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3
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 4/5/2016, SPi
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of work that we started in 2008, when we were at
University College Dublin. Back then, in the framework of a project funded
by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS,
Government of Ireland Research Project Grant), we decided to carry out a
survey of Irish interest groups. The success of this initial survey, which we
put into effect in 2009, made us decide to replicate our research in four more
countries. After our move to the University of Salzburg, we were fortunate
to receive funding for this research from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF,
Lise Meitner programme, grant number M1217-G16). Later, grants from the
Jubiläumsfonds of the Austrian National Bank (grant number 15513) and the
Salzburg Centre of European Union Studies (small project grant programme)
allowed us to add surveys of interest groups active on specific campaigns at
both the national and the European levels.
Without the willingness of a large number of interest group officials to take
time out of their busy schedules and respond to our surveys, this research
would not have been possible. Because we guaranteed them anonymity, we
cannot list them by name, but we very much appreciate their generosity.
Moreover, we are very grateful to Ilze Ruse for assisting us in carrying out the
survey in Latvia. Throughout this time, we were also lucky to be able to rely
on many excellent research assistants: Johanna Bötscher, Robert Huber, Justin
Leinaweaver, Gerald Lindner, Stephen Massey, Niall Morris, Ingo Nordmann,
Maximilian Rech, Jan Sand, Niklas Stappenbeck, Zdenek Staszek, and Markus
Vogtenhuber. Without their help, realizing the extensive empirical research
contained in this book would have been impossible.
Over the course of this research, we received many helpful comments and
suggestions from a large number of friends and colleagues. We owe much
gratitude to Dirk De Bièvre who commented on both the book proposal and
several parts of the book. Leonardo Baccini, Laura Baroni, Patrick Bernhagen,
Jan Beyers, Caelesta Braun, David Coen, Niamh Hardiman, Heike Klüver,
Andrea Liese, David Marshall, Sven-Oliver Proksch, Anne Rasmussen, Bernd
Schlipphak, Michaël Tatham, and Hannes Winner provided helpful feedback
on different parts of this book. Moreover, comments from audiences at
the Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association, the
v
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Acknowledgements
vi
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Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xiii
1. Introduction 1
vii
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List of Figures
ix
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List of Figures
5.10 The effect of group type in distributive and regulatory policy fields
(national legislation) 88
5.11 Explaining variation in Relative inside (EU) 89
5.12 The effect of group type for different levels of resources (EU legislation) 90
5.13 The perceived usefulness of tactics 93
5.14 Explaining variation in the perceived usefulness of tactics 94
6.1 Tactics on three cases (pooled across cases) 102
6.2 Tactics in general 103
6.3 Percentage of actors using a tactic at least once (tactics on three cases) 104
6.4 Percentage of actors using a tactic at least once (tactics in general) 105
6.5 Correlating tactics on cases and tactics in general 106
6.6 Percentage of actors using a tactic at least once (by group type
and campaign) 106
6.7 Tactics in general, by group type 108
6.8 Factor loadings (policy-centred survey) 109
6.9 Status quo defenders and status quo challengers by case 111
6.10 Positions by case and group type 112
6.11 Explaining variation in tactics on three cases 114
6.12 Explaining variation in tactics in general 117
6.13 Explaining variation in strategy choice on cases 118
6.14 Comparing strategy on cases with strategy in general 120
6.15 SQ challengers, SQ defenders, and strategy choice 121
6.16 Explaining variation in Relative inside (cases) 122
7.1 Distribution of dependent variables 132
7.2 Group type and Europeanization 134
7.3 Policy area and Europeanization 135
7.4 Explaining variation in EU lobbying 136
7.5 Interaction effect in EU lobbying (time) 138
7.6 Explaining variation in EU level 139
7.7 Interaction effect in EU level 140
7.8 Two-part models 141
7.9 Other measures of Europeanization 144
7.10 Regression results for other measures of Europeanization 145
7.11 Ordinal regression for Europeanization index 147
8.1 Contacts with a series of national and European institutions on
EU legislation 158
x
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List of Figures
8.2 Group type and frequency of contacts with executive institutions 161
8.3 Group type and frequency of contacts with legislative institutions 162
8.4 Staff and mean frequency of contacts 163
8.5 Explaining variation in access to national institutions 165
8.6 Multivariate regression results (interaction effects, national
institutions) 167
8.7 Interaction effect between Business and Staff (national institutions) 168
8.8 Explaining variation in access to EU institutions 169
8.9 Multivariate regression results (interaction effects, EU institutions) 171
8.10 Interaction effect between Business and Staff (EU institutions) 172
8.11 Results by policy area (executive institutions) 174
8.12 Results by policy area (legislative institutions) 175
8.13 Number of citizen groups by type 175
8.14 Explaining frequency of contacts by type of citizen group 176
8.15 Perceived difficulty of access 178
8.16 Explaining perceived difficulty of access 179
9.1 Tactics used by the two sides in the three campaigns 195
9.2 Internet search volume for the three cases in three countries 197
9.3 Number of newspaper articles on the three topics 199
9.4 Importance attributed to the three campaigns by supporters and
opponents of the policies 203
xi
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List of Tables
xiii
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Introduction
1
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Our key claim is that a single theoretical framework that focuses on the
distinction between different types of interest groups and groups’ endow-
ment with material resources can shed much light on the whole lobbying
process from strategy choice, through access to influence. According to this
argument, group type—namely the distinction between business associa-
tions, citizen groups, professional associations, and labour unions—is key
in explaining which strategies groups choose, how much access they gain to
which decision-makers, and under which circumstances they are most likely
to exert influence over policy outcomes. Business associations are groups that
have either firms or associations of firms as members. This includes both
broad business associations, such as chambers of commerce, and sectoral
groups. Citizen groups (also known as public interest groups) have a poten-
tially broad membership and defend interests that are not directly related to
the professions or vocations of their members or supporters (Berry 1999: 2).
In most cases, the members or supporters of citizen groups thus do not
have a direct and concentrated material stake in the policies advocated by
the association. Among others, the category of citizen groups encompasses
groups concerned with animal welfare, consumer and environmental protec-
tion, and international development. Professional associations champion the
interests of a specific profession, such as lawyers, medics, or artists. They tend
to have individuals or associations of individuals as members. Labour unions
represent the interests of employees, both in negotiations with employers
and vis-à-vis political decision-makers.
We expect major differences in lobbying behaviour across these types of
groups because of two factors. First, for a variety of reasons, collective action
problems are less severe for business associations than for non-business
groups, and here especially citizen groups (Olson 1965; Offe and Wiesenthal
1980; Walker 1983; Dunleavy 1991; Dür and De Bièvre 2007). The difference
in ease of collective action means that for the former, the pursuit of influ-
ence and the pursuit of survival tend to go hand-in-hand, whereas for the
latter often a trade-off exists between survival and the effective exercise of
influence. Professional associations and labour unions are located in between
2
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Introduction
the two other types of groups with respect to the severity of collective action
problems. Second, the different types of groups vary in the resources that they
can provide with a comparative advantage. Business associations tend to be
relatively better equipped with technical information, namely information
about the consequences of policy choices. They also tend to have a compar-
ative advantage in terms of ability to facilitate or hinder the implementation
of public policies. Citizen groups, by contrast, have a comparative advantage
in terms of political information such as information about constituency
preferences, representativeness, and legitimacy. Professional associations and
labour unions again adopt a middle position between these two types.
From these considerations, we derive the expectation that in multilevel
Europe, business interests focus more on inside lobbying than non-business
interests, meaning that they try to establish direct contacts with decision-
makers. They are also more likely to lobby on both national and EU
legislation and at both the national and the EU level. Moreover, they enjoy
better access to executive institutions and have a particularly large advan-
tage in shaping policy outcomes when mobilizing the public on an issue is
difficult. Citizen groups, in turn, find it more attractive to engage in outside
lobbying than business interests, meaning that they rely more strongly on
tactics that are aimed at mobilizing the public or changing public attitudes.2
They are less likely to engage in multilevel lobbying, find it easier to gain
access to legislative than to executive decision-makers, and have the greatest
impact on outcomes on issues that are amenable to an outside lobbying
campaign. Across most aspects of the lobbying process, professional associa-
tions and labour unions are more similar to citizen groups than to business
interests. Overall, we thus expect to observe two distinct logics of lobbying,
one pursued by business interests and the other by non-business interests.
The debate over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partner-
ship (TTIP) offers a nice illustration of these differences in terms of lobbying
behaviour across group types. Most European business associations support
the negotiations that are aimed at liberalizing trade and investment flows
between the EU and the United States. They focus on writing position papers,
participating in hearings, and gaining direct access to decision-makers. From
the moment when negotiations started, they enjoyed excellent access to
executive decision-makers, in particular the European Commission (which
conducts these negotiations for the EU), and were able to shape the EU’s posi-
tion in these negotiations to a considerable extent. By contrast, the groups
that oppose the negotiations—mainly citizen groups and labour unions—
started a highly visible outside lobbying campaign, relying on demostrations,
press releases, petitions, street advertising, campaign websites, and social
media. They complain about a lack of access to the European Commission but
enjoy good access to the European Parliament. They only managed to leave
3
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their imprint on the EU’s negotiation position once their outside lobbying
campaign drew the public’s attention to the negotiations.
Group type alone, however, is not sufficient to explain variation across
interest groups in terms of strategy choice, access, and influence. Material
resources also play a role in that they augment the effect of group type. We
argue that the distinction between business associations and other types of
groups is largest for resource-rich groups. Business associations that are well
endowed with material resources are most likely to engage in inside lobby-
ing, to lobby on both EU and national legislation and at both the EU and
the national levels, and to enjoy good access to executive decision-makers.
By contrast, resource-poor business associations are more similar to citizen
groups, professional associations, and labour unions on all of these aspects
than to resource-rich business associations. Contrary to the expectation of
some studies that material resources reduce differences across group types in
terms of lobbying approach and impact (see e.g. Grant 2004; Binderkrantz
et al. 2015), we thus expect them to amplify these differences.
Moreover, our argument emphasizes the role of issue characteristics as a
moderator of the effect of group type. The distinction between distributive
issues (policies that offer concentrated gains to a few, while distributing
the costs among many, see Lowi 1964) and regulatory issues (which come
with concentrated gains for some and concentrated costs for others) affects
interest group strategies, as does a group’s position relative to the status quo;
and the degree to which an issue is amenable to outside lobbying matters
for interest group influence. Whereas the public salience of an issue does not
matter for interest group strategy, it does have an impact on the influence
that groups can exert on policy outcomes. The institutional setting in which
lobbying takes place also matters in a complex manner. Political institutions
affect both the amount of lobbying and, by determining which resources
groups can exchange for access, the access that groups gain to decision-
makers. By contrast, they only have a minor impact on the lobbying tactics
that groups use and which groups are able to shape policy outcomes. In short,
interest group characteristics are most important in understanding interest
group strategies, access, and influence. Issue characteristics mainly moderate
the effect of group type. The institutional setting, finally, primarily matters
because of its effect on the ease of lobbying, but without that changing the
basic patterns resulting from group characteristics.
Given the consistent differences between (resource-rich) business associa-
tions and non-business groups, we call the former ‘lobbying insiders’ and the
latter ‘lobbying outsiders’.3 The insiders mainly engage in inside lobbying;
are more likely to lobby on both national and European legislation and to
be politically active at both the national and the EU levels; enjoy privileged
access to executive institutions; and have an advantage in shaping political
4
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Introduction
The volume draws on a rich empirical basis to examine this argument. First,
we realized an online and mail survey of interest groups in five different
European countries (Austria, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, and Spain). We call
this the ‘actor-centred survey’ (for this term, see Beyers et al. 2014), because
we drew the samples of groups that we contacted from lists covering all
or nearly all groups that exist in the five countries, independently of the
groups’ level of activity. Our use of bottom-up samples is an advantage com-
pared to several earlier studies with respect to some aspects of our research.
Samples that start with groups that became active on an issue likely lead to
an overestimation of the level of activity of interest groups and the resources
that they possess. The country selection also has important methodological
advantages, as it brings together small and large countries and countries with
different systems of interest representation, namely both corporatist and
pluralist countries (where in the former, access to decision-makers is more
regulated and institutionalized than in the latter). It also nicely complements
existing surveys of interest groups in Europe that mainly focus on a few
North-Western European countries by covering a Southern (Spain) and an
5
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6
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Introduction
Our theoretical argument and the empirical analysis draw on and speak
to a large and rich literature on interest groups. This literature focuses on
three sets of explanatory variables. A first set concerns interest group char-
acteristics, such as interest group type, group resources, and groups’ level of
professionalization. These are the variables that also occupy centre stage in
our argument. A second set of factors captures different characteristics of the
issue on which the groups lobby. Issues can be of a distributive, regulatory,
or re-distributive type (Lowi 1964); they can be more or less complex; and
they can be more or less salient to the broader public. The third set of factors
encompasses characteristics of the political institutions in which lobbying
takes place. This concerns the system of interest representation, namely the
distinction between pluralism and corporatism; the extent to which political
institutions are dependent on the information provided by interest groups;
and the openness of political institutions to lobbying. A brief review of the
state of the art shows how these factors have been used to explain lobbying
strategies, access, and influence.
A well-developed literature analyses interest group strategies.6 Starting
with interest group characteristics, several studies find that group type mat-
ters for strategy choice (Schlozman and Tierney 1986; Gais and Walker 1991;
Kollman 1998; Binderkrantz 2005, 2008; Betzold 2013). The general conclu-
sion of this literature is that business interests or interests with concentrated
material gains or losses from a policy tend to rely more on inside lobbying
than ‘diffuse interests’. Some studies also find that while group type mat-
ters, overall the differences between groups of different types are relatively
minor (Beyers 2004; Binderkrantz 2005). They reckon that inside and outside
lobbying tactics are complements rather than substitutes. Groups that rely
much on inside lobbying can at the same time engage in much outside
lobbying.
Whereas many studies find that group characteristics matter for strategy
choice, so far there is little evidence that issue characteristics matter.
Mahoney (2008), for example, only finds limited influence of issue character-
istics such as issue scope and issue salience on strategy choice in the United
7
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States and the EU. For Baumgartner et al. (2009: 150), issue salience also
only plays a minor role in shaping interest group strategies. What matters,
according to them, is whether actors defend the status quo or pursue policy
change. In a study of environmental lobbying in the EU, however, Junk
(2015) finds that issue characteristics matter more than group characteristics.
She concludes that outside lobbying dominates on issues of high public
salience and low complexity.
Institutional factors, in turn, have been seen as playing a large role in
shaping interest group strategies (Beyers 2004; Kriesi et al. 2007; Naoi and
Krauss 2009; Woll 2012; Weiler and Brändli 2015). The openness of a political
system, for example, influences the extent to which groups rely on inside and
outside tactics (Kriesi et al. 2007). In open political systems, interest groups
face fewer incentives to go outside than in closed political systems. Moreover,
different political institutions demand different types of resources, creating
incentives for interest groups to focus on either inside or outside lobbying.
Groups that lobby the European Commission, for example, may benefit
less from outside lobbying than groups that approach the European Parlia-
ment (Beyers 2004). This might be so because members of the European
Parliament are directly elected, whereas public scrutiny of officials in the
European Commission tends to be low.
The question of which interest groups manage to gain access to which
decision-makers also has received much scholarly attention.7 Most studies
concerned with access put emphasis on group characteristics, in particular
the resources that groups possess (Bouwen 2002, 2004; Eising 2009; Kalla
and Broockman 2015). Access, the argument goes, is granted to groups that
can offer the resources that decision-makers demand. For the United States,
some evidence suggests that interest groups may be able to buy access to
decision-makers with the help of campaign contributions (Kalla and Broock-
man 2015). In the European context, more emphasis has been put on the
information that groups can exchange for access (Bouwen 2004; Eising 2009),
although material resources are also likely to play a role (Greer et al. 2008).
Moreover, the positioning of groups in or between coalitions may matter for
the access that groups gain (Beyers and Braun-Poppelaars 2014).
Whereas only little research has looked at variation in access by issue or
policy area (for an exception, see Rasmussen and Gross 2015), much work
focuses on the institutional determinants of access (Immergut 1992; Ehrlich
2007; Eising 2009; Naoi and Krauss 2009). What distinguishes pluralist from
corporatist systems of interest representation is that, in the latter, access to
decision-makers is regulated by political institutions. In a corporatist sys-
tem, access to decision-makers is institutionalized for both organizations
representing capital interests and organizations representing labour inter-
ests (Schmitter 1974). In multilevel Europe, however, the system of interest
8
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Introduction
9
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This volume directly addresses these two issues. Our key contribution to the
literature is to show that a single argument, building on group type as main
variable, can explain variation across groups in their choice of strategy, their
access to decision-makers, and the conditions under which they can exert
influence. Our argument suggests that lobbying insiders differ from lobbying
outsiders across all of the stages of the influence production process (for this
term, see Lowery and Gray 2004) and that these differences can be traced back
to collective action problems and groups’ resource endowment. The volume
thus brings research on interest groups one step closer to specifying the
‘linkages and potential feedbacks among the several stages of the influence
production process’, an aim formulated by Lowery and Gray (2004: 164) and
still not reached (Bunea and Baumgartner 2014). More generally, by showing
how collective action problems shape interest group behaviour, but without
making lobbying only a battle of ‘special interests’, the argument makes a key
contribution to the neopluralist research agenda in the interest group field
(Lowery and Gray 2004; McFarland 2007).
The resulting theoretical argument that we use to explain strategies,
access, and influence, moreover, goes beyond postulating direct relationships
among variables. Rather, we stress how different factors interact in produc-
ing the patterns of lobbying that we observe. Following our argument, the
effect of group type is conditional on factors such as the material resources
groups possess and issue characteristics. Group type thus matters differently
for resource-rich groups than for resource-poor groups; and when groups
lobby on distributive issues than when they lobby on regulatory issues.
10
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Introduction
Also political institutions moderate the effect of group type, for example in
that business associations have better access to executive institutions and
non-business groups to legislative institutions. We thus emphasize interac-
tions between variables, whereas much of the earlier literature solely looked
at the additive effects of different factors.
A further key contribution of this book is that we put together an unprece-
dented amount of empirical data to test our argument. As already described,
our data cover a large number of interest groups of different types, across
all policy areas and several countries and at the EU level, with respect to
strategies, access, and influence. Other quantitative studies of interest groups
in Europe are either limited in terms of type of interest groups studied
(for example, only business associations, as in Eising 2009, or only agricul-
tural associations as in Klüver 2010); policy area (for example, only health
policy as in Greer et al. 2008 or only external trade policy as in Beyers and
Kerremans 2012); or country coverage (for example, only Belgium as in Beyers
2002). Moreover, we not only collected data on what interest groups do ‘on
average’, but also how they behave when lobbying on specific cases. No
similar mapping exercise of the European interest group landscape has been
carried out before.9
Another value added of this book is that both our theoretical argument
and the empirical analysis capture lobbying at two levels of governance.
This allows us to show that not only can a single theoretical argument
shed light on strategy choice, access, and influence, but also that it can
do so largely independent of the institutional context. Much research has
been undertaken on interest groups at the EU level (see e.g. Coen and
Richardson 2009b); and a few studies have focused on what happens in
terms of interest group politics at the national level (for example, Heinisch
2000; Duvanova 2007; Reutter 2012; Beyers and Braun-Poppelaars 2014).
Studies such as ours that combine data on national activities with data on
EU-related activities and data on national groups with data on groups orga-
nized at the transnational level, by contrast, are rare. This makes our study
particularly well-suited to discuss similarities and differences in lobbying
behaviour between the two levels. Interestingly, we find relatively small dif-
ferences in terms of interest group strategies and access across levels. A group’s
relative focus on inside or outside lobbying tends to be stable across the two
levels of governance. Moreover, groups that enjoy good access to executive
(legislative) institutions at the national level also enjoy privileged access to
executive (legislative) institutions at the European level. Contrary to some
existing studies (Pollack 1997; Mazey 1998; Geddes 2000), our argument
about lobbying insiders and lobbying outsiders thus lets us conclude that
a shift of authority from the national to the supranational level is unlikely
to empower the weak.
11
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The resulting theoretical and empirical breadth of our book makes it partic-
ularly well-suited to contribute to a normative evaluation of interest groups’
role in democracies. Over the last two decades, many political systems have
given a greater role to ‘civil society’. In the EU, for example, the Lisbon
Treaty (which entered into force in 2009) created a legal obligation for Euro-
pean institutions to consult ‘representative associations and civil society’
(Article 11). The hope was that participation by civil society would act as
‘a remedy to the legitimacy crisis of the EU’ (Kohler-Koch 2010: 101). In
fact, the resulting greater participation by interest groups in policy-making
may enhance the legitimacy and quality of decisions by allowing for different
voices to be heard and expertise to be transmitted to decision-makers (Green-
wood 2007). The involvement of interest groups, however, may also have the
opposite effect, for example if some segments of civil society have privileged
access to decision-makers or if the information that decision-makers receive
from lobbyists is incomplete or even misleading.
Our argument suggests that better access to decision-makers for interest
groups is unlikely to be a panacea for the ails of contemporary democracies.
Both our study and other research show that in many cases, business interests
and citizen groups take opposite and quite unified positions in policy debates
(see e.g. Dür et al. 2015; Hojnacki et al. 2015; and also Chapter 9). For the
case of the United States, for example, Hojnacki et al. (2015) found that
only in about 10 per cent of all policy debates, do business interests face
off against other business interests. Much more frequent are cases in which
unified business faces a unified front of citizen groups. For the case of the EU,
Dür et al. (2015) also found that most legislative debates are shaped by such a
constellation of interests. In light of this evidence on the structure of conflict,
the existence of two distinct logics of lobbying means that institutional
reforms that enhance access will benefit some interests more than others.
Making access cheaper hence will not create a situation in which business
interests and other interests enjoy equal access to decision-makers. Rather,
business interests will find it even easier to gain access, whereas the incentives
for citizen groups to focus relatively more on outside lobbying are likely to
persist. Later, we argue that this may not be particularly problematic, but
decision-makers engaging in institutional reforms should still be aware of
this effect.
In Chapter 2, we present the theoretical framework that forms the basis for
the more specific arguments developed in later chapters. It stresses variation
across group types in the severity of collective action problems and the
12
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Introduction
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public salience of an issue and the relationship between their demands and
public attitudes on that issue. We find support for these expectations relying
on data from the policy-centred survey. Of particular interest is the result that
the distinction between lobbying insiders and lobbying outsiders is valid for
each of the three campaigns that we covered in that survey.
In multilevel Europe, interest groups not only face a choice between more
or less inside and outside lobbying. They also need to decide how much
of their lobbying they should focus on national politics and how much
on EU politics. Much variation exists across groups with respect to this
aspect of lobbying strategy, with some groups being more ‘Europeanized’—
that is, more focused on the EU—than others. We explain this variation in
Chapter 7. Again drawing on the theoretical framework developed in
Chapter 2, we argue that the distinction between lobbying insiders and
lobbying outsiders offers a response to this question. Concretely, we expect
lobbying insiders—namely resource-rich business associations—to be more
Europeanized than other groups. Using data from our actor-centred survey of
interest groups in five European countries, we find support for our argument.
Data on groups’ Brussels offices, participation in EU consultations, member-
ship in EU-level expert groups, registration in the EU’s Transparency Register,
and membership in EU federations also back our argument.
In Chapter 8, we look at variation in the extent to which interest groups
gain access to different political institutions. The theoretical framework pre-
sented in Chapter 2 allows us to develop a theoretical argument that suggests
that business associations and professional associations should enjoy privi-
leged access to executive institutions such as the European Commission and
national governments; and citizen groups and labour unions to parliaments.
Again, we expect the difference across group types to be conditional on
resource endowment: the business advantage in terms of access to executive
institutions should be largest for groups rich in material resources. Relying on
data from the actor-centred survey, we find support for these expectations,
even while controlling for differences across groups in strategy choice. Our
findings thus are supportive of a view that sees the EU’s system of interest
representation as a form of ‘elite pluralism’ (Coen 1997). They also suggest
that contrary to some studies (Pollack 1997; Mazey 1998), a shift of authority
from the national to the supranational level does not necessarily grant better
access to groups with few contacts with national decision-makers. In other
words, lobbying outsiders remain in that category across different levels of
governance.
In a final empirical chapter (Chapter 9), we assess how the differences in
lobbying behaviour and access to decision-makers stressed in the previous
chapters shape groups’ ability to influence political decisions in Europe’s
multilevel polity. We do so by looking at three major decision-making
14
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To arrive there in time we should have to take the train next
morning. I went accordingly to the princess, who was the only person
whom I knew in Roumania, to ask her if she would come to my
assistance.
I called on her at nine o’clock in the morning. I was taken to the
second storey of the palace, to a room that was even prettier, if
possible, than the one in which I had been received the first time.
The princess received me. She was in her night-robe, and had
put on a dressing-gown of white silk over which her beautiful
dishevelled hair hung. She was still engaged in her toilet when I
arrived, but in order not to make me wait, she bade me come into
her little boudoir, where no one would disturb us. The room, filled
with well-chosen first editions, was in charming taste. Everywhere
there were little draped statuettes on pedestals. Beside the fireplace
was a very comfortable corner. In the midst of all these beautiful
objects one might have thought oneself in a miniature museum.
I asked her what she liked best among all the things there and
she replied, “the rosaries,” of which she had quite a collection. What
an artist she must be to bring together all these beautiful things.
“This is my room,” she said, while we were talking, “in which
whatever happens no one is permitted to bother me. I take refuge
here from time to time, and remain until I feel myself ready to face
the world once more.”
I then told her my troubles. She rang a bell, and gave an order to
let M. X—— know immediately that Miss Fuller would come to see
him with a card from her, and that M. X—— would kindly do
everything in his power to assist Miss Fuller.
I looked at her for some time and then I said to her:
“I should have liked greatly to know you without being aware that
you were a princess.”
“But,” she said, “it is the woman whom you now know and not the
princess.”
And that was true. I felt that I was in the presence of some one
who was really great, even if her birth had not made her so. I am
certain that she would have accomplished great things if she had not
found her career already mapped out for her from the day of her birth
in her father’s palace.
Everyone knows that a princess’ life precludes liberty, and
contains no possibility of breaking with the conventions for the sake
of doing something extraordinary or notable. These chains are so
strong that if one contrives to break them, it generally happens under
the impulse of despair, as a result of irritation and not for the sake of
a purely inspired work.
When I arose to take leave of the princess she kissed me and
said:
“If ever I come to Paris I shall call on you at your studio.”
She caused an attendant to accompany me to the master of
ceremonies, with whom I was to go to the bank. There the master of
ceremonies communicated Princess Marie’s order to the effect that I
was to be accommodated in any way I might desire.
The money I needed was advanced in return for a cheque, and I
left Bucharest.
The journey was full of troubles. Vexatious delays occurred.
Finally I arrived at Rome, where my appearance had to be
postponed until my baggage, lost in transit, had been found. Three
thousand people, who had come to my first performance, went away
without seeing me. That certainly was very hard luck. If I had been
able to foresee all that, I should never have ventured to intrude upon
the Princess.
In that case I should not have discovered what an admirable
woman she is.
XV
SEVERAL SOVEREIGNS
I N the course of my travels about the world, east, west, north and
south, over oceans and across continents, I have had the
experience of seeing or of encountering many persons of
distinction, including not a few sovereigns and members of royal
households.
It has seemed to me that it might be interesting to bring together
at this point some of the most typical of the incidents that occur to
me. Just as they come, drawn haphazard from memory, without
order or sequence, and with no thought of literary composition, I am
going to put them simply on paper, one by one.
Princely Simplicity.
At the Hague I was asked to give a performance before the
Grand Duke and Duchess of Mecklenburg, Princess Victoria of
Schaumburg-Lippe and their retinue.
The hall was well filled. I had the Philharmonic Society’s
orchestra.
This was a gala evening, and in every way a very successful one
for me.
Next day on coming down from my room I encountered on the
stairway of the hotel a lady with a very sweet expression, who asked
me:
“You are Miss Loie Fuller? Your dances interest me greatly. My
husband has gone out on the beach. Wouldn’t you like to come and
talk to him about your lighting effects. I am sure that would prove
very interesting to him.”
I gladly acquiesced and followed her.
I was delighted to talk to this woman and her husband, who
proved to be a most delightful man. I explained to them all my
schemes of lighting and my dances. I then took my leave and joined
my mother, who was waiting for me.
When I returned to the hotel the proprietor came to me and said:
“You met with great success yesterday, Miss Fuller, and with
even greater this morning.”
“This morning?”
“Yes. Do you know who the gentleman is with whom you have
just been talking?”
“No. Who is he?”
“The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg.”
This same day I boarded a street car.
On the car several people appeared to know me. One lady came
and sat beside me and began to talk.
When we arrived at our destination I asked her if she would not
tell me her name.
“Victoria de Schaumburg-Lippe.”
One evening when I was dancing at the Hague the princess was
in the hall with Major Winslow and others of her retinue. She sent for
me, and asked me to show her one of my robes.
I brought her the robe which I put on for the butterfly dance.
She took the stuff in her hand and said:
“The robe is really wonderful, but it is after all only what you do
that counts.”
I remember that she asked me to sign a photograph for her. And
when I returned to the hotel the manager of the Kurhaus handed to
me an exceedingly pretty watch, on the cover of which were
engraved these words:
“In memory of the performance given for Princess Victoria.”