate on the EU trade relations with
Israel is publicly visible, highly salient,
controversial and partisan, including
strong frame competition. Frame conflicts
certainly exist also in other areas of EU
politics. But the dilemma between the
loyal adherence to Israel for moral rea-
sons on the one hand and the compliance
with the EU’s own legal acquis and its
international legal obligations on the
other is a very pronounced example of
benedetta voltolini european political science: 16 2017 367
 such a conflict that involves also the EU’s
reputation as a normative power in inter-
national politics, to borrow Ian Manner’s
term. Hence, the case differs extensively
from many EU policy debates that are
quite technical and do not receive much
public attention. It is also a success story,
in terms that the essential frame mat-
tered to the outcome. In addition, a cru-
cial background condition of the outcome
is the respect and credibility of the law and
the importance of legal integration in the
EU. Furthermore, acceptance of the legal
frame did not require the EU to revamp its
entire trade relations with Israel, but only
to modify those aspects that applied to
goods marketed from the occupied Pales-
tinian territories. What is more, the eco-
nomic costs of this frame change are not
borne by the EU or its member states but
must be carried by Israel. And finally, the
frame change allows the EU nonetheless
to support Israel in many other ways.
In terms of the validity of their findings,
case studies tend to trade external validity
for internal validity. However, this study
is, as many other framing analyses are,
silent on the crucial question of frame
identification: how do we know a frame
when we see it? To me it seems crucial
that researchers arrive at valid and reli-
able frames measures. To identify frames,
Benedetta Voltolini employs inductive
manual coding that, however, seems an
option only when studying one or a few
cases. As human-coding always requires
that the researcher interprets the coded
segments, her proposal leaves somewhat
open the question of how the reliability of
the identified frames is ensured. To pro-
vide at least for the replicability of frames,
computer-assisted coding or at least ade-
quate documentation seems necessary.
Furthermore, as the bulk of EU legislation
is now passed under the ordinary legisla-
tive procedure and as the actors’ positions
on that legislation are usually well docu-
mented, the conditions Voltolini names
for an added value of manual coding over
computer-assisted or quantitative con-
tent analysis do here not apply. Rather,
the costs of manual content analysis in
terms of time, staff and lack of compar-
ability seem to outweigh the gains in
terms of potential internal validity. But
also when relying on quantitative content
analysis, computer-assisted qualitative
content analysis or expert interviews, it is
tantamount that authors indicate how
they identified frames and at what level
of abstraction frames are located to
develop best practices. These three meth-
ods can lead to different findings even
when applied to the same textual data.
Therefore, cross-validation of frames
through the use of two or several methods
on at least a portion of the studied docu-
ments seems to be important.

About the Author

Rainer Eising is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Ruhr-University Bochum. He has
published widely on interest mediation, governance and public policymaking in the European
Union. He was a national team leader in the INTEREURO project (www.intereuro.eu) and has
recently directed a MERCUR funded project on interest representation in Germany (http://
www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/arenen/index.html.de).

368 european political science: 16 2017 framing processes and lobbying in EU foreign policy