Business Power in European Politics

Abstract

This dissertation is guided by a general interest in the organisation of business interests and their power and success in achieving optimal outcomes in policy-making processes. One of the main results of this dissertation is that business interests should not be studied as a homogeneous unit. Challenging contemporary quantitative research on interest group lobbying that usually treats business actors as uniformly lobbying for the same policy outcome, the findings indicate that it makes sense to contextually differentiate between different kinds of business actors. Another main result is the highly contextual nature of business success in influencing policy processes. While researchers try to make their findings as general as possible, the literature review as well the empirical analyses make it clear that it is difficult to generalise across a wider range of cases. More specifically, the studies featured in this dissertation discuss the role of issue characteristics such as salience and issue-specific ad hoc coalitions on interest group success in preference attainment as well as the effect of financial expertise of the respective counter-party to business in policy-making processes. Last, this dissertation confirms previous findings that large business organisations do not always get what they want and, in fact, often have considerable difficulties and constraints in attaining their preferences and in creating large coalitions of actors lobbying for the same outcome.