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.     

Brexit and Strand Three of the 1998 Agreement: The Three Faces of East-West

Under Strand Three of the 1998 Belfast ‘Good Friday’ Agreement, institutions were set up to promote the ‘harmonious and mutually beneficial development’ of the ‘totality of relationships’ between the peoples and governments of Ireland and the UK, including its devolved administrations and Crown Dependencies. According to the text of the 1998 Agreement this ‘east-west’ dimension was to have two elements with corresponding institutions: an intergovernmental one reflected in the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIC) and an interjurisdictional one reflected in the British-Irish Council (BIC). These Strand Three institutions were designed to provide fora for, respectively, intergovernmental cooperation on ‘non-devolved Northern Ireland matters’ in the case of the BIIC and information exchange and cooperation ‘on matters of mutual interest within the competence of the relevant Administrations’ in the case of the BIC. Nowhere in the 1998 Agreement text is the concept of ‘east-west’ used to refer to relations between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Yet, in the wake of Brexit, and in the midst of controversy over the implications of the Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland, relations between Great Britain and Northern Ireland (GB–NI) have been newly framed as ‘east-west’. The creation of this new discursive face of ‘east-west’ relations marks an important, but little discussed, impact of Brexit on the political and constitutional landscape of the UK and Ireland. Against this backdrop, this article considers the impacts of Brexit, and the Protocol, on three faces of ‘east-west’ relations—the BIIC, the BIC and, newly, GB–NI—and discusses their implications for the future of Strand 3 institutions and the ‘totality of relationships’ they represent.     

Strategies of Minority Struggle for Equality in Ethnic States: Arab Politics in Israel

This paper challenges existing theories of radicalization and secession that are presented as “natural” tendencies of minority nationalism. It demonstrates the affinity between the strategies of national minorities and those of social movements, claiming that excluded minorities seek to reframe and expand the meaning of their citizenship, as do social movements, by utilizing the structures of opportunities available to them through citizenship and by mobilizing whatever resources possible to improve their status. Minorities utilize the opportunities embedded in their citizenship, despite its shortcomings, before ever moving to alternative strategies that may jeopardize the valued incentives that were achieved so far as citizens. The paper demonstrates its theoretical hypothesis by examining the changes taking place in the strategy adopted by the Arab minority in Israel. This minority has chosen to abandon accommodative politics and is adopting a more active and challenging strategy vis-à-vis the state. In contrast with common claims that conceive Arab politics as a tendency towards strategies of radicalization and confrontation with the state, this paper demonstrates that recent changes in Arab politics seek to expand the meaning of citizenship beyond liberal limits and adapt it to new conditions in order to meet the minority's expectations of full and equal citizenship.     

群体性事件中的身份利益群体研究

改革开放进入新时期以来,中国群体性事件的主体正在由事项利益群体转向身份利益群体。身份意识在结构上可细分为身份认同意识、身份利益意识、身份排斥意识和身份抗争意识,它们会对身份利益群体在群体性事件中的行为方式产生重要影响,并对冲突管理提出新的挑战。管理身份利益型冲突的目标、原则、策略和方式有别于事项利益型冲突,其管理目标应当定位于利益相关的各种身份群体间关系,促进各身份群体间的利益平衡;政府的角色应当居于中立地位,不偏不倚;管理机制和策略是设计公平和公开的身份群体间协商程序,并使协商过程和解决方案保持一定的透明度,以便形成能够在各身份群体间达致广泛共识的冲突解决方案。     

EU Simulations and Engagement: Motivating Greater Interest in European Union Politics

While the effects of simulation-based courses on the knowledge of participating students may be marginal in relation to standard lecture and discussion-based courses, this article argues that the greatest leverage is gained by increasing participating students’ level of interest in the subject of study and in politics more broadly. Participants tend to become increasingly absorbed in their roles and in the politics of the institutions at the center of the simulation. To better consider this possibility, we conducted a survey of students participating in the 2015 Mid-Atlantic European Union Simulation and of appropriate control populations. The survey results indeed suggest that, much more than simply acquiring knowledge about the EU, the simulation experience serves to generate more robust interest in the subject of study.     

Prisoners and Politics: Western Hostage Taking by Militant Groups

Hostage taking of Westerners by militant groups has increased since 9/11. Despite this rising problem, there has been little academic research on how a hostage’s individual characteristics influence the outcome of the incident. Using a newly collected dataset of over 1,000 individuals taken hostage in incidents involving terrorist groups since 2001, this article evaluates how individual, national, and group characteristics influence the likelihood that hostage incidents end with the release or execution of the hostage. The findings show that a hostage’s nationality and occupation are significant individual-level drivers of outcomes, while the nature of the militant group itself also matters.     

中国特殊利益集团问题探析

中国特殊利益集团的存在严重危害了社会公平正义,阻碍了改革的深入进行。对于公共管理者而言,需要重振公共行政的精神,抵制和治理特殊利益集团。     

Public Interest Groups in France and the United States

This article compares the strength, history, and characteristics of public interest groups in the United States and France. French and American public interest groups differ dramatically in their resources, popular support, and in their relations with state agencies. French groups, dependent on a more powerful central state bureaucracy, are often able to achieve their goals by having them adopted by state elites. American organizations, faced with a more diffuse public sector, seek broader access and use a greater diversity of means of influence. They are often less influential, but paradoxically are stronger organizationally because they are forced to be independent from the state. The differing relations with the state explain the different tactics and organizational maintenance strategies pursued by public interest groups in the two countries. Tight links bind the development of a nation's interest-group system with that of its constitutional structures. An explanation of a national interest-group system must include consideration of the institutional context within which it operates.     

Interest Groups and Investment: A Further Test of the Olson Hypothesis

Mancur Olson's institutional sclerosishypothesis may be evident in the effects ofinterest groups on investment in physicalcapital. To test this proposition, we usecross sectional data on 42 countries forwhich information on the number of interestgroups is available to estimate the effectof those groups on the share of GDP thatgoes into physical investment. The resultsindicate that interest groups have adifferent effect on physical investment inOECD and non-OECD countries. In the OECDcountries, we find support for thehypothesis that interest groups harminvestment in physical capital. Indeveloping countries, interest groupseither have no effect on physicalinvestment or they have a slight beneficialimpact.     

既得利益集团的形成条件探析

既得利益集团的形成是一个复杂的过程,至少离不开5个要素,同时还要取决于这5个要素的发育和关联程度。主体来源和利益目标是两个必备前提,官员政治道德逆转是形成的重要环节,制度缺陷和体制漏洞为其形成打开了通道,涉及官员的利益调整是主要契机,而官员的职业化则是孵化器。     

Federalism and Interest Group Cohesion: A Comparison of Two Peak Business Groups in Australia

The stock opinion among students of interest groups has, untilrecently, posited that groups in countries with a federal systemof government are less cohesive and more prone to disunity thaninterest groups in unitary states. This article addresses thisrelationship bet ween federalism and weak group cohesion inan attempt to explain the contrasting patterns of cohesion intwo peak Australian business groups, each a confederation instructure. The literature on federalism and group cohesion givesinsufficient attention to the divisive impact of three factors:party go vernment, size and wealth inequalities among a group'sconstituent units, and a group's decision and payoff rules.The literature also gives insufficient attention to the determinantsof group secession. It is the contention of the article thatconflicts over the fairness of a federated organization's rules,particularly when the large, wealthy units find themselves outvotedby the small, poor units, can be sufficient to provoke the aggrievedunits to secede.     

转型期利益群体的分化与政权的执政能力建设

在社会的急剧转型期,我国利益群体的分化格局呈现为中产阶层发育不良、强弱失衡的断裂结构.这样一种利益分化的失衡不仅表现在资源占有的明显差异上,还表现在利益表达与博弈的失衡方面.这样一科利益分化、博弈的失衡结构近年来还有固化与加剧的趋势.在这样一种背景下必须加强政权的执政能力建设:必须增强对政治权力自身的监督与制约能力;必须进一步提升针对利益分化与思想分化的调控与整合能力;必须增强培育、制定、创新社会政策的能力.