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1 This article was downloaded by: [University Antwerpen] On: 14 October 2008 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number ] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK West European Politics Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: Conclusion: Embedding Interest Group Research Jan Beyers; Rainer Eising; William Maloney Online Publication Date: 01 November 2008 To cite this Article Beyers, Jan, Eising, Rainer and Maloney, William(2008)'Conclusion: Embedding Interest Group Research',West European Politics,31:6, To link to this Article: DOI: / URL: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

2 West European Politics, Vol. 31, No. 6, , November 2008 Conclusion: Embedding Interest Group Research JAN BEYERS, RAINER EISING and WILLIAM MALONEY All the contributors to this volume share a belief that the study of interest groups will be advanced through an interactive process that conjoins empirical research with the systematic construction of theoretical concepts. All were asked to reflect upon the state of the art, to provide insights into how deductive hypothetical theories might be developed and to suggest how the methods and conceptual tools required for robust empirical generalizations could be effectively augmented. In sum, our collective aim has been to enhance middle-range theoretical work. The choice not to add to our empirical knowledge, but to discuss the construction of conceptual, theoretical and methodological tools that might spur and inspire future empirical research projects was deliberate. In the introduction, some of the reasons for the peripheral position of interest group research were discussed. This field deserves more attention and this volume is an attempt to stimulate greater academic interest. The introduction also discussed some substantive issues e.g. the (enduring) importance of bias, the choice of political strategies and the interest group political party nexus that future research projects should address. The various contributions addressed these issues in differing ways. We will not revisit these discussions but highlight some general issues that are important for liberating the study of interest groups from its position of not so splendid isolation. The basic tenet for the analysis of interest group politics is that research needs to be firmly embedded within the comparative study of government and political organizations. There are three broad themes that could constitute general foci for the future research agenda in this area. First, it is essential to clarify the theoretical needs and ambitions of the interest group field. What is the nature of useful theories and which kind of theoretical abstraction is feasible within this area of political science? Second, we reflect Correspondence Address: jan.beyers@ua.ac.be ISSN Print/ Online ª 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: /

3 Conclusion 1293 on appropriate research strategies. This concern extends beyond the individual researcher who needs to make a choice on, for instance, a large-n or a small-n research design. It also relates to how future research projects and data-collection enterprises might be organized and managed. However, this epilogue begins by examining how the study of interest groups might contribute significantly to the study of politics more generally highlighting that much contemporary policy-making is located in multi-level settings transcending national borders and straddling regulatory arenas. The EU as a Site for Studying the Changing Nature of Politics? The last decade can be characterised as the so-called comparativist turn in the study of the EU (for a review, see Pollack 2005) and several contributions to this volume can be located in this field (see Lowery et al. 2008; Mahoney and Baumgartner 2008). If a deluge of research is a measure of success, then this comparativist turn has been booming. 1 However, one of the risks of including the EU in a comparative endeavour is that no matter how hard scholars try to resist the temptation to characterise the EU as a state comparable to other states or large federations such as the United States of America many fail. This equivalence temptation may limit, or misshape, our understanding of how the EU impacts upon the interest group system, and vice versa how the nature of the EU interest group system is exemplary for the restructuring of the European states (Bartolini 2005). In contrast to nation-states, the EU lacks a clear centre of democratically accountable government. While nation-states are structured in different ways, some are more centralised than others (e.g. the difference between unitary and federal states). However, the segmentation and overlap of political responsibilities and the fact that most policy-making is institutionally disconnected from electoral politics makes the EU (compared to European democratic nation-states) a unique political beast. The argument is not that we cannot or should not compare the EU to other more commonplace political systems, but that we should exercise caution and not read straight across from the EU to other systems or vice versa. In this context, researchers need to question the extent to which we can generalise across varying contexts (see Lowery et al. 2008). For example, the question of who gets what, when and how is difficult to answer in a composite polity such as the EU. The potential capturing of government by specific interest groups is difficult to observe. The discretion of the Commission to select its consultees, to decide how much to listen to particular interest organisations and the fragile day-to-day control over the EU bureaucracy by the Council and the European Parliament may invoke the image of an opaque system biased in its political representation. A fundamental problem of complex multi-level systems such as the EU is the limited capacity to produce transparency and accountability. It is extremely difficult for citizens and political scientists (!) to assess who gained

4 1294 J. Beyers et al. meaningful (not sham) access and who wielded real influence, i.e. whose interventions were crucial in the shaping of policy outcomes. Most contributions in this volume have dealt with the issue of bias in some way, but few have connected it directly to the institutional set-up of the EU. Accordingly, future studies on EU interest groups will need to consider the institutional set-up of the EU more explicitly. A closer empirical investigation of the recent developments with regard to registration and transparency could be a useful starting point. Registration, transparency and the increasing use of committees for consultations might signal a stronger selection and exclusion process as well as a regularisation of interest group participation (for a theoretical framework see Broscheid and Coen 2006). Of course, as Du r (2008) argues, the difficulty in itself is not a sufficient reason for abandoning the assessment of influence and power. Rather it should be seen as an empirical and theoretical challenge to improve our understanding of the nature of influence in political systems such as the EU. Thus, there are blind spots in the study of EU policy-making that might be addressed by joining interest group research with agenda-setting research. Much empirical work has been conducted by scholars of legislative politics on how key actors shape EU legislation. While almost everyone in this field emphasises the importance of interest groups for the Commission, very little systematic research exists with regard to the selection of legislative issues before the Commission submits a proposal. This black box certainly merits closer empirical investigation. All contributions stress the importance of, or framed their discussion of, interest groups within a multi-level institutional context. Political representation is no longer tied to one single jurisdiction, i.e. the nation-state. Many political issues are salient in multiple arenas and oscillate between these venues. Thus, multi-levelness refers to the complex intermingling and intersection of different governmental levels. Therefore, the need to close the gap between studies on the institutional nature of the EU and interest group politics is connected to some more fundamental puzzles. For instance, we have very little knowledge about the impact of the large number of Brussels interest groups on the general functioning of the EU. Does the growing number of interest groups lead to more or fewer regulatory policies? Does it hamper economic efficiency, as Olson s (1982) decline of nations thesis posits? Does it lead to policy innovation because the mobilisation of new groups forces new issues onto the EU political agenda? Or does the mobilisation of opposing and countervailing interests generate political gridlock? In general, do the lobbying activities of groups slow down the legislative process? In the literature on EU policy-making it is usually argued that bureaucracies such as the Commission depend upon interest groups to fulfil a crucial functional need i.e. the supply of policy-relevant information because in many instances bureaucrats are not so well resourced in this regard. But how much of the legislative agenda

5 Conclusion 1295 (and output) is inspired by such expertise? All these questions concern the general impact of interest groups on the multi-level EU political system. However, we (currently) lack definitive answers to most of these questions. Thus far the discussion has centred on how groups operate within the EU. In that respect, a major puzzle is how interest organisations adapt to the opportunities and constraints imposed by multi-level political systems. Adjustment can refer to the ability to adapt the organisational format, the adoption of specific political strategies, the search for new allies, or the modification of the policy agenda. Importantly, the embeddedness within institutional contexts or privileged consultation by a national or international institution can ease or stimulate adjustment. Some interests find it easier to take advantage of the growing transnationalisation of politics than others. These general problems relate to a broader normative concern i.e. how to evaluate and achieve political legitimacy in a global political environment. Past scholarship has focused on how to characterise the mode of interest group organisation and how the patterns of state society relations and the accompanying cleavages are stabilised. In the US literature the major fault line is between proponents of pluralistic and elitist models (Berry 1994). EU debates centre on the extent to which the EU system would reproduce national modes of representation in many European countries neo-corporatism or whether it would resemble a more pluralistic mode (Streeck and Schmitter 1991). It is significant that only three contributions in this volume elaborated on these debates (Eising 2008; Lowery et al. 2008; Mahoney and Baumgartner 2008). It is not that these scholars consider these generic typologies as inadequate for the generation of hypotheses and the identification of important research problems. Rather, it may signify that the use of typologies suitable for the study of traditional nation-states may have less utility in the EU setting and, more generally, in transnational multi-level contexts. This leads us to a final remark with regard to the way interest group research can contribute to a broader political science agenda. Our intellectual exchanges in workshops and symposia over the past four years included scholars with an IR background, students of European integration and EU politics, American politics, public policy and comparative politics. This mix has, at least for those involved, contributed to the erosion of subdisciplinary boundaries and to discussions regarding the integration of concepts and hypotheses within political science. The consequences of multilevelness imply the dispersion of political processes over multiple levels and few policy issues remain in the realm of one single jurisdiction. In such a context, political responsibilities are fragmented, shared or divided among different levels. Interest representation, accountability or legitimacy are no longer tied to one singly polity the nation-state. Different layers the global, the European, the national and the regional level are responsible for different segments of the policy process. 2 It is crucial for interest group

6 1296 J. Beyers et al. research to incorporate these big transformations and for theoretical efforts to reflect on this development. Interest group research can contribute to these debates by highlighting the implications of these transformations for political organisations (e.g. interest groups), by: analysing their roles in transnational political settings; elucidating the interaction among domestic and international political activities; or discussing the standards of political legitimacy and accountability that evolve in these settings with respect to the participation of non-governmental actors. Accordingly, a more systematic and theory-driven group research agenda would contribute to a better understanding of the mutating nature of the modern state. During the first half of the twentieth century, the basic unit of governance was the sovereign nation-state, which was not only responsible for internal order and external defence, but also for the welfare of its citizens. Moreover, as the nation-state was characterised by coinciding economic, cultural, military and administrative boundaries, it provided the ultimate frame of reference for economics, social life, knowledge development and democratic politics (Spruyt 1994; Bobbitt 2002; Bartolini 2005). It is this unique historical constellation that made the separate development of distinct national modes of interest organisations possible (neo-corporatist in Scandinavia, consociational in the Benelux countries, statist in France and so on). European integration and globalisation, especially during the two decades which followed the end of the Cold War, correspond with an increase in the transnational flows of capital, goods and information, and confronted the nation-state with new trans-border challenges. Partly in response to these challenges nation-states started to delegate tasks upwards i.e. to macroregional and global levels and downwards i.e. to the regional and local levels. In addition to this, states delegated critical tasks sideways to public and private agents, rather than governmental institutions. Contemporary governance is featured by a growing importance of non-governmental actors and the rise of transnational networks straddling frontiers and levels of governance (see for instance Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse 1995; Risse et al. 1999). In sum, the state is gradually transforming and decomposing its sovereignty (Shaw 2000). This has tremendous consequences for how interests will organise and how views of citizens will be represented by, through and within interest organisations. While the coincidence of boundaries in the past led to nation-state institutionalisation of interest representation, contemporary de-bordering leads to a pluralistic EU system with distinct traits (Eising 2008), including a plurality of modes according to which state society relations can be organised (see Falkner 2000). Grand Theory or Middle-Range Theories? An important concern relates to the type of social science theories that may further facilitate the growth of interest group knowledge. We argue that

7 Conclusion 1297 interest group studies need to pay as much attention to theory formation as to research design and data collection. However, we are aware of the real limitations that hamper intellectual advancement and seek to bring a sense of practical realism by focusing on the art of the possible, without being overly reactionary to blue sky ambitions. The main question is to what extent it is possible and necessary to develop one unified theory for interest groups. The contributions above illustrate that there are substantial barriers that militate against a unified explanation of interest group formation, behaviour, influence, and wider consequences. Why? First, the units of observation are not homogeneous. Interest organisations cannot be as easily subsumed under a dominant logic of action a` la political parties i.e. officeseeking, vote-seeking or policy-seeking. Interest groups are said to pursue their members interests or organisational self-interests. But what are these? Answering this question usually requires empirical research and operational definitions that move beyond the meta-statements of organisational survival and maintenance. As multi-faceted phenomena, interest groups as many (social) phenomena can be studied from very different angles and some of these may not be directly related to the political realm. Second, contextual factors can be substantial impediments to meaningful concept formation and generalisation (see the contribution by Lowery et al. 2008). This is a problem all comparative studies face. As we discussed above, the implications for EU interest group studies of the EU being a state-less actor need to be considered. Accordingly, there is little, or no, scope for an encompassing grand theory of interest groups and great conceptual awareness is needed when trying to employ existing state-centred concepts. However, scholars in the field should not be too disheartened no unified theory exists in many parallel areas of comparative politics, such as federalism, legislatures, political parties and so on. Why should groups be different? The contributions to this volume point at different ways to develop new concepts, models, theories or approaches. Some borrowed extensively from other areas of the social sciences (Princen and Kerremans 2008; Beyers 2008) and, by doing so tried to enrich current thinking. Or they begin with a research problem (Du r 2008), a lacuna in the literature (Blavoukos and Pagoulatos 2008) and sought greater understanding in various literatures from related domains. However, the common emphasis of all contributions is that interest group research needs to be informed and driven by theory and should aim to contribute to theory-building. Even a contribution dealing with a major empirical gap in the literature e.g. the impact of enlargements on the EU interest group systems (Blavoukos and Pagoulatos 2008) seeks to develop a theoretical framework to analyse this problem. No contributor has tried to subsume different approaches or theories within one larger or more abstract theory or framework. What all contributors realised is that what is required is the improvement, augmentation and enrichment of middle-range theories. It has been argued

8 1298 J. Beyers et al. that empirical theories of the middle-range variety tend to fall short of what actually constitutes empirical theory proper (see Bernstein 1979). And that middle-range theorising may actually reinforce the fragmentation of the intellectual endeavours we eschew. However, these critiques can be challenged by citing Merton s (1968: 39) definition of middle-range theories as logically interconnected sets of propositions from which empirical uniformities can be derived including clear, verifiable statements of relationships between specified variables. These theories have a mid-level of abstraction, being located between minor working hypotheses needed in everyday research and systematic efforts at building a unified theory that will explain all the observed uniformities of social behaviour, social organization and social change (Merton 1968: 39). Of course, this leaves much room for the level of abstraction at which middle-range theories are situated as well as for their empirical coverage. The argument of middle-range theories is also a practical one. Merton (1968: 68) argues that middle-range theories do not remain separate but are consolidated into wider networks of theory. It would be a cognitively and intellectually difficult task to study the entire physiology of the interest group body in any specific project. Interest group organisations are too multifarious entities. Accordingly, we suggest that a cumulation of knowledge is best achieved via discrete, but related and compatible studies of interest groups in the same way that medical science studies the human body. These researchers have developed very detailed specialisms that focus on distinct aspects of human physiology neurology, immunology, cardiology, gynaecology, paediatrics, etc. Knowledge cumulation is achieved partly in a compartmentalised, but not a hermetically sealed manner. Medical specialists are cogniscent of other important branches of medical science and the human anatomy generally. And the detailed study of specific parts of the human body (brains, nerve system, immunology, etc.) has substantially contributed to the knowledge about the human condition in general. Of course, the interest group body may not be nearly as complex as the human one, but it is multifaceted enough to be studied in a similar way. Group scholars focus on various aspects of lobbying, mobilisation, maintenance at different levels of governance and using varying methodological approaches. Accordingly, the main challenge is to allow greater cross-fertilisation of research and to communicate in a more effective manner both within the interest group industry and with related areas of study such as political parties, social movements, civil society and bureaucracies. Interest group studies require a modular approach that is not blind to specific aspects of their research proble matique but facilitates the development of compatible and complementary research. This modular approach needs to be theory-driven and requires methodological control. The relevance of such an approach to the study of interest groups may be

9 Conclusion 1299 increased by borrowing or drawing more extensively on social science theories from other genres. As highlighted above, Princen and Kerremans (2008) drew on the political opportunity structures (POS) concept used in other branches of political science, political sociology and political geography and Beyers (2008) discussed organisation theories. There are examples of cross-fertilisation beyond this volume. For example, Gray and Lowery s (1996) population ecology research has its origins in biology. While such approaches do not formulate theoretical propositions with regard to interest groups as such they are useful heuristics highlighting the range of factors that need to be considered to provide a more detailed account. These examples are not isolated incidents in the interest group studies field. Many group theories (e.g. the logic of collective action, organisational exchange theory, etc.) draw on more abstract social or political science theories, but their connections to other areas of political science are not always made explicit. Acknowledging these influences and delineating the connections to the wider research community may further strengthen the linkages of interest group theory to other fields of political science. It may also increase the compatibility of different strands of interest group theory and enhance its wider relevance. Of course, we are walking a tightrope here because this raises the level of abstraction of interest group theory. However, deriving more specific propositions for the study of interest groups from these more abstract statements may improve the consistency of interest group studies. Failure to do so may further increase the elegant irrelevance (Baumgartner and Leech 1998) of interest group studies and consign it to a small niche status disconnected from other areas in political science. Research Design and Methodology Building cumulative knowledge about interest group politics and strengthening links with other fields of political science is not simply a problem of theory formation. Nor is it merely a matter of gathering more data though of course more data is better than less. The modular approach to the study of interest groups advanced here calls for better data rather than more data and, most importantly, for data better suited to the integration of different research efforts. Typically for a modular approach is that different components within a larger research programme are self-contained while simultaneously being relatively straightforward to connect to other components of research. In sum, a major challenge for future research projects will be to organise datasets in a way that makes them complementary and comparable so that knowledge gaps are bridged and knowledge accumulation is enhanced. This implies more cooperative strategies for sampling and case selection. Frequently, researchers select cases because they have a specific interest in some substantive areas. The analysis of individual cases can certainly add to our knowledge (see below). However, knowledge is more likely to expand

10 1300 J. Beyers et al. through cooperation in networks or at least through greater intellectual exchange. Obviously this entails building a consensus about what concepts are crucial to the study of interest groups and how they are to be defined and measured. The construction of core datasets covering central aspects of interest group systems and interest group behaviour, as well as of datasets that are in important aspects compatible will permit different theoretical orientations and research puzzles to be addressed (Gabel et al. 2002). Similar approaches have been developed in election and party manifestos research. The development of operational concepts for measuring the number of relevant parties or party system fragmentation as well as joint endeavours studying party manifestos contributed in important ways to the accumulation of knowledge on how parties work in very different contexts. Evidently, the development of operational concepts for the comparative study of interest groups requires some homogeneity of units as well as contexts and quite a bit of comparative information. Moreover, a modular approach will not solve all the problems with the comparative study of interest groups. It must, of course, also allow for fruitful debates and disagreements. However, we believe that without greater cooperative efforts there are substantial limits to the competitive testing of theoretical propositions and the growth of knowledge. All this has important implications for the sort of research designs and methods required. It does not necessarily mean that more research projects are needed, but stronger linkages between ongoing and future projects should be built. While the previous sections have shown that interest groups are increasingly transnationalised, group researchers may also need to transnationalise in order to broaden comparative perspectives and deal with new multi-level contexts. This can imply a modular approach with large-n quantitative research and focused comparative case studies. In that respect, we do not believe that the deficiencies of comparative interest group studies can just be remedied by including a larger number of cases in quantitative research designs. Rather, studying a limited set of cases with a carefully selected range of variation on the variables of interest can greatly contribute to our understanding of interest group politics (see also Lowery et al. 2008). Mahoney and Baumgartner (2008) point out that interest group studies on both shores of the Atlantic have moved towards more similar research agendas in the past decade because of the greater internationalisation of (European) scholarship, greater theoretical integration of interest group research, and the increasing importance of multi-level governance structures. We concur that these developments, as well as the increasing concern for compatible research designs, create excellent opportunities to foster the development of a truly comparative literature. Several contributions in this volume suggest building research designs that incorporate systematic samples of specific policy issues. Such research projects would bring the empirical research on interest groups closer to research practices in the field of legislative politics. Systematic comparisons of how institutional contexts

11 Conclusion 1301 affect the evolution of interest group systems and the political behaviour of groups. As well as how issue-related and group-specific factors affect lobbying practices and outcomes may contribute towards the development of a coherent and connected new literature on groups. As S.E. Finer (1958) concluded his seminal volume Anonymous Empire some 50 years ago, we need Light! More light!. Notes 1. Moreover, the incorporation of more generic approaches has triggered the maturity of EU studies and its growing contribution to the general political science literature. This can be inferred from the fact that EU scholars are nowadays regular contributors to general political science journals such as Comparative Political Studies, the American Political Science Review or the European Journal of Political Research (Keeler 2005). And while 15 years ago, typical EU journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies or the Journal of European Public Policy were mainly populated by EU scholars, general political scientists have started to publish on EU affairs in these journals. 2. This phenomenon received considerable attention in the literature and a panoply of labels are used in order to characterise (parts of) it; multi-level governance (Marks et al. 1996; Hooghe and Marks 2003), network governance (Kohler-Koch and Eising 1999), the market state (Bobbitt 2002), the disaggregated state (Slaughter 2004), the network society (Castells 1996), the composite polity (Imig and Tarrow 2001), neo-medievalism (Zielonka 2006), mixed orders (Olsen 2007), the organisational state (Laumann and Knoke 1987). References Bartolini, Stefano (2005). Restructuring Europe: Centre Formation, System Building and Political Structuring between the Nation State and the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baumgartner, Frank R., and Beth L. Leech (1998). The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Berry, Jeffrey M. (1994). An Agenda for Research on Interest Groups, in William Crotty, Mildred A. Schwartz and John C. Green (eds), Representing Interests and Interest Group Representation. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Bernstein, Richard J. (1979). The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Beyers, Jan (2008). Policy Issues, Organizational Format and the Political Strategies of Interest Organizations, West European Politics, 31:6, Blavoukos, Spyros, and George Pagoulatos (2008). Enlargement Waves and Interest Group Participation in the EU Policy-Making System: Establishing a Framework of Analysis, West European Politics, 31:6, Bobbitt, Philip (2002). The Shield of Achilles. War, Peace and the Course of History. London: Penguin Books. Broscheid, Andreas, and David Coen (2006). Insider and Outsider Lobbying of the European Commission: And Informational Model of Forum Politics, European Unions Politics, 4:2, Castells, Manuel (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Blackwell: Oxford. Du r, Andreas (2008). Interest Groups in the European Union: How Powerful Are They?, West European Politics, 31:6, Eising, Rainer (2008). Clientelism, Committees, Pluralism and Protests in the European Union. Matching Patterns?, West European Politics, 31:6,

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