Interest Groups and Democracy in the European Union

Abstract

Research on interest group participation in European Union politics has mushroomed since the end of the 1990s. What role citizens should play in the political process – should they participate through elected representatives or through interest groups and so-called ‘civil society organisations’– has taken a central place in political and academic debates surrounding the alleged EU's democratic deficit. Here I critically analyse the literature dealing with the potential value of interest groups and ‘civil society organisations’ to the development of democracy in the EU. The existing empirical case studies lead to the conclusion that the elite characteristics of these actors question their capacity to increase democratic legitimacy. Finally, future research should be designed around large-scale quantitative and qualitative empirical studies that investigate participation designs and effective participation in the EU and other political systems.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jan Beyers, Rainer Eising, William Maloney and the anonymous reviewer for their perceptive comments on earlier versions of this text and gratefully acknowledges financial support from PACTE and Connex.

Notes

1. ‘Organised civil society’ has become synonymous with the term ‘interest groups’ in the European Union's political and academic discourse (Greenwood 2003; Kohler-Koch 2007). There is a trend in the literature to incorporate the complete range of societal actors in interest group research which makes the distinction between the ‘civil society’ and the ‘interest groups’ increasingly fictional (see also Finke 2007: 20 and Beyers et al. 2008). In this article ‘interest groups’ and the ‘organised civil society’ both include economic and general interests.

2. With the exception of elements present in Beyers' (2004) and Mahoney's (2004) work, as well as in the framework of the Commission-financed CONNEX (Connecting Excellence) and NewGov networks of excellence (http://www.connex-network.org/ and http://www.eu-newgov.org/).

3. Based on the works by Pateman (1970) and Bachrach (1967).

4. Hirst's conceptualisation of associative democracy is focused on the local level. Given the subsidiarity norm of the EU, his understanding of the concept was not used by scholars in their analysis of the EU's democratic deficit.

5. For an in-depth analysis see Føllesdal (2006).

6. For a seminal theoretical work on this issue see Manin (1995) and Manin et al. (1999).

7. This inclusion of civil society in the decision-making process, however, accentuates the efficiency–democracy divide according to a number of authors such as Scharpf (1999) and Dahl (1994).

8. On this issue in EU interest groups studies see Woll (2006).

9. See the Commission's transparency initiative (European Commission 2006).

10. Article 138 TCE and COM 93(600) final.

11. This reminds us of the document published by the Commission in 1992, attempting to structure the dialogue with economic interest groups (European Commission 1992).

12. For an excellent overview of all documents regulating access see Greenwood (2007).

13. http://ec.europa.eu/civil_society/coneccs/index_en.htm. On 21 March 2007, the Commission adopted the Communication on the follow-up to the Green Paper ‘European Transparency Initiative’ (COM(2007)127). As a result of the Communication, the Commission has launched a voluntary register for interest representatives in spring 2008 that replaces the previous register.

14. See European Economic and Social Committee, Events, European Transparency Initiative, 11 July 2006. http://eesc.europa.eu/sco/events/11_07_06_transparency/index_en.asp

15. Under social resources we understand the social networks interest group representatives have created with the most issue relevant politicians and civil servants both in the European institutions and at the national level. Societal resources refer to the degree to which citizens accept and support interest group arguments and demands, support that enlarges the group representativeness and subsequently its claims for democratic legitimacy.

16. For a study on business associations in this vein see Greenwood (2002).