“Post-truth post-communism?” – Information-oriented lobbying in the context of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT

This article explores how democratic backsliding affects the value of expertise provision for interest groups in influencing policymaking. The analysis is conducted on an original survey of Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovenian energy, healthcare, and higher education interest groups active at the national level. All four countries experienced varying degrees and forms of populism and democratic backsliding in the past decade. Yet effective governance in all three policy fields still requires expert knowledge. We find that de-democratization affects expertise provision negatively, indeed, but not uniformly: the stronger the backsliding, the more a close relationship with governing parties matters for sharing expertise. Yet even in the context of de-democratization, participation in parliamentary hearings/committees is of pivotal importance for expertise provision. Moreover, intergroup cooperation is an important signal for expertise exchange: organizations with EU umbrella membership and active domestic networking activities attribute significantly higher importance to expertise in influencing policy than groups lacking these assets.

KEYWORDS:

• Information-oriented lobbying
• expertise provision
• interest groups
• democratic backsliding
• Central and Eastern Europe

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data is available as supplementary files 10–14 to Dobbins et al., “Organized Interests in Post-Communist Policy-making” or can be found on the following website: https://www.orgintcee.org.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Collins et al., Experts and the Will of the People.

2 Havlík, “Technocratic Populism and Political Illiberalism in Central Europe”.

3 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding”.

4 Sata and Karolewski, “Caesarean Politics in Hungary and Poland”, Bakke and Sitter, “The EU’s Enfants Terribles”.

5 Hanley and Vachudova, “Understanding the Illiberal Turn”, Kelemen, “Europe’s Other Democratic Deficit”.

6 Coppedge et al., “V-Dem [Country–Year/Country–Date] Dataset v12”.

7 However, the 2019 score of Czechia was above the regional average, whereas the corresponding Polish and Hungarian scores were the third worst and the worst in regional comparison.

8 Austen-Smith, “Information and Influence”, Lohmann, “Information, Access, and Contributions”.

9 Crombez, “Information, Lobbying and the Legislative Process in the European Union”, De Bruycker, “Pressure and Expertise”, Klüver and Saurugger, “Opening the Black Box”, Chalmers, “Interests, Influence and Information”.

10 Kriesi, “Political Context and Opportunity”.

11 Pfeffer and Salancik, The External Control of Organizations, Lowery, “Why Do Organized Interests Lobby?”.

12 Austen-Smith, “Information and Influence”, Lohmann, “Information, Access, and Contributions”.

13 Gilligan and Krehbiel, “Collective Decisionmaking and Standing Committees”.

14 Bernhagen, “When Do Politicians Listen to Lobbyists (and Who Benefits When They Do)?,” 21.

15 De Bruycker, “Pressure and Expertise”.

16 Bernhagen, “When Do Politicians Listen to Lobbyists (and Who Benefits When They Do)?,” 22.

17 Beyers, Eising, and Maloney, “Researching Interest Group Politics in Europe and Elsewhere”.

18 Crombez, “Information, Lobbying and the Legislative Process in the European Union”, De Bruycker, “Pressure and Expertise”, Klüver and Saurugger, “Opening the Black Box”.

19 Chalmers, “Interests, Influence and Information”.

20 Mudde and Kaltwasser, Populism.

21 Ibid.

22 De Cleen, “Populism, Exclusion, Post-truth. Some Conceptual Caveats Comment on “The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy”, Huber et al., “Is Populism a Challenge to European Energy and Climate Policy?”.

23 Speed and Mannion, “The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies”.

24 Otjes and Rasmussen, “The Collaboration Between Interest Groups and Political Parties in Multi-party Democracies”, Klüver, “Setting the Party Agenda”.

25 Berkhout, Hanegraaff, and Statsch, “Explaining the Patterns of Contacts Between Interest Groups and Political Parties”.

26 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding”.

27 Scheppele, “Autocratic Legalism”.

28 Sata and Karolewski, “Caesarean Politics in Hungary and Poland”.

29 Neumann, “Hungarian Trade Unions from the Beginning of Transition to the New U-turn”.

30 Szabó, “Between Polarization and Statism – Effects of the Crisis on Collective Bargaining Processes and Outcomes in Hungary”.

31 Horváthová and Dobbins, “Organised Interests in the Energy Sector”.

32 Scheiring, The Retreat of Liberal Democracy.

33 Bodnár, Térképre tettük a Fidesz által kiemeltté nyilvánított beruházásokat az elmúlt 4 évből.

34 Havlík, “Technocratic Populism and Political Illiberalism in Central Europe”.

35 Buštíková and Guasti, “The State as a Firm,” 303.

36 Ibid., 322.

37 Pospieszna and Vetulani-Cęgiel, “Polish Interest Groups Facing Democratic Backsliding”.

38 Kriesi, “Political Context and Opportunity”, Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest”.

39 Koopmans and Kriesi, “Institutional Structures and Prevailing Strategies”.

40 Pfeffer and Salancik, The External Control of Organizations, Lowery, “Why Do Organized Interests Lobby?”.

41 Bozóki and Hegedűs, “An Externally Constrained Hybrid Regime: Hungary in the European Union”, Tworzecki, “Poland”.

42 see Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation.. for Poland.

43 Labanino, “State-labour Relations in Illiberal Times”.

44 Kriesi, “Political Context and Opportunity”, Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest”.

45 Pirro and Stanley, “Forging, Bending, and Breaking”.

46 Pfeffer and Salancik, The External Control of Organizations.

47 Hanegraaff and Pritoni, “United in Fear”.

48 Albareda, “Prioritizing Professionals?”.

49 Kohler-Koch, Kotzian, and Quittkat, “The Multilevel Interest Representation of National Business Associations”.

50 Binderkrantz, Christiansen, and Pedersen, “Interest Group Access to the Bureaucracy, Parliament, and the Media”.

51 Berkhout, Hanegraaff, and Statsch, “Explaining the Patterns of Contacts Between Interest Groups and Political Parties”.

52 Bánkuti, Halmai, and Scheppele, “Hungary’s Illiberal Turn”, Enyedi, “Right-wing Authoritarian Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe”, Hanley and Vachudova, “Understanding the Illiberal Turn: Democratic Backsliding in the Czech Republic”, Buzogany, “Illiberal Democracy in Hungary”, Buštíková and Guasti, “The State as a Firm”, Novak and Lajh, “Challanges Faces Organised Interests Under a Populist Right-Wing Government in Slovenia”.

53 Kelemen, “Europe’s Other Democratic Deficit”, Scheiring, The Retreat of Liberal Democracy.

54 Sata and Karolewski, “Caesarean Politics in Hungary and Poland”.

55 Engler, ““Fighting Corruption” or “Fighting the Corrupt Elite”?”.

56 Buštíková and Guasti, “The State as a Firm”, Havlík, “Technocratic Populism and Political Illiberalism in Central Europe”.

57 Bohle and Greskovits, Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery.

58 Jahn, “Changing of the Guard”.

59 Novak and Lajh, “Challanges Faces Organised Interests Under a Populist Right-Wing Government in Slovenia”, Lovec, Slovenia.

60 Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Varieties of Democracy v12 Codebook March 2022,” 44.

61 Aalto et al., “Russian Nuclear Energy Diplomacy in Finland and Hungary”, Binhack and Tichý, “Asymmetric Interdependence in the Czech–Russian Energy Relations”, Kubin, “Analyzing Polish and Czech Hard Coal-mining Trade Unions and their Positions Toward EU Climate and Energy Policy”.

62 OECD, Health at a Glance 2021, ECDC, COVID-19 Situation Update for the EU/EEA, as of 17 March 2022.

63 2018 data, see OECD, Education at a Glance 2021.

64 Boyadjieva, “Invisible Higher Education”.

65 Kováts and Rónay, Academic Freedom in Hungary, Vlk, Dobbins, and Riedel, “Explaining Institutional Persistence and Change in Polish and Czech Higher Education from a Stakeholder Perspective”.

66 Our survey has the constraint that it only provides a snapshot. This could technically be overcome with a panel survey over time (see e.g., Maloney, Hafner-Fink, and Fink-Hafner, “The Impact of the EU Accession Process and EU Funding on the Professionalization of National Interest Groups”). However, our survey along with Comparative Interest Group Survey (see Beyers et al., “The Comparative Interest Group-survey Project,”.) are the first comparative interest organization surveys covering several CEE countries. No repeated waves of comparative interest groups surveys, let alone panel surveys exist for the region.

67 The subsample has similar proportions to the full sample, that is, Czech and Slovenian groups are slightly overrepresented whereas Hungarian and Polish ones are underrepresented. The share of Hungarian and Polish organizations relative to the sample changes only marginally (22.66 to 22.81 and 21.96 to 20.62, respectively). However, as opposed to the full sample in the subsample there are slightly more Slovenian and fewer Czech organizations: their share changes from 27.1 to 29.38 sand from 28.27 to 27.19, respectively.

68 For a detailed breakdown of the response rates see Dobbins et al., “Organized Interests in Post-communist Policy-making”.

69 De Bruycker, “Pressure and Expertise”.

70 Following Klüver and Saurugger, “Opening the Black Box”.

71 Olson, The Logic of Collective Action; Public Goods and the Theory of Groups.

72 We believe that this variable suits our sample better than distinguishing between business and non-business interests. In one of our policy fields – higher education – there are very few business groups, and in energy policy, where they are the most numerous, the real dividing line is rather between renewable energy (along with environmental protection) groups and fossil energy groups regardless of whether the latter are labour unions or business associations (particularly in Poland).

73 For the models with the two financial resources variables included see Tables A2 and A3 in the Online Appendix.

74 Pfeffer and Salancik, The External Control of Organizations.

75 Buštíková and Guasti, “The State as a Firm”.

76 Olejnik, “A New Model of Corporatism in States Governed by Populist Political Parties”.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted as a part of the research project “The ‘Missing Link’: Examining organized interests in post-communist policy-making” of the University of Konstanz, Germany and the University of Opole, Poland funded by the Beethoven 2 Polish-German Funding Initiative of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Narodowe Centrum Nauki [grant number DO1590 – 3/1]. We sincerely thank both organizations for the generous funding.

Notes on contributors

Rafael Labanino

Rafael Labanino is a research fellow at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, in the project “The Missing Link: Examining organized interests in post-communist policy-making”. His main areas of research are social policy, social dialogue, higher education policy, democratization, and organized interests in Central and Eastern Europe.

Michael Dobbins

Michael Dobbins is interim professor of public administration at the University of Konstanz. His doctoral thesis dealt with higher education in Central and Eastern Europe. His main areas of research are higher and secondary education policy and post-communist transformation processes. He is the co-director of the research project “The Missing Link: Examining organized interests in post-communist policy-making” funded by the German DFG and Polish NCN.