Interest groups in EU policy-making

Interest groups in EU policy-making

There is a plethora of studies on interest groups in the European Union. While these studies have generated a wealth of insights, it is not actually clear what they have accomplished. This Living Review seeks to identify those areas of interest group studies in which our knowledge is fairly consolidated and in which major research gaps or major controversies can be noted. I argue that these res...

Eu Electricity Planning and Policy-making

Lobbies, Democracy and EU Health Policy-Making

What effects do interest groups have on the democratization and legitimacy of the European Union (EU)? Interest groups can democratize the EU only to the extent that they do not replicate inequalities. We use a newly constructed database to look for inequalities: Are the big organizations in Brussels the same as the ones in the EU member states? Are some member states’ lobbies more active than ...

Competing Policy Frames in EU Policy Making: The Rise of Free Market Ideas in EU Steel Policy 1985-1996

EU steel policy offers a particularly good example of how policy ideas can be transposed from the national to the supranational level via advocacy coalitions and policy entrepreneurs. The Treaty of Paris, which founded the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, gave steel a firm institutional base, and made it a 'special case' within the European Community. Although the Treaty was a hybrid ...

Public Interest vs. Interest Groups: Allowance Allocation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

This article presents a political-economy analysis of allowance allocation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). A common-agency model suggests that a politicalsupport maximizing government considers the preferences of sectoral interest groups besides public interest when allocating emissions permits. In the stylized model, industries represented by more powerful lobby groups face a lowe...