Lobbying in the European Union Interest Groups, Lobbying Coalitions, and Policy Change

Lobbying in the European Union provides the most extensive analysis of interest group influence on political decisions in the European Union to date. Thousands of lobbyists lobby decision-makers in Brussels every day, but little is known about their impact on policy. This book addresses this research gap and analyzes the conditions under which interest groups can successfully lobby the European institutions. The major argument is that successful lobbyingdepends on the strength of entire coalitions of likeminded interest groups that lobby the European institutions together. The book relies on a large, new dataset that combines a wide variety of data sources including an analysis of public Commission consultations, a survey among interest groups, informationgathered on interest group websites and legislative data retrieved from EU databases. The book shows that lobbying is a collective enterprise in which information supply, citizen support and economic power of lobbying coalitions are decisive for lobbying success.