Lobbyismus und Mittelstand: Zur Identifikation der Interessenverbände des Mittelstands in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

This paper deals with the organisation of the interests of the small business sector in the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. 'Freie Berufe' are regarded as an integral part of this sector. Starting from the hypothesis that these interests are not represented appropriatly in the interest organisation system on the national political level it is the goal of this paper to show a way to realize an empirical test. In order to reach this goal it was referred to the policy network concept as an appropriate empirical analytical tool. Starting from a suitable data set containing interest organizations which try to influence the political system on a national level, the reputational approach was used to identify the whole system of the influential interest organisations in this sphere. The empirical small business influence network gained by that method contains 49 interest organisations. Yet the organisational system found is of extreme heterogenity. According to the influence reputation between the organisations many differences were discovered. They differ furthermore in a number of certain aspects like size of the membership, organisational structure or organisational environment. Taken the empirical results into account one is forced to reject the hypothesis of the underrepresentation of small business interests in the political system at the national level in Germany. But there was found not one organisational vote but a whole network of organisations with different goals, structures and relationships to each other.