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This article investigates the political communication behaviour of interest groups. First, by proposing indices to capture the degree to which mass media have become central for political communication (media logic of communication), and the degree to which conventional strategies aimed at politicians directly govern groups' communication behaviour (political logic of communication). Based on these two indices, the article then proposes an overall index of mediatisation. Second, the article tests three hypotheses regarding the use of the media logic, the political logic, and the mediatisation of interest groups, and finds that group type, resources, and the level of competition all play a role for how strongly interest groups are mediatized. Thus, this article contributes to the scarce empirical research on mediatisation by a) proposing a way to operationalise this concept which can be adjusted using a different set of variables, but can also be applied for different political actors, and b) by showing the usefulness of the constructed indices in an empirical example for Swiss and German interest groups.

Deutsche ZusammenfassungLobbygruppen stehen in einem politischen Wettbewerb miteinander, wobei in manchen Themenfeldern ein sehr starker Konkurrenzkampf herrscht, während die Rivalität in anderen Bereichen eher gering ist. Dieser Artikel geht der Frage nach, wie sich diese unterschiedliche Intensität des Wettkampfs auf das Lobbyverhalten von Interessenorganisationen auswirkt. Basierend auf Daten einer Umfrage unter Deutschen und Schweizer Interessengruppen konnte festgestellt werden, dass sowohl direktes Lobbying bei Politikern (Insider Lobbying) als auch indirekte Einflussnahme über die Medien und die Öffentlichkeit (Outsider Lobbying) mit der Intensität des Konkurrenzdruckes zunimmt. Allerdings zeigt sich auch, dass Insider Lobbying stärker von dieser Zunahme betroffen ist, dass also Organisationen bei erhöhtem Wettbewerb insbesondere den direkten Zugang zu Entscheidungsträgern suchen.

1. Introduction -- 2. The History and Political Economy of Adaptation Aid -- 3. Setting the Stage: A Mixed Methods Research Design -- 4. Descriptive Analysis: Adaptation Aid Flows in the OECD CRS -- 5. Quantitative Analysis: Who Gives Adaptation Aid to Whom? -- 6. Qualitative Analysis: Adaptation Aid in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom -- 7. Conclusion

1. Introduction -- 2. The History and Political Economy of Adaptation Aid -- 3. Setting the Stage: A Mixed Methods Research Design -- 4. Descriptive Analysis: Adaptation Aid Flows in the OECD CRS -- 5. Quantitative Analysis: Who Gives Adaptation Aid to Whom? -- 6. Qualitative Analysis: Adaptation Aid in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom -- 7. Conclusion

Political activity is conventionally considered a constitutive feature of interest groups, underpinning an impressive literature on the strategies groups employ to exercise political influence. Whether and how intensely voluntary membership groups engage in political activities to start with, however, are rarely examined. We present a new incentive-theoretical perspective on group political activity, considering both member demands and leadership constraints. We argue that investments in political activities (one way of generating collective incentives) as a means to prevent member exit are more or less important depending on a group's composition. Simultaneously, the extent to which leaders are incentivized to cater to members' demands, when trying to balance these against conflicting demands, depends on communication channels between leaders and members and the importance of membership fees. Applying Bayesian ordered logit models to data from two group surveys supports our perspective and stresses the importance of considering how intraorganizational dynamics steer groups' external activities.

In the run-up to Paris, individual countries and multilateral banks made new promises to provide millions of dollars for adaptation (and mitigation) action in developing countries, with a view to reaching the usd 100 billion target announced in Copenhagen and confirmed in Paris. But where are all these funds going to? To what extent do they reach the poorest and most vulnerable, those most in need of support? The focus of this paper is on bilateral aid for adaptation to climate change. Using oecd data on adaptation aid, we examine how donors allocate this aid|and to what extent they indeed prioritise those `particularly' vulnerable to climate change. To understand donor behaviour, we build on the large literature on aid allocation in general, and on adaptation aid in particular. Yet, as opposed to traditional dyadic analyses, we conceptualise aid allocation as a network, in which the provision of adaptation aid is a network tie. This network approach, we argue, is better able to capture interactions between donors, for the allocation decisions of others likely in uence a donor's allocation decision. Donors on the one hand coordinate their allocation, but on the other hand also compete for political and economic influence through the provision of aid, including aid for adaptation. In order to capture these coordination dynamics in addition to the dyadic relationships between donors and recipients we employ Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models. Our analysis indicates that donors consider recipient need and recipient merit when deciding on how to allocate adaptation aid: more vulnerable and more democratic countries are more likely to receive adapation aid. More importantly, however, donors consider their own economic and political interests: trading partners and former colonies are much more likely to receive adaptation aid. Finally, we also found evidence for donor coordination: countries that already receive adaptation aid from other countries are less likely to form additional ties, that is, they are less ...

AbstractDifferent types of interest groups use different lobbying strategies. This article presents an investigation of this already well‐established hypothesis once more, but additionally proposes that the institutional framework of the country in which interest groups operate also influences their lobbying behaviour. More specifically, it is shown that groups working in the interest of the public are better integrated into the policy‐making process when direct democratic instruments, such as referendums, occur regularly (as in Switzerland) than when referendums are the exception (Germany). The article demonstrates that Swiss cause groups – often also referred to as 'public interest groups' in the literature – use a more balanced mixture of insider and outsider strategies than their German peers, but also that this moderating effect cannot be found for specific interest groups, such as industry groups or unions.