The council of Europe: Interest groups and ideological missions?

Abstract

The traditional literature on interest group behaviour presumes that private interests develop lobbying strategies based on the principle of effective allocation of resources. However, nearly 400 private interest groups actively lobby the Council of Europe, a classical intergovernmental organisation with weak decision-making powers, where no significant policy pay-off is expected to occur. This analysis aims to explain the seeming puzzle of private interest groups seeking to influence an institution which is generally perceived as having no strong decision-making powers in European political space. It does so by exploring three explanations from the existing literature, namely ‘policy overlap’, ‘venue shopping’ and ‘epistemic community’, and considers another explanation not hitherto fully developed, suggesting that the ‘ideological motivation’ of interest groups helps to explain their behaviour. Taking the ideological motivation of interest groups into account when analysing lobbying strategies can in fact shed light on certain lobbying preferences that would otherwise appear to defy the logic of interest representation. This paper therefore suggests that an ‘ideological motivation’ explanation potentially plays a crucial role in the analysis of the behaviour of any interest group.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the several high-ranking officials in the CoE who were kind enough to allow interviews and access to documents throughout the study. The authors also acknowledge the constructive suggestions made by the two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. The CoE's Ordinary Budget in 2005 amounted to [euro]186 million compared to [euro]180.5 million in 2004 (Source: http://www.coe.int).

2. The EU's Council of Ministers, which represents the national governments of the 25 member states, sets the medium and long-term EU policy agenda while the Commission is the administrative body of the EU. The European Council can be seen as the most ‘significant’ council in the sense that the summits of the EU heads of state define the EU's general political guidelines and serve as the arena where main agreements between member states are finalised.

3. For details please see Council of Europe (2005).

4. For further information on this idea, please see the Council of Europe (2002a; 2002b; 2002d).

5. While Resolution (2003)8 grants permanent participatory status to international NGOs at the Council of Europe, Resolution (2003)9 on partnership status allows the Council of Europe to establish working relations with national NGOs to cooperate on individual projects on a short-term basis.

6. Author(s) interviews with high-level NGO representatives, December 2003, in Metz and Strasbourg. For the sake of anonymity, as requested by the interviewees, names are withheld.

7. Interviews with high-level NGO representatives, December 2003, in Metz and Strasbourg.

8. Interview with high-level NGO representative, December 2003, in Strasbourg.

9. Interview with high-level NGO representative, December 2003, in Metz.

10. Interview with high-level NGO representative, December 2003, in Metz.

11. Interview with high-level NGO representative, December 2003, in Metz.

12. Interviews with high-level NGO representatives, December 2003, in Metz and Strasbourg.

13. Interview with the Chairperson of the Liaison Committee, December 2003, in Strasbourg.

14. Interview with high-level NGO representative, December 2003, in Strasbourg.

15. He further affirmed that NGOs ‘have much to offer to the Council in terms of their experience for the process of policy-building’ (Council of Europe 2003c: 37).

16. For more details please see Council of Europe (2003c: 36).

17. Interviews with high-level NGO representatives, December 2003, in Strasbourg.

18. Interview with the Chairperson of the Liaison Committee, December 2003, in Strasbourg.

19. Interviews with high-level NGO representatives, December 2003, in Metz and Strasbourg.