Olson Triumphant? Recruitment Strategies and the Growth of a Small Business Organisation

This article looks at the emergence and maintenance of interest groups. We systematically identify a range of membership incentives that underpin mobilisation and apply them to a case study, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), focusing on the recruitment literature rather than the special niche literature on trade associations. The FSB was created in 1974 and membership was 'flat' at about 40,000 until recruiting method changes were introduced in the early 1990s. The total now approaches 200,000. This account of FSB recruitment argues unsurprisingly that the group resulted from a combination of diverse influences rather than the Truman type of 'automatic' mobilisation. More surprisingly, it notes that while early membership is accounted for by the perspectives of Truman, Salisbury, Wilson, Moe, Opp and Sabatier, the major increases of the past decade requires attention to the contribution of face-to-face marketing and Olsonian incentives. The FSB is an unusually good example of group entrepreneur activity that illustrates how entrepreneur incentives are different from those salient to members. Groups can experience different phases and forms as they grow. We exploit a 'natural experiment' by illustrating how the FSB addressed membership stagnation by changing the recruitment package in a broadly Olsonian direction. The 'before and after' patterns of recruitment allow a 'test' of these techniques. It also raises the issue of how different recruitment efforts produce a membership with different political characteristics.     

Different Groups, Different Strategies: How Interest Groups Pursue Their Political Ambitions

The article compares the political activities of different types of interest groups. Drawing on data from a survey of all Danish national interest groups, it demonstrates significant variation in the strategic choices of different types of groups. Groups with corporative resources direct much attention towards influencing the bureaucracy. They possess resources valued by officials and therefore have good options for utilizing a strategy targeting the administration and seeking corporatist integration. By contrast, public interest groups are more likely to use publicly visible strategies in which affecting the media agenda plays a central role. By engaging in such strategies, public interest groups can demonstrate a high level of engagement to their diffuse membership. Furthermore, the goals of public interest groups are typically conducive to pursuit through public strategies. A third category of other groups is incorporated in the analyses as a point of reference to establish patterns of strategy use. While there are clear differences between groups with regard to most strategies of influence, different types of groups are equally engaged in a parliamentary strategy. Interacting with Parliament seems to be important for groups integrated in corporatist structures as well as for those relying more on public strategies.     

Balancing constituency and congruence: How constituency involvement affects positional congruence between organized interests and the general public

This article asks to what extent and under which conditions interest groups are congruent with public opinion. We argue that interest groups can be caught in a balancing act between engaging with their constituency on the one hand and aligning their position with the broader public on the other hand. We contribute to previous studies by arguing that the effect of interest group type on congruence is moderated by the degree to which constituencies are involved in advocacy processes and the salience of policy issues. We test these expectations by analyzing 314 media claims made by Belgian interest groups regarding 58 policy issues. The results demonstrate that citizen groups with formal members are more prone to share the position of the broader public compared to concentrated interest groups such as business associations, especially if they involve their members in advocacy activities and when issues are salient in the media.     

Interest group representation and framing in the media: A policy area perspective

This article analyzes interest group representation and framing in the news media. In contrast to previous work, it focuses on the role of the policy area in shaping the types of groups appearing in the media and the frames used by groups. Empirically, the analysis maps group representation and framing across six different policy areas in the Danish news media. It distinguishes between whether groups frame their viewpoints as furthering (a) the interests of group members, (b) the interests of other specific societal groups, (c) broad economic concerns, or (d) public interests in general. Interest group representation and framing is found to vary between these policy areas. Some areas mainly contrast economic groups and the interests of their members, whereas debates in other areas are more likely to be shaped by references to beneficiaries of welfare state services or broad, public interests.     

The influence of business associations on legislation: The case of Kenya

Interest groups seek to influence public policy. Business associations specifically seek to influence policy related to the environment in which their members operate, with the intention of making it easier for the members, and the wider private sector, to “do business.” Scholars question whether interest groups are influential and, if so, the degree to which their activity influences public policy. Even if they do influence public policy at the margins, it is questionable how effective they are in influencing legislation. As a result, there is little exploration of the factors that may determine whether business membership organizations (BMOs) are likely to be successful. This paper explores the efforts of two BMOs in Kenya to influence legislation: In one case, the BMO persuaded the government to introduce legislation to regulate an activity that had previously not been subject to legislation; in the other, a BMO sought to persuade the government to amend its own proposals to replace existing legislation with new legislation. In both cases, we find evidence that the BMO was successful, though one BMO was significantly more successful than the other. We review the factors perceived by the BMOs to have led to their success. Neither was in a position to rely on economic or other power to strong‐arm the government. Both followed a predominantly insider strategy though with occasional media back‐up. Both were successful on the more “technical” issues. Key factors include the use of a champion, engaging across government, supplying information, and providing evidence and good argumentation.     

Getting a Seat at the Table: Capital,Capture and Expert Groups in the European Union

European Commission expert groups provide powerful platforms from which interest organisations can steer the EU consultation process and weigh in on policy outcomes. Commission decision-makers and bureaucrats rely heavily on expert groups to provide expert policy advice on highly technical issues in the early stages of the policymaking process. Interest organisations provide this advice in order to have their voices heard at the EU level. But whose interests are being represented in these expert groups? Which types of interest organisations, in other words, get a seat at the table and why? This article, using data on over 800 expert groups and nearly 3,000 interest organisations, argues that expert group membership is largely a function of superior resources, EU-level interests and existing institutionalised ties to decision-makers. Far from simply addressing the Commission’s need for expertise, expert group membership is more a story of capital and capture.     

The Present Challenges to ASPA as an Association That Promotes Public Professionalism

What is ASPA's place among core public professional organizations as well as public official associations? All public organizations are affected by tough competition for membership. Relatively few members of other public associations join ASPA, and vice versa. Only a minority of faculty members who teach in public affairs programs belong to ASPA, and at top schools, the proportion is even lower. When comparing ASPA to other public official associations, it is smaller in size and broader in scope, yet it remains a uniquely pan‐generalist organization. Its pan‐generalist character puts it at a disadvantage, but also offers distinct advantages. Like all public associations and nonprofits, ASPA faces stiff competition from increasingly specialized associations for membership. Its key future challenge, the authors suggest, will be to match its membership benefits effectively to the rapidly shifting expectations and needs of current and prospective members.     

The survival of interest groups: evidence from Germany

Abstract

Interest groups are important intermediary organisations that function as a transmission belt between societal interests and political decision-makers. However, while some interest groups survive over decades, others only last a few years. This article argues that the survival of interest groups depends on their ability to mobilise resources which is crucially affected by interest group type and the public salience of an interest group’s policy domain. The theoretical expectations are tested based on a novel dataset mapping the survival of 1699 interest groups registered at the German Bundestag between 1974 and 2012. Using event history analysis, it is shown that interest group type and public salience indeed affect whether interest groups survive. Sectional groups last significantly longer than cause groups, and interest group survival increases with the public salience of their policy area. The results have major implications for our understanding of interest groups and political representation in contemporary democracies.     

When to Tell? : Disclosure of Concealable Group Membership,Stereotypes, and Political Evaluation

Although their group membership is normatively irrelevant to vote choice, members of politically underrepresented groups (e.g., women, nonwhites, and gays and lesbians) are often evaluated through the prism of their group memberships and related stereotypes when competing for elective office. Because membership in groups defined by gender, race, or ethnicity is easily perceptible, women and nonwhite candidates may have little control over the political effects of their group membership. Membership in groups defined by a candidate's sexual orientation is concealable, in contrast, and thus potentially gives gay and lesbian candidates some control over the impact of their homosexuality and accompanying stereotypes on voters' responses. Using an experimental design, I examine the relationships between timing of group membership disclosure, group stereotypes, candidate sex, and political responses to gay and lesbian candidates for office—taking into consideration voters' attitudes toward homosexuality and their sex.     

Are they listening? Public opinion,interest groups and government responsiveness

What is the role of interest groups in the transmission of issues between the public and government policy? While government responsiveness to voters has received widespread scholarly attention, little is known about the role of interest groups in the transmission of public opinion to government. It is argued here that interest groups importantly influence government responsiveness to public opinion, but that the effect varies by type of interest group: while cause groups increase the responsiveness of governments to their electorate, sectional groups decrease government responsiveness. Drawing on a new and unique dataset, this article examines the relationship between public opinion, interest groups and government expenditure across 13 policy areas in Germany from 1986 until 2012 and shows that interest groups indeed have a differential effect on the responsiveness of governments. The article’s findings have important implications for understanding political representation and the largely overlooked relationship between public opinion, interest groups and government policy.     

The private stake in public goods: overcoming the illogic of collective action

Conclusion According to the Logic of Collective Action, most actions in the service of common interests are either not logical or not collective. In a large group, the argument goes, individual action counts for so little in the realization of common interests that it makes no sense for a person to consider group interests when choosing a course of personal conduct. Only private interests are decisive. Their fulfillment, at least, depends in a substantial way on one's own behavior. Individual actions designed to achieve private advantage are therefore rational. Actions aimed at collective goods are a waste of time and effort. Occasionally, of course, a person acting on the basis of private interests may inadvertently provide some collective good from which many other people derive benefit. This is what happens in the case of the Greek shipping tycoon. But it occurs only because one person's private good fortuitously coincides with the collective good of a larger group. From the tycoon's perspective, there are no collective interests at stake in the sponsorship of an opera broadcast, only his own private interests. Nor does his decision to underwrite a broadcast take account of the other people who will listen to it. His action is a solitary one designed to serve a private interest, and it is perfectly consistent with Olson's argument concerning the illogic of collective action, because it is not grounded in collective interest and is not a case of collective behavior. Olson's theory permits people to share collective interests but not to act upon them voluntarily. The only acknowledged exception occurs in the case of very small groups, where each member's contribution to the common good represents such a large share of the total that any person's default becomes noticeable to others and may lead them to reduce or cancel their own contributions. In this instance, at least, one person's actions can make a perceptible difference for the chance of realizing collective interests, and it is therefore sensible for each person to consider these collective interests (and one another's conduct) when deciding whether or not to support group efforts. Outside of small groups, however, Olson finds no circumstances in which voluntary collective action is rational. But in fact the conditions that make collective action rational are broader than this and perhaps more fundamental to Olson's theory. They are inherent in the very ‘collectiveness’ of collective goods - their status as social or group artifacts. In the absence of a group, there can be no such thing as a collective good. But in the absence of mutual awareness and interdependence, it becomes extremely difficult to conceive of a social group. The assumption that group members are uninfluenced by one another's contributions to a collective good is no mere theoretical simplification. It may be a logical impossibility. Being a member of a group, even a very large one, implies at the very least that one's own conduct takes place against a background of group behavior. Olson's assumptions do not acknowledge this minimal connection between individual and group behavior, and they inhibit recognition of the elementary social processes that explain why slovenly conduct attracts special attention on clean streets, or why the initial violations of group norms are more momentous than later violations. It may be argued, of course, that the groups of Olson's theory are not functioning social groups with a collective existence, but only categories or classes of people who happen to share a collective interest. The logic of collective action is intended precisely to show why these ‘potential’ groups are prevented from converting themselves into organized social groups whose members act in a coordinated way. In such latent groups, perhaps, members are unaware of one another, and Olson's assumption that they are uninfluenced by one another's conduct becomes a reasonable one. Another implication, however, is that Olson's theory is subject to unacknowledged restrictions. The logic of the free ride is for potential groups. It may not hold for actual ones. The distinction is exemplified, in the case of public sanitation, by the difference between what is rational on a clean street and what is rational on a dirty one. The logic of the free ride does not make sense for the members of an ongoing group that is already operating to produce collective goods such as public order or public sanitation. While this represents a notable limitation upon the scope of Olson's theory, it apparently leaves the logic of collective action undisturbed where potential or latent groups are concerned. But suppose that a member of an unmobilized group wants her colleagues to contribute to the support of a collective good that she particularly values. Her problem is to create a situation in which such contributions make sense to her fellow members. As we have already seen in the case of the neighborhood street-sweeper, one possible solution is to provide the collective good herself. If it has the appropriate characteristics, its very existence may induce other members of the latent group to contribute to its maintenance. This is not one of those cases in which one person's private interest fortuitously coincides with the collective interest of a larger group. The neighborhood street-sweeper is acting on behalf of an interest that she is conscious of sharing with her neighbors. Her aim is to arouse collective action in support of that interest. She does not expect to pay for public cleanliness all by herself, or to enjoy its benefits all by herself. Her role bears a general resemblance to the one that some analysts have defined for the political entrepreneur who seeks to profit personally by supplying a collective good to the members of a large group (Frohlich, Oppenheimer, and Young 1971). Like the neighborhood street-sweeper, the entrepreneur finds it advantageous to confer a collective benefit on others. But the similarity does not extend to the nature of the advantage or the manner in which it is secured. The entrepreneur induces people to contribute toward the cost of a collective good by creating an organizational apparatus through which group members can pool their resources. The existence of this collection mechanism can also strengthen individual members' confidence that their colleagues' contributions are forthcoming. What the entrepreneur gains is private profit - the difference between the actual cost of a collective good and the total amount that group members are prepared to pay for it. By contrast, the neighborhood street-sweeper induces support for a collective good, not by facilitating contributions, but by increasing the costs that come from the failure to contribute. As a result of her efforts, she gains a clean street whose benefits (and costs) she shares with her fellow residents. She takes her profit in the form of collective betterment rather than private gain, and her conduct, along with the behavior of her neighbors, demonstrates that effective selfinterest can extend beyond private interest. Self-interest can also give rise to continuing cooperative relationships. The street-sweeper, acting in her own interest, brings into being a cooperative enterprise in which she and her fellow residents jointly contribute to the production of a collective good. Cooperation in this case does not come about through negotiation or exchange among equal parties. It can be the work of a single actor who contributes the lion's share of the resources needed to establish a collective good, in the expectation that its existence will induce others to join in maintaining it. The tactic is commonplace as a means of eliciting voluntary collective action, and it operates on a scale far larger than the street or the neighborhood. Government, paradoxically, probably relies on it more than most institutions With its superior power and resources, it may be society's most frequent originator of voluntary collective action. Its policies, imposed through coercion and financed by compulsory taxation, generate a penumbra of cooperation without which coercion might become ineffectual. By providing certain collective goods, government authorities can move citizens to make voluntary contributions to the maintenance of these goods. The stark dichotomy between private voluntary action and public coercion - one of the mainstays of American political rhetoric - may be as misleading as the identification of self-interest with selfishness. There is more at stake here than the voluntary production of collective goods. Continuing cooperative behavior can have other results as well. Once group members begin to expect cooperation from one another, norms of cooperation and fairness are likely to develop. Axelrod (1986) has suggested that modes of conduct which have favorable outcomes for the people who pursue them tend to evolve into group norms. Public-spirited action that serves self-interest could therefore engender a principled attachment to the common good, undermining the assumption of self-interestedness that gives the logic of collective action its bite. Laboratory studies of cooperative behavior have already demonstrated that experimental subjects have far less regard for narrow self-interest than rational choice theory requires (Dawes 1980). In one extended series of collective action experiments, however, Marwell and Ames (1981) found a single group of subjects who approximated the self-interested free-riders of Olson's theory. They were graduate students in economics.     

Voting Against Your Constituents? How Lobbying Affects Representation

Citizens delegate the representation of their political preferences to members of Parliament (MPs), who are supposed to represent their interests in the legislature. However, MPs are exposed to a variety of interest groups seeking to influence their voting behavior. We argue that interest groups influence how MPs cast their vote in Parliament, but that this effect varies across groups. While lobbying by sectional groups provides incentives for MPs to defect from their constituents, we expect that cause groups in fact strengthen the link between MPs and their voters. We test our argument based on an innovative study of 118 Swiss public referenda, which allows for directly comparing voter preferences with legislative voting of 448 MPs on these issues. Drawing on a multilevel regression analysis, this study shows that interest groups considerably affect the link between MPs and their voters. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of political representation.     

Putting the puzzle together: Why people join public interest groups

Why people join organizations, especially public interest groups, has been an unsolved puzzle. In this analysis, choice-based probability methods are employed to combine data from the 1980 National Election Study with comparable information about Common Cause members and to estimate models of the participation calculus that put the pieces of the puzzle together. The results demonstrate the primary importance of political interest and policy preferences for the membership choice. Citizens who are politically interested and have preferences that roughly match an organization's reputation find that associational membership has both greater benefits and lower costs for them than it does for others. Variations in the costs of communication — to the degree that they can be measured — are unimportant for the joining decision. An ability to pay is also irrelevant, regardless of educational attainment and despite members' high incomes. Organizational leaders deliberately keep the costs of membership low relative to most citizens' ability to pay; this encourages potential contributors to join in order to learn about the organization.I would like to thank Jeffrey Dubin for going beyond the realm of collegial obligation in providing programming and econometric assistance; Jeffrey Flint, for research assistance; and Kevin Grier, for wise advice. It should be emphasized, however, that all errors are exclusively the author's responsibility.     

Exploring the Basis of Declining Party Membership in Denmark: A Scandinavian Comparison*

Short-term changes in party membership figures have hypothetically been attributed to a connection between electoral success and membership effort. In the long-term, however, mass party organizations may be doomed to oudive themselves, since elections can be won by utilizing modern mass media techniques. Both assertions could more easily be falsified than confirmed in my study of Scandinavian party membership. After World War II. party membership in Scandinavia has steadily been increasing, except in Denmark where membership has continuously shrunk. Findings show that most rank-and-file party members are superfluous in electoral campaigns. But Die main function of party members is no longer campaigning. Instead, they are holding seats in a multitude of municipal councils, boards, and committees. This change is made possible mainly by two factors public party subsidies and the politicization of municipal elections. The causal link between these two factors is, however, not mechanical. Instead it depends on how many public subsidies are offered, the platforms of parties, and the number of seats needed in running the municipalities. In Denmark, public subsidies are unheard of and expensive public elections are held at least annually. Also, the number of supplied seats are few. Thus, if costs are high and rewards are few, then a membership decline is probable.     

Interest Group Access to the Bureaucracy,Parliament, and the Media

A key issue for interest groups and policymakers is the ways through which organized interests voice their interests and influence public policy. This article combines two perspectives on interest group representation to explain patterns of interest group access to different political arenas. From a resource exchange perspective, it argues that access to different political arenas is discrete as it is determined by the match between the supply and demands of interest groups and gatekeepers—politicians, bureaucrats, and reporters. From a partly competing perspective, it is argued that access is cumulative and converges around wealthy and professionalized groups. Based on a large‐scale investigation of group presence in Danish political arenas, the analyses show a pattern of privileged pluralism. This describes a system where multiple political arenas provide opportunities for multiple interests but where unequally distributed resources produce cumulative effects (i.e., the same groups have high levels of arena access).     

How interest groups influence public opinion: Arguments matter more than the sources

Through what mechanism do interest groups shape public opinion on concrete policies? In this article, three hypotheses are proposed that distinguish between the effect of the arguments conveyed by interest groups and the effect of interest groups as source cues. Two survey experiments on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TIPP) and the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change allow the testing of these hypotheses. The resulting evidence from several countries shows that, with respect to interest groups’ attempts at shaping public opinion, arguments matter more than their sources. This is so even when accounting for people's trust in the interest groups that serve as source cues and for people's level of information about a policy. The finding that interest groups affect public opinion via arguments rather than as source cues has implications for the literature on elite influence on public opinion and the normative evaluation of interest group activities.     

Targeting the lobbying effort: The importance of local government lobbying

Abstract Local government is subject to extensive lobbying, which is reasonable given the greater importance of the local public sector in large welfare states. Most of the scholarly attention has been focused on lobbying at the national level, often addressing the impact of interest groups on public policies. This article discusses a decision–making model where interest groups optimize their lobbying efforts given the way that different local governments and individual politicians respond to these activities. A number of propositions are tested on the basis of data from Norwegian local government. Contrary to prior theorizing, we do not find that representatives seeking re–election are contacted more frequently by interest groups. Interest groups target their lobbying activities toward politicians who are members of the relevant council committees, and they exert stronger pressure on members of the executive board and active representatives who perceive themselves as influential. Inter–municipal differences are also of importance: The lobbying activities are more intensive where electoral participation is low and in the larger urban municipalities, while the size of legislatures and the strength of the local political leadership affect lobbying efforts negatively. Interest groups tend to be more active in the richer local governments. The demands of the residential population impact weakly on lobbying efforts.     

The Captive or the Broker? Explaining Public Agency–Interest Group Interactions

The literature offers individually valid yet collectively inconsistent hypotheses concerning the nature of public agencies' responsiveness to interest groups. This article analyzes the nature of this responsiveness by examining the brokerage potential of public agencies among interest groups. Such a brokerage potential is hypothesized to follow from agencies' preferences for policy goods as well as the tendency of interest groups to seek access to public agencies. It combines analyses of agencies' demand for policy goods with interest groups preferences for seeking access to specific policy venues. The analyses are based on survey data of national civil servants and interest groups in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. The findings suggest that both strategic preferences as well as organizational routines positively correlate with a brokerage potential while interaction patterns within and with the organizational environment of public agencies can constrain their brokerage potential in several distinct ways.     

Targeting the lobbying effort: The importance of local government lobbying

Local government is subject to extensive lobbying, which is reasonable given the greater importance of the local public sector in large welfare states. Most of the scholarly attention has been focused on lobbying at the national level, often addressing the impact of interest groups on public policies. This article discusses a decision–making model where interest groups optimize their lobbying efforts given the way that different local governments and individual politicians respond to these activities. A number of propositions are tested on the basis of data from Norwegian local government. Contrary to prior theorizing, we do not find that representatives seeking re–election are contacted more frequently by interest groups. Interest groups target their lobbying activities toward politicians who are members of the relevant council committees, and they exert stronger pressure on members of the executive board and active representatives who perceive themselves as influential. Inter–municipal differences are also of importance: The lobbying activities are more intensive where electoral participation is low and in the larger urban municipalities, while the size of legislatures and the strength of the local political leadership affect lobbying efforts negatively. Interest groups tend to be more active in the richer local governments. The demands of the residential population impact weakly on lobbying efforts.     

The industrial structure of the California Assembly: Committee assignments,economic interests,and campaign contributions

This paper examines the provision of campaign contributions made by economic interests to incumbents seeking reelection in the 1984, 1986, and 1988 California Assembly elections. The study tests whether the distribution of campaign contributions by specific industrial sectors corresponds to legislator possession of the policy property rights associated with membership on relevant Assembly standing committees. A non-parametric statistical model compares the distribution of campaign contributions from groups within a given industrial sector to members of relevant policy committees with the distribution of contributions from all other contributor classes. The empirical analysis confirms that committee assignments significantly affect the allocation of special interest resources in Assembly elections, substantiating the importance of institutional considerations in influencing special interest activity.