Strategies of Territorial and Functional Interests: Towards a Model of European Interest Intermediation?

Abstract

Research on interest representation in EU governance has addressed different kinds of actors in somewhat different and independent discourses. This contribution will start from the specific requirements is demanding as well as opportunities the European multi-level system is offering to territorial and functional interest representation. The main question will be whether differentiations or similarities can be found in the comparison of functional and territorial interest representation. The contribution will elaborate on this question in the following section and assume that there are more similarities than differences within the use of strategies by territorial and functional interests. The contribution elaborates two explanations for the similarities and differences found. Empirical evidence is given in the second part of the contribution. It will be shown that we even find convergence within territorial and functional interest intermediation and how actors have learned from each other. In addition it will be revealed that other factors than the type of interest are responsible for persistent differences. A third short chapter points out that both types of interests work with complementary strategies to succeed within the European multi-level system. All in all, the contribution will speculate about whether it is possible to identify certain elements of a European model of interest intermediation across the different actor categories.

Key Words:

• Representation
• functional
• territorial
• multi-level governance
• EU
• democratic deficit.

Notes

1. The analysis will especially look at sub-national actors as territorial interests.

2. The data used here is derived from the research projects ‘The Europeanisation of Interest Representation’ (EUROLOB — Eising; Kohler-Koch; Quittkat) and from the VW-Project ‘Regions as unities of action in European politics’ (REGE; see Knodt 1998; Kohler-Koch et al. 1998).