IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v20y2019i2p198-218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

United in fear: Interest group coalition formation as a weapon of the weak?

Author

Listed:
  • Marcel Hanegraaff
  • Andrea Pritoni

Abstract

Although many interest groups work together perpetually, most academic studies agree that coalition formation does not lead to more influence. In this article, we try to explain these puzzling findings. While former research generally tends to frame the decision of forming an interest group coalition as a strength, in this paper, we argue that coalition building should be considered as a ‘weapon of the weak’. Interest groups fearing that they are insufficiently influential, and whose very existence as an organisation is at risk, are more likely to coalesce. This theoretical framework is tested on a sample of around 3000 interest groups in six European countries – Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Sweden – and the European Union. Empirical findings clearly demonstrate that perceived fears – oriented towards both organisational survival and policy influence – have an effect on how likely it is that an interest group will decide to build a coalition.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcel Hanegraaff & Andrea Pritoni, 2019. "United in fear: Interest group coalition formation as a weapon of the weak?," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(2), pages 198-218, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:20:y:2019:i:2:p:198-218
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116518824022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116518824022
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116518824022?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. Salisbury, Robert H. & Heinz, John P. & Laumann, Edward O. & Nelson, Robert L., 1987. "Who Works with Whom? Interest Group Alliances and Opposition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 1217-1234, December.
    2. Thomas T. Holyoke, 2009. "Interest Group Competition and Coalition Formation," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 360-375, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Albareda, Adrià & Fraussen, Bert, 2023. "The representative capacity of interest groups: explaining how issue features shape membership involvement when establishing policy positions," OSF Preprints dj54y, Center for Open Science.
    2. Benjamin C. K. Egerod & Wiebke Marie Junk, 2022. "Competitive lobbying in the influence production process and the use of spatial econometrics in lobbying research," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 193-215, April.
    3. Joost Berkhout & Marcel Hanegraaff & Patrick Statsch, 2020. "Interest Groups in Multi-Level Contexts: European Integration as Cross-Cutting Issue in Party-Interest Group Contacts," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 61-71.

    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. Sugandha Srivastav & Ryan Rafaty, 2023. "Political Strategies to Overcome Climate Policy Obstructionism," Papers 2304.14960, arXiv.org.
    2. Martimort, David, 2019. ""When Olson Meets Dahl": From Inefficient Groups Formation to Inefficient Policy-Making," CEPR Discussion Papers 13843, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Potters, Jan & Sloof, Randolph, 1996. "Interest groups: A survey of empirical models that try to assess their influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 403-442, November.
    4. Amy McKay, 2011. "The decision to lobby bureaucrats," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 123-138, April.
    5. Matthew Lee Howell, 2014. "The Logic of Urban Fragmentation: Organisational Ecology and the Proliferation of American Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(5), pages 899-916, April.
    6. Kanol Direnç, 2015. "Social influence, competition and the act of lobbying," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 75-96, April.
    7. Benjamin C. K. Egerod & Wiebke Marie Junk, 2022. "Competitive lobbying in the influence production process and the use of spatial econometrics in lobbying research," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 193-215, April.
    8. Heike Klüver, 2011. "The contextual nature of lobbying: Explaining lobbying success in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(4), pages 483-506, December.

    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:20:y:2019:i:2:p:198-218. 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.