IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v16y2015i2p281-299.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sharing ties and preferences: Stakeholders’ position alignments in the European Commission’s open consultations

Author

Listed:
  • Adriana Bunea

Abstract

What explains interest groups’ position alignments in the European Commission’s open consultations? The article argues that formal membership ties facilitate organisational coordination and the creation of lobbying coalitions among interest groups, which in turn affects their position alignments. This argument is supported by empirical evidence from five environmental consultations. Sharing a formal membership tie within an over-arching organisational structure has a stronger effect on position alignment than the fact of representing the same type of interest or having the same organisational form. Coordinated, coalition-based lobbying accounts to a significant extent for stakeholders’ position alignments in the EU open consultations. The ‘social’ embeddedness of lobbying has a direct effect on the advocacy strategies interest groups decide to employ during the early stages of EU policymaking.

Suggested Citation

  • Adriana Bunea, 2015. "Sharing ties and preferences: Stakeholders’ position alignments in the European Commission’s open consultations," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 281-299, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:16:y:2015:i:2:p:281-299
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116514558338
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116514558338
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116514558338?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christine Quittkat, 2011. "The European Commission's Online Consultations: A Success Story?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 653-674, May.
    2. Rasmussen, Anne & Carroll, Brendan J., 2014. "Determinants of Upper-Class Dominance in the Heavenly Chorus: Lessons from European Union Online Consultations," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(2), pages 445-459, April.
    3. Schmitter, Philippe C. & Streeck, Wolfgang, 1999. "The organization of business interests: Studying the associative action of business in advanced industrial societies," MPIfG Discussion Paper 99/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Webb Yackee, Susan, 2006. "Assessing Inter-Institutional Attention to and Influence on Government Regulations," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 723-744, October.
    5. Adriana Bunea, 2014. "Explaining Interest Groups' Articulation of Policy Preferences in the European Commission's Open Consultations: An Analysis of the Environmental Policy Area," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(6), pages 1224-1241, November.
    6. Anne Rasmussen & Petya Alexandrova, 2012. "Foreign Interests Lobbying Brussels: Participation of non-EU Members in Commission Consultations," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(4), pages 614-631, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adriana Bunea, 2014. "Explaining Interest Groups' Articulation of Policy Preferences in the European Commission's Open Consultations: An Analysis of the Environmental Policy Area," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(6), pages 1224-1241, November.
    2. Idunn Nørbech, 2024. "Does policy context matter for citizen engagement in policymaking? Evidence from the European Commission's public consultation regime," European Union Politics, , vol. 25(1), pages 130-150, March.
    3. Jan Beyers & Sarah Arras, 2021. "Stakeholder consultations and the legitimacy of regulatory decision‐making: A survey experiment in Belgium," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 877-893, July.
    4. Matti Van Hecke & Peter Bursens & Jan Beyers, 2016. "You'll Never Lobby Alone. Explaining the Participation of Sub-national Authorities in the European Commission's Open Consultations," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(6), pages 1433-1448, November.
    5. Adriana Bunea & Raimondas Ibenskas, 2015. "Quantitative text analysis and the study of EU lobbying and interest groups," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(3), pages 429-455, September.
    6. Fink, Simon & Ruffing, Eva, 2020. "Learning in iterated consultation procedures – The example of the German electricity grid demand planning," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. Marcel Hanegraaff & Arlo Poletti, 2021. "It's economic size, stupid! How global advocacy mirrors state power," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1326-1349, October.
    8. Bert Fraussen & Adrià Albareda & Caelesta Braun, 2020. "Conceptualizing consultation approaches: identifying combinations of consultation tools and analyzing their implications for stakeholder diversity," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(3), pages 473-493, September.
    9. Kenworthy, Lane, 2000. "Quantitative indicators of corporatism: A survey and assessment," MPIfG Discussion Paper 00/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    10. Sophie Jacquot & Cornelia Woll, 2003. "Usage of European Integration - Europeanisation from a Sociological Perspective," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01019642, HAL.
    11. Plehwe, Dieter & Schlögl, Matthias, 2014. "Europäische und zivilgesellschaftliche Hintergründe der euro(pa)skeptischen Partei Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)," Discussion Papers, Project Group Modes of Economic Governance SP III 2014-501, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    12. Sarah Arras & Jan Beyers, 2020. "Access to European Union Agencies: Usual Suspects or Balanced Interest Representation in Open and Closed Consultations?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 836-855, July.
    13. Sophie Jacquot & Cornelia Woll, 2003. "Usage of European Integration - Europeanisation from a Sociological Perspective," Post-Print hal-01019642, HAL.
    14. Joost Berkhout & Jan Beyers & Marcel Hanegraaff, 2023. "The Representative Potential of Interest Groups: Internal Voice in Post-Communist and Western European Countries," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 50-64.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8528 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Marta Martínez Matute & Pedro S. Martins, 2022. "How representative are social partners in Europe? The role of dissimilarity," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 36(4), pages 424-444, December.
    17. Caleb Goods & Bradon Ellem, 2023. "Employer associations: Climate change, power and politics," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(2), pages 481-503, May.
    18. Ewald Engelen, 2004. "Problems of Descriptive Representation in Dutch Works Councils," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(3), pages 491-507, October.
    19. Cornelia Woll, 2005. "The Difficult Organization of Business Interests. MEDEF and the Political Representation of French Firms," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01065609, HAL.
    20. Michael Barry & Adrian Wilkinson, 2011. "Reconceptualising employer associations under evolving employment relations," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 25(1), pages 149-162, March.
    21. Calì, Massimiliano & Sen, Kunal, 2011. "Do Effective State Business Relations Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Indian States," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1542-1557, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:16:y:2015:i:2:p:281-299. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.