Research
Members of the Standing Group frequently publish their research in the journal Interest Groups and Advocacy.
There are a number of research projects currently on-going within the research interests of the members of the Standing Group. Among others, inexhaustibly (also see here), these are the Comparative Interest Group Survey, the GovLis Project, the 2Capture project, the STATORG-project, Agendas and Interest Groups project and more.
Previous large research projects by members of the Standing Group:
INTEREURO: Networks, strategies and influence in the EU
By providing information and other input to the policy process, interest groups can improve the quality and legitimacy of EU decision making. At the same time, the access to decision-makers can be used to advance their own interests. Who are these interest groups? How do they organize? How much influence do they have? The main purpose of INTEREURO is to get a more comprehensive theoretical and empirical understanding of the role that interest groups play in the European polity. Particularly, this ESF-sponsored-project examine the strategies that interest groups use for influencing political decision-making, their impact on outcomes and their networks. INTEREURO focus on 100 legislative proposals enables it to cover a large variety of interest groups. The project gathers gather data, in particular by means of interviews, that is used to develop a comprehensive database, made publically available at the end of the project.
INTERARENA: Interest Groups Across Political Arenas
In all democratic societies a wide spectrum of interest groups seek political influence. The project: “INTERARENA – Interest Groups across Political Arenas” analyzes group influence towards the bureaucracy, parliament and the media. Among other things the project seeks to establish which groups are successful in attracting the attention of the media or bureaucrats and thus affecting political and administrative decisions. The project is conducted at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University in a four-year period from January 1st 2011 to December 31th 2014. In this period empirical investigations will be carried out in Denmark, Great Britain and Germany. The project has received a Sapere Aude grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research.
Lobbying and policy advocacy
The Collaborative Research Project on Lobbying and policy advocacy focused on the US federal government. The research project is a major, multi-year academic study of the process of lobbying and policymaking in Washington, DC. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation (grants #SBR-9905195 for the period of 1999 and 2000 and #SES-0111224 for the period of 2001 to 2003), with significant support from Penn State University. This website gives information on the background of the project, the principal investigators, documentation about research procedures, and a series of case files giving information about lobbying activities on a sample of public policy issues. In 2009 the principal researchers published a book reporting on the findings, Lobbying and Policy Change. The book was awarded the Leon Epstein Award for the best book on the topic of political organizations and parties.
