Understanding the impact of the 2007-10 economic crisis on the European activity of business interest representation

by Alexandre MAGAT10 100 words

Cardiff - Bordeaux Dissertation

EU6389 & EU6390Professor Alistair Cole

Cardiff University22/03/2013

alexandre.magat@gmail.com

Abstract

This paper contributes to the field of interest group representation and more specifically to the understanding and analysis of the variations in European interest intermediation in times of economical and financial crisis. This study is led in regard to the 2007-10 period. The study of interest representation has been the subject of an extensive work by U.S. scholars however it is still a small field of study within European political and policy sciences. It stands at the crossroad of economics, sociology, political and management sciences.

The last decade has seen increasing enthusiasm for the field in European literature moving from atheoretical descriptive studies to interpretative ones. Most of the research has been carried out on interest group populations (Greenwood, 1997, 2005 ; Berkhout and Lowery, 2008), mobilisation strategies (Coen, 1998 ; Beyers, 2002 ; Eising, 2004) and access criteria to the institutions (Bouwen, 2002 ; Eising, 2007).

However we found that very few deal with interest intermediation in times of crisis, and almost none are specifically relevant to the European political system. As Barron (2011) reminds us, there is no alternative to reading U.S. scholars’ writings on their own political system if we want to grasp some theoretical analysis. Moreover an extensive part of the european literature is only concerned with operational matters (Guegen, 2007 ; Bardon and Libaert, 2012). Thus this still leaves a large gap in the literature to be filled and I argue that economic crisis impact the influence of the institutional context (the arena) as well as the needs and behaviour of institutions and interest groups (the network).

Encapsulating our theoretical framework, Chapter I reviews an extensive literature, giving us an overview of current issues, the main schools of thoughts, perspectives and gaps in the literature. The first part is dedicated to reviewing general and, particularly, business oriented theories of interest representation in politics. Meanwhile, the second part focuses on the uniqueness of the European mode of business interest intermediation.

The second chapter focuses on the impact of the 2007-10 economic crisis on the corporate political activity in the EU. Its first part is dedicated to the set up of an integrated theoretical framework - based on the policy network theory - and its analytical tool. Meanwhile the second part draws hypothesis on the consequences of the crisis from the interactions of our model with facts.

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Table of Contents

Introduction! 4

Chapter One: Literature Review

I) Interest representation in politics: A theoretical account! 6

I.1. The Determinants! 6

I.2. Business interest groups: the influence-seeking model! 9

II) A review on the model of corporate political activity in the EU! 11

II.1. The Europeanisation of Business Interests! 12

II.2. Down to the Arena! 13

II.3. The Supply side! 15

II.4. The Demand Side! 17

Conclusion! 20

Second Chapter: Research project

I) Recalling our theoretical framework! 21

I.1. Justifying an integrated approach! 21

I.2. Analysing the policy process - a stage model! 22

II) Understanding the impact of the crisis on the European CPA! 24

II.1. The crisis' implications on our model! 24

II.2. Empirical evidences! 29

Conclusion! 32

Bibliography! 33

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Introduction

As acknowledged by most commentators, interest representation activities targeted to the European Union have dramatically increased over the past 25 years. This trend went along with the professionalisation of the activity and a burgeoning academic literature.

Although an important debate takes place questioning whether they undermine the European Union’s (EU) democratic principle or not, organised interest groups are key actors in the European process of policy-making. Nevertheless it is necessary to remain cautious regarding their degree of influence in practice. Only a few scholars have actually established methods to measure influence (Dür, 2008) and the importance of interest representation varies across policy sectors (internal market, environment, health, agriculture, social affairs, R&D and transport are the most affected sectors). Some scholars such as Greenwood also rightly acknowledge that, although business interest groups are the most numerous, we should not exaggerate their importance in terms of comparison with public interest groups. Taking note of these precautions, it still seems necessary to study business interest representation in order to grasp this complex part of the policy-making process.

In order to be as accurate as possible, words which are often used as synonyms should be distinguished. We therefore intend to briefly clarify the meaning of: ‘interest representation’, ‘interest groups’, ‘corporate political activity’ and ‘lobbying’. Completing Warleigh and Fairbrass' narrow definition of interest representation as ‘all forms of interaction that are designed to advocate particular ideas, persuade decision takers to adopt different positions or perspectives, and ultimately to influence policy’ (2002:2), we add that such actions of influence are more and more targeted towards other groups than public decision takers such as public opinions and media (Bardon and Libaert, 2012).

Interest representation is thus an activity of influence exercised by actors for which a lot of neologisms exist. We resort to the terms of interest groups and organised interests without distinction. Nonetheless we avoid the terms of pressure groups and special interest groups which we find too restrictive. Inspiring ourselves from Beyer et al. (2008), we define interest groups as informal organisations (not seeking election though possibly institutionalised) with political interest (to influence policy outcomes). Business interest groups conform to this definition, they are: firms, trade associations, employers’ associations and chambers of commerce.

While focusing on business interest, we will centre our attention on what is often referred to as Corporate Political Activity (CPA) of which Anastasiadis (2006:2) offers a very good definition: ‘CPA consists of all the activities that a company or a group of companies employ when they wish to advocate their interests and influence political decision making processes and outcomes’. Thus, CPA is the business mode of interest representation.

Although the word ‘lobbying’ has been attributed negative connotations (in terms of giving an unfair advantage to those who can afford it) scholars use it with neutrality. It refers to communication based

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activities (such as negotiation or mobilisation) for the purpose of influencing the final stand in the decision-making process (legislation, regulation, contracts, grants) (Compston, 2012). Thus lobbying is one strategy, among others, to be used in interest representation and notably in corporate political activity.

Encapsulating our theoretical framework, Chapter I reviews an extensive literature, giving us an overview of current issues, the main schools of thoughts, perspectives and gaps in the literature. The first part is dedicated to reviewing general and, particularly, business oriented theories of interest representation in politics. Meanwhile, the second part focuses on the uniqueness of the European mode of business interest intermediation and provides an analysis of the quantitative and qualitative evolution of interest representation.

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Chapter One: Literature Review

I) Interest representation in politics: A theoretical account

We particularly look into the policy network theory which encompasses both formal and informal aspects of decision-making. Most of policy network definitions are based on the paradigm of resource interdependencies (Börzel, 1998:254) according to which policy decision is explained as the product of public actors amending their policy preferences to obtain what they perceive as necessary resources. Beyond the basic exploration of policy networks' characteristics, we insert insights of other theoretical approaches.

I.1. The Determinants

We postulate that firms choose to engage in such exchanges because they want to access resources (resource dependency theory) and not simply because they need to counter other groups (interest group theory), though these limited resources generate competition. Drawing from the public choice theory, we argue that political exchange takes place between non self-sufficient rational actors, thus establishing an interdependency. This interdependency varies according to several criteria that we analyse at two distinct levels: the macro and the micro.

The macro levelUntil the development of policy network theories, the dominant typology of relations between governments and civil society was embodied in the division between corporatism (and neo-corporatism), pluralism (and neo-pluralism) and statism. Although academic debate on the matter is losing its relevance, it has permitted to answer the challenge of Olson's paradoxical 'logic of collective action' (1971) and remains a milestone in the landscape of interest groups literature.

In a pluralist state, citizens and interest groups enjoy an open access to government which presumably establishes a balance in representation and prevents the dominance of attention by one particular group. State and society are separated, interest groups are able to compete freely for influence and the state acts as a referee (Eising, 2004). In order to overcome Olson's concept of 'free-rider' (1971) neo-pluralist scholars thought to neutralise the biased results of pluralism by allowing state officials to deliberately give access to underrepresented public interests (Lindblom, 1977 ; Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987).

Corporatist theories have been elaborated in order to reflect a more balanced representation in which ‘the state assumes that the main division in society is between business and labour’ (Hix & Høyland, 2011:160). The idea is to reach a consensus between the two parties to which the state has delivered preferential treatments. However this approach is highly problematic as it excludes from negotiation

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the new social movements such those for the environment, women or consumers. Michalowitz (2002) also evokes a neo-corporatist model in which a small number of hierarchically structured interest groups act non-competitively according to a functional division of labour and with a monopoly over governmental relations.

Finally, Eising (2004) develops the concept of statism. In such a system, the state is an authority above society, pursuing common national interests and allowing a minimal role to interest groups. Across these three models, transversal determinants exist as well such as: the existence of veto points (Tsebelis, 2002) and the fragmentation of parties.

Political institutionalists also play a role in understanding interest representation within the broader process of public policy. They are concerned with institutional differences across countries. In line with them, we assert that political exchange varies in function of the political and institutional contexts, the political system being made of both formal rules and informal cultural norms (Hillman et al. 2004).

The political context influences the presence of interest groups via several points. First of all it affects the issues' saliency. Saliency prevents interest groups to be too influent as the other political actors seize the issue. Ideologies also affect interest groups activities as they prevent from negotiation and are nearly antithetic to the raison d'être of interest groups: consensus. It is also worth noting that some interest groups are historically close to political parties (such as farmers or bankers).

The micro levelNetwork typologies have considerably evolved since the early accounts of policy communities and issues networks (Thatcher, 1995). Van Waarden (1992) classifies policy networks according to seven criteria: size, functions, structure, degree of institutionalisation, rules of conduct, power relations and strategies. Therefore, networks develop under different forms according to the issue, the institutional context and the policy sector.

The network dynamic occurs between policy entrepreneurs that Baumgartner (2007) rightly defines as 'advocates'. Therefore he judiciously includes both interest groups and government officials which all act with the ambition to push public policy in one direction or another. According to their nature, these policy entrepreneurs retain different political resources. After a thorough review of the literature Compston (2009:27) establishes a typology of the main tradable resources which, of his own admission, cannot be complete:

Table 1.1 Main Tradable Resources

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Source: Compston, 2009, table 2.4

Since this dissertation focuses on business interest representation, it is relevant to include a special account of CPA resources. They can be classified as follow: internal (experience, finance resources, recreational skill) or external (relational, reputation, public image, and externalised). Another typology is ad hoc (stakeholders’ support, public image) or semi permanent resources (reputation, financial resources, political expertise).

We find that Compston (2009, 2012), based on Dahan’s researches (2005), produces a complete and thorough summary of the major academic work:

Table 1.2 Corporate Political Resources

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Source: Compston, 2009, table 2.3

I.2. Business interest groups: the influence-seeking model

We now review more specifically the organisation of business groups. In order to maximise their results, business interest groups adopt strategies and tactics, and use techniques. However each

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strategic choice is constrained by the 'structure of political opportunity' and the resources at disposal evoked above (Grossman and Saurugger, 2009:107).

Strategies and TacticsIn order to establish their strategy, business interest groups have to distinguish the incentives and constraints from decision makers. According to public choice and game theories (Getz, 2001), it is also key to consider the actions of the rivals in order to adopt the best position.

The most classic typology is Hillman and Hitt's (1999) who suggest that strategies are defined by the following decisions: entering on a long term relational basis or in one-off interactions (transactional mode), acting individually or collectively, choosing a tactic (information provision, financial support or constituency-building). While adopting a management-based approach, Dahan (2005) brings another criteria that we identify as the most splitting one: the mode of relationship with decision makers (either cooperative or adversarial). Each strategy is implemented through several tactics and both necessitate different combination of resources.

Combining several authors’ work, we build our own typology of CPA tactics. We identify cooperative strategies as relying on lobbying tactics and resorting to personal interventions, participations to expert committees etc. Such strategies mainly mobilise the resources of expertise and legitimacy. On the opposite adversarial strategies result in demonstrating tactics which are used to transmit indirectly some information to policy makers through media, petitions or even protests. An adversarial strategy can also use legal tactics which focus on litigation. We will take a closer look at the specific European litigation tactic in the second part of this review. The more passive tactic of monitoring the political activity is usually part of all strategies. We have seen how available resources, and consequently strategies, are constrained by both the political and the institutional contexts. Nevertheless interest groups usually deploy a combination of them and have recourse to the parallel strategies of 'venue-shopping' and 'issue-framing' (Baumgartner, 2007). The latter allow them to optimise their approach in changing their target within multi-level governance systems such as the EU.

AllianceAllying is a classic tactic for interest groups in every political system and therefore deserves a special attention. Many academics analysed the different processes and types of coalitions (Pijnenburg, 1998 ; Mahoney, 2007). Allying has to be differentiated from networking. Mahoney defines the latter as ranging:

‘on a continuum from very informal and loose, comprised of occasional information sharing, to highly coordinated enterprises with logos, letterheads and secretariats. Almost without exception, all lobbyists engage in some degree of networking; not all advocates pursue more formalised ad hoc issue coalition action.’ (Mahoney, 2007:366).

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Thus we understand that allying supposes a much more formalised relationship than simple networking. Mahoney analyses the decision to ally as based on: the characteristics of the interest groups, the institutional structure of the political system, the fragmentation of the sector, and the nature of the issue, notably its scope, saliency and conflicting nature.

Alliances can be perennial or ad hoc issue-coalitions. The work of Hillman et al. (2004) is again relevant here, the distinction of perennial and ad hoc coalitions would respectively correspond to what they identify as: a relational and a transactional approach of CPA. The latter are characterised by low level of formalisation and autonomy from the coalition’s members. They are established for short to medium term on a particular issue and between both similar or traditionally opposed interests such as environmentalists and producers (Pijnenburg, 1998 ; Coen, 1998). Such coalitions permit to indicate where support stands in relation to a policy proposal, whilst also providing a more efficient use of resources and granting everyone the status of insider as soon as one member benefits from it (Mahoney, 2007). Private interests also earn some credibility when allying with consumers and environmental interest groups.

TechniquesVan Schendelen (2005) conceives the activity of interest groups much more like a set of techniques than proper strategies. He highlights four traditional techniques used on every ‘playing field’ or arena: coercion, encapsulation, advocacy and argumentation. In his opinion, the recent Europeanisation of Public Affairs has led to the creation of a new technique: the ‘window-in, window-out’ (2005:46). It is the idea that interest groups are to be more interactive with their environment by monitoring and gathering information (window-out) and then bringing other stakeholders in order to form a coalition or to negotiate (window-in). Van Schendelen’s account seems somewhat minimalist with regards to the actual complexity of the strategies set up by interest groups. Thus relying only on a set of techniques and a pretended new method (which we do not consider as specifically european), he lacks accuracy compared to other scholars. However his theory of the Meta Game of Triple P is much more interesting as we will see in the second part of this literature review. Techniques are also widely referenced by a consequent practical literature. In this case Bardon (2012) provides an illustrative typology including the judoka technique, polemics, polls and troy horses.

II) A review on the model of corporate political activity in the EU

While the first group of studies identified the correlation between the gradual transfer of regulatory functions to the EU institutions and the Europeanisation of organised interests, the second group studied the uniqueness of EU interest representation and the emergence of elite pluralism under the prism of institutions (Bouwen 2002, 2004 ; Eising 2007 ; Coen 2007, 2009). We argue that even though interest groups are motivated by the ‘regulatory rent-seeking model’ as in Washington and other nation-states (European Parliament briefing paper, 2007), a distinct collective action style and strategies exist.

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II.1. The Europeanisation of Business Interests

From 1945 to 1984, the level of interest representation on the EU stage was surprisingly low compared to its actual importance. It appears that before the Single European Act (SEA) national channels were too strong in comparison to their European counterparts and this mainly because of the veto rule in the Council of the EU. However, after the SEA, business interests progressively turned to the EU as a response to the shift of political activity from the national to the supranational stage (Mazey and Richardson, 1993 ; Greenwood, 2003 ; Beyer et al. 2008).

However some scholars (Coen, 1998 ; Eising, 2004 ; Bernhagen and Mitchell, 2009 ; Klüver, 2010) exposed that interest groups adapted more or less easily to the European stage according to the interest intermediation system of their home country. Indeed the UK and the US interest groups adapted more easily as they were more used to competing for governments’ attention, whereas French, German and Italian groups had developed into corporatists models. Despite this difficulty French and German firms are now nearly as present as the British ones (see figure 1.3). Variations in Europeanisation have also been correlated to resources, the global opportunity structure and the immediate environment (members, sponsors etc.) (Beyers and Kerremans, 2007).

Figure 1.3 Firms with Public Affairs offices in Brussels 2003

Source: Coen and Richardson, 2009, table 8.4

Business interests also contributed to the promotion of the EU as most of them were favourable to the instalment of the free market of goods, services and labour. This recalls the neo-functionalist theory as developed by Haas (1958), according to which the process of European integration is the result of the

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mutual interest of organised interests and European institutions in the transfer of competencies to the European level. However the multilevel governance approach to European integration seems to capture more accurately the realities of the EU interest representation (Eising, 2004). Indeed, according to the neofunctionalist perspective, national routes should have lost their significance and according to the intergovernmentalist approach, interest groups should have remained mostly inactive at the EU level. Empirical observations refute both of these theories.

Once interest groups transformed from ‘vectors of Europeanisation’ into ‘vectors of influence’ (Van Schendelen, 2005:51), they kept growing and now generate an estimated revenue of 60 to 90 million Euros annually (Guegen 2007).

II.2. Down to the Arena

It is important to recall that access is not necessarily synonymous of influence however it is one of the most effective way to theorise it. To define access we inspire ourselves from Duckwitz’s and Gheorghe’s (2010) definition: access is the frequency of contacts, more or less formal, between interest organisations and EU institutions.

Theories of AccessAlthough the regulation-seeking model and the resource interdependency theory are not specific to the EU interest representation activity, Bouwen and Eising used them to build their conceptualisation of the European interest supply and demand scheme. Thus they illustrated the specificity of the European CPA and once again political and management sciences are working hand in hand as we apply the cost-benefit analysis to public and private actors.

Bouwen introduces the concept of ‘access goods’, defined as goods provided by private actors to the EU institutions in order for interest groups to gain access to the European institutions. The agents who gain the most access are the ones holding critical resources which are determined by the functioning needs of EU institutions.

Contrary to Eising, the only access goods he considers are information under the forms of: Expert knowledge (technical knowledge or expertise necessary to understand the market), Information on the European Encompassing Interest (knowledge on the needs and interest of a european sector), and the Domestic Encompassing Interest (knowledge on the needs and interest of a domestic sector). Analysing each institutions’ need in goods and interest organisation forms’ goods, he produces hypotheses and then compares them to his results to obtain the following findings:

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Table 1.4 Composite ranking

Source: Bouwen, 2004, in Duckwitz 2010, table 4 On the other hand, Eising also produces an organisational theory of resource dependencies. For him, access is determined by the division of labour among European and National associations, the organisational resources of private interests and their political mobilisation. The effect of each determinant varies across the institutions. His results show that: European associations have more access to the EU institutions than national ones (this goes against Bouwen’s hypothesis but is in concordance with his findings). Moreover, Eising adds that the level of access can be influenced by both the internationalisation and the economic power of private actors, tempering the importance that Bouwen gives to information.

Both agree that: the more layers there are in transmitting access, the less flexible and the more time consuming is the supply. When considering the effectiveness of the exchange, the complexity of internal decision-making is also an important factor (Bouwen, 2004:376).

In our opinion Bouwen’s analysis is criticisable as he only considers information as a resource. Moreover, he led his investigation alongside the institutions (the demand side) but neglected the suppliers’ perspective. Although his findings are not exact, he still provides some useful concepts and data to understand the European set of interactions. Concerning Eising, it has been argued that he generalised his results even though his data only came from France, Germany and the United Kingdom (Duckwitz and Gheorghe, 2010). In both cases, the methods used are direct (interviews and surveys) which opens them to the critic of being somehow biased.

Elite Pluralism - A specific European Public Policy StyleWhen looking at the institutional context, most scholars define the EU interest representation system as an elite pluralism (Coen, 1997; Bouwen 2002; Woll 2006; Eising, 2007). The overload of the Commission in the 1990s led to its progressive ‘closing-down’ and to the creation of official forum, enhancing the demand for trust-based relationships, the Commission has thus generated an ‘insider status’ (Coen, 2007:335). This requires that firms develop some pan-European alliances in order to establish European identities and to acquire legitimacy and reputation (Coen, 1998).

A few scholars go as far as to qualify the EU as a ‘transnational pluralist’ system because of the large number of actors and access points. However it seems that despite a soft practice of gatekeeping, the European Commission tends to select the interest groups it works with and even sponsors them which might be the reason why Greenwood et al. refer oppositely to ‘islands of corporatism’ (1992:5). This debate led Michalowitz (2002) and Richardson (2009) to assert that the concepts of pluralism and corporatism are inadequate in the scenario of the EU political system as they are designed for nation

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states. They recommend to adopt a ‘stage-process’ view, analysing the more or less pluralist nature of the system at its different levels. Thus the Commission would tend to adopt a rather corporatist behaviour whereas the Parliament would be pluralist (Michalowitz, 2002). In a way, the EU system is a ‘‘chameleon pluralism’ capable of changing its appearance over time during the policy cycle for a given policy problem or within a sub-sector over a longer period of time’ (Richardson, 2009:348).

II.3. The Supply side

Taking a look at the business interest groups is our second step in studying the specificity of European CPA. Scholars observed singular trends both in interest groups’ organisation and strategies which have not really sparked off any particular academic quarrel.

Adapting the organisationIt is very difficult to establish accurate data on the number and repartition of interest groups at the EU level. One is easily lost in the maze of law firms, consultants and think tanks. Moreover a lot of scholars’ data present significant differences. After thorough readings, it seems to us that the most reliable source of statistics is Greenwood (2011).

Table 1.5 Types and numbers of interest groups in Brussels

Source: Hix and Høyland, 2011, table 7.1 The European business interests take multiple organisational forms: associative, individual companies, or third party representation. This results in the fragmentation of the European lobbying landscape.

The most important trend in the organisation of business interests is the rise of firms (Coen, 1997 ; Guegen, 2002 ; Bouwen, 2002 ; Greenwood, 2011). Coen has been the first scholar to seriously

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consider the individual firm as a rising actor and most of his peers now acknowledge his position. In acting individually, firms avoid the lowest common denominator mode of decision making which is prevalent within European association (and is worsened after each enlargement). This trend is also explained by the relative weakness of associations as they depend on their members’ resources to provide political representation, and by the multilevel architecture of the EU which ‘enables members to bypass their representative groups’ (Greenwood, 2011:20). The likelihood of firms’ direct lobbying increases with their size, governments’ involvement in their operations, and the degree of industry concentration (Bernhagen and Mitchell, 2009). This individualisation of interest representation results in the fact that the effectiveness of lobbying no longer relies on representativeness but on credibility (Bouwen, 2002 ; Gueguen, 2005:50 ; Coen, 2009).

Through her chronological approach Cowles (2002) highlights another perspective of the same trend: the integration of large firms into associations. She identifies six categories of collective action forms: the traditional association of associations (such as Business Europe), the direct-firm associations (such as the EU Committee of AmCham), some mixed associations made of other associations and individual firms (for instance the European Chemical Industry Council) and CEO organisations such as the European Round Table of Industrialists. The latter took part into the formation of global business networks, and forms, with Business Europe and the American Chamber (AmCham-EU), the ‘big business troika’ (Cowles, 1998). Eventually she distinguishes the ad-hoc coalitions made of several firms from the EU business association with global membership (such as the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue alias TABD, and the Global Business Dialogue on e-society).

Adapting strategies As explained before1, strategies in interest representation can be classified between cooperative or adversarial, and consequently assorted with tactics (demonstrating; lobbying and legal). Adapting to the EU arena goes with adapting one’s strategies. Scholars produced extensive work on the way European interest groups adapted their lobbying and legal strategies to fit their new institutional environment. They notably had to adapt long term and relational approach at the crux of a negotiated order (Coen, 1997) and drop the financial support tactic (Taminiau, 2006).

Regarding the lobbying tactic, Van Schendelen (2005) theorised the Meta-Game of triple P according to which, European interest groups developed a specific strategic game consisting of trying to Place the friendliest persons in the best Positions and following the most beneficial Procedures (2005:117). By entering the game before the start of the match, interest groups also participate to the emergence of elite pluralism.

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1 cf p.10

Figure 1.6 The Meta-Game of Triple P

Source: Van Schendelen, 2004, figure 3.1

Finally, McCown (2009) addressed the issue of litigation. European litigation occurs through the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of First Instance. McCown distinguishes three relevant tactics for litigants: test cases, sequential litigation and simultaneous litigation. In most of the cases, interest groups hope to counter a national regulation while appealing to the supremacy of EU law on national law (since ECJ 6/64, Costa/ENEL). Other private parties can be suited but only

regarding to the Treaties and the regulations but not the directives. Through sequential litigation, the litigant who wins the case secures favourable ruling by submitting similar cases in a row. This tactic is effective however the litigant needs important financial resources and legal services to engage in a long-term procedure. Simultaneous litigations are more favourable to less wealthy agents although it necessitates some cooperation abilities. In this case, litigants bring several similar cases at the same time and benefit from the Court’s habit of joining cases, conferring consistency and coherence to the legal interpretation.

II.4. The Demand Side

After the examination of the arena and the supply side, it is now necessary to take a look at the second set of players: the institutions alias the demand side. The involvement of organised interests varies across institutions but features in most of them. Most scholars worked on the three most relevant institutions: the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. A

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disputed importance is given to the European Economic and Social Committee and the Region Committee, however we do not expect the 2007-10 economic crisis to have engendered any shift in business interests' choice not to lobby them intensively. One common rule applies to each institution: the earlier the better. Indeed lobbyists always target the lowest or middle-ranking officials (Compston, 2012) as they are easier to get in touch with and also responsible for the early drafts which represent the decisive step to influence policy.

The European CommissionThe Commission is charged with three roles which make it an ideal venue for interest groups: legislative, executive and guardian. Drafting the legislative proposals (art 211 TEC) requires a large amount of technical knowledge, expertise and political information (Bouwen, 2002) but at the same time the Commission disposes of very limited resources with a small amount of staff (in total 32 6662) and with its high managerial part affected by the Kinnock reform (1999). The Commission is also entrusted with executive power as it is responsible for implementation and supervision of EU finances. As a consequence, lots of multinational firms lobby the Commission to secure some grants and entitlements to the EU investment and expenditure programs. Finally, the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties which makes it an ideal target to lobby for potential litigants (Bouwen, 2009). Thus the Commission is the major centre of lobbying activity in Brussels.

In every interdependent relationship, both sides are active. As stated earlier, the Commission asks for Expert information and legitimacy but it also contributes in shaping interest representation. First of all it has the power to fund some of the interest groups with 14% of the dedicated budget allowed to business groups (Bouwen, 2009). The Commission also shapes the informal rules of the interactions through communications and White Papers (such as Prodi’s White Paper on European Governance, 2002) which aim to fix a set of effective rules although not legally binding. Finally the Commission has the power to set up and attribute seats to consultative committees outside the traditional comitology. Thus private interests take part to some ad hoc and standing committees, round tables (mixing public and private interests), expert groups (private interests only) and mixed committees (mixing private interests, Member States and independent experts). With the European Transparency Initiative, the Commission has also created a register for representatives as a mean to control interest groups. We conclude that in the scheme of supply and demand, the Commission mainly trades access for Expert knowledge and legitimacy (Bouwen, 2002, 2009).

The European Parliament Over the past twenty years scholars and practitioners have witnessed the rise of the European Parliament. According to Greenwood (2011), the European Parliament is a traditional arena for public interests however producers interests recently started lobbying it. In adopting this new channel of influence, interest groups have to adapt to a ‘heteroclite and multipolar institution (...) with multiple veto points and opportunities.’ (Lehmann, 2009:40). Moreover the institution is at the heart of media’s attention. All these particularities ask for enhanced networking techniques, wider coalitions and more political approaches.

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2 European Commission 2013, Human Resources key figures card. Staff Members. Available at <http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/hr_key_figures_en.pdf> [Accessed 14 April 2013].

Nevertheless the EP is ‘probably as open as the Commission’ (Lehmann, 2009:58) and its main access points are : the Rapporteur, the Committee and the Conciliation Committee. Undoubtedly the Rapporteur is extremely influential as he is responsible for the early drafting and is, most of the time, listened to with attention by his peers. Lehmann summarises it:

‘Rapporteur, shadow rapporteurs, and committee chair, with the assistance of the committee secretariat and group officials, are the main gatekeepers in forming the opinion of the Parliament at this stage’.(Lehmann, 2009:52)

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are also a relevant target as most of them want to secure their re-election and establish informed reports to improve their reputation in the constituency and in their party. However varying degrees of acceptation exist among MEPs. We conclude that the European Parliament mainly trades access for IEEI and IDEI.

The Council of the European UnionThe Council of the EU is generally regarded as the least accessible venue for interest groups. The common vision of a hard-to-lobby institution is deserved however it can be argued that it simply needs to be lobbied differently. Indeed the Council lacks transparency (most of the actual negotiations are made during informal meetings), is fragmented (the Council of the EU meets in 9 different configurations and its work is prepared by a complex web of preparatory bodies), has very few permanent personnel (apart for its secretariat) and functions with informal norms (despite the legal disposals most of the decisions are taken by consensus, making it hard for interest groups to know if promises have been kept) (Hayes-Renshaw, 2009).

The Council has to be approached at several levels and at different stages. It presents different points of access of which national governments are the most obvious, they represent the ‘tried and tested’ (Greenwood, 2011:39). Lobbyists can also access the President, which is another well-known channel. Here, lobbying strategies must be deployed very early, as Member States prepare their presidency two years before starting their six month term. Being the ‘chief facilitator of its activity’ the Council’s Secretariat is also an interesting venue. The last possibility is to lobby the preparatory bodies through COREPER, however it necessitates long lobbying periods and a lot of resources, though it is the earliest possible chance to get access to the process (Hayes-Renshaw, 2009).

We conclude that the Council asks for different resources as it mostly acts at the end of the legislative process. Interest groups need to put the emphasis on national interest, or what Bouwen calls ‘the national encompassing interest’ (2002:8).

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Conclusion

Encapsulating our theoretical framework, Chapter I has reviewed an extensive literature, giving us an overview of business oriented theories of interest representation in politics as well as a detailed insight of the uniqueness of the European mode of business interest intermediation. It has notably cast light on the complex interplay between sub-national, national and supranational authorities which leads the majority of scholars to agree in saying that European interest representation is ‘a managed multilevel process with numerous feedback loops and entry points constrained by the size of interest groups, lobbying budgets, origin, and the policy area’ (Coen and Richardson, 2009).

However, almost no scholars have studied the impact of economic crisis on the EU corporate political activity. The 2007-10 crisis forces us to revisit the literature and to try to offer an accurate explanation of business interest representation in times of crisis. Therefore the second chapter is dedicated to the set up of an integrated theoretical framework - based on the policy network theory - and its analytical tool. It also draws hypothesis on the consequences of the crisis from the interactions of our model with facts, and provides some empirical data.

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Second Chapter: Research project

I) Recalling our theoretical framework

I.1. Justifying an integrated approach

Before developing our study further, we shall briefly recall our research theoretical framework. John (2012) identifies five different types of approaches to analyse the making of public policy: institutional approaches, group and network approaches, exogenous approaches, rational actor approaches and ideas-based approaches. The policy network theory is the most relevant approach to study the impact of interest representation, and more specifically CPA, on policy variation and policy change. This is even truer at the European level with highly complex economic and social webs of activities. In the same spirit, Peterson writes: 'policy network analysis is never more powerful as an analytical tool that when it is deployed at the EU level' (2003:119).

Going further than the groups approach, the network theory acknowledged that groups are important in shaping policy but do not solely define it. Indeed interest groups only exercise a limited and hard to quantify influence3, other actors exist and matter as well. Overcoming the criticism of the groups approach, the policy network is a well established theory of political causation although not the only one. Since the 1970s an extensive amount of work has been published and different interpretations of the theory have been proposed, from the early writings of Heclo (1978) and Richardson and Jordan (1979), to Compston (2009) (for a complete review see Thatcher, 1998). However all are built on the basic assumption of the existence of a cluster, a linkage of political actors which take interest, or are directly involved in the making of public policy.

Our version has little in common with the very early accounts of the network theory. It is indeed far from the ‘iron triangle’ developed by U.S. scholars. Isolating the common denominator to most of the policy network theories (Börzel, 1998:254), our framework is based on the principle of resource interdependencies and therefore falls within the power dependence branch as identified by Rhodes (2008). It can also be legitimately related to the 'interest intermediation school' described by Börzel (1998) to the extent that it analyses policy network as a form of relationship between interest groups and public actors based on resource interdependency.

Therefore the foundations of our theory suppose that there are policy actors which have distinct policy preferences (generated by self interest or commitment to ideas or normative visions) on perceived policy problems and solutions. These policy entrepreneurs try to promote their preference on policy decisions (the dependent variable) through strategies4 constraining the exchange of tradable

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3 cf p.5

4 cf p.10

resources5. This takes place within a frame: the rules of the game. Although it has been cast into doubts, we reaffirm that the policy network theory is a theory of policy change. It explains policy decisions as the product of public actors amending their policy preferences to obtain what they perceive as necessary resources. Changes in policy are synonymous with changes in the temporary equilibrium of resource exchange and consequently with resources, beliefs, exogenous variables and structure of the network.

Nevertheless it is true that having recourse to a strict version of the policy network theory raises issues. In order to enhance one's approach, several scholars call forth an 'integrated framework' (John, 2012:13 ; Hill, 2013:108) which assumes the dominance of one set of causal processes while others are granted a secondary degree of explanation. Although approaches have sometimes emerged in reaction to others, dialogue is possible and even vital to the investigation of the complex policy process.

Being aware of this necessity but also of its dangers (Thatcher, 1998:408 ; John, 2012:14), and coherently with our first Chapter, we include in our research project insights of other theoretical approaches. Therefore, in line with post-interorganisationalist scholars (Coleman and Skogstad, 1990 ; Knock et al. 1996), we take institutionalism into account. The latter can provide a useful complementarity, as every action cannot be solely explained by groups' dynamics. With this purpose in mind, we also grant all of the networks' actors with a rational choice capacity, thus integrating John's (2012) distinction of the rational choice approach and taking into account his demand for an 'integrated framework'.

Going back to the literature review, our policy theory gets its strength from both its cross-disciplinary inspiration, drawing from political science (interest group theory), management science (on business strategies), sociology (social exchange theory), economics (collective action, public choice), and its integrated approach.

I.2. Analysing the policy process - a stage model

We now embed our network theory within a model in order to provide a dynamic approach to policy process. This has the advantage of making it more understandable, what several academics such as Jenkins (1978), John (2012) and Hill (2013) refer to as heuristic. For this purpose we chose to have recourse to the stage model as our explanatory framework.

To choose this model is to open one's work to criticism on the ground of misleading risks (Lindblom, 1959). However, we are aware of the dangers inherent to the stagist approach and we acknowledge that it should only be thought as a tool of research, a representation, and not a theory in itself. Stage models or policy cycles are limited to the extent that they pretend to break down a process that is in fact more systemic, complex and interactive. Moreover they simplify the policy process and do not render the messiness, nor the continuity of policy. In this way we can say that it only offers an artificial

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5 cf pp.8-10

account of the process (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). We also recognise that the 'textbook approach' (Nakamura, 1987) is more or less well fitted to sectors of policies notably to the extent that 'policy may determine politics' (Lowi, 1972:299). As a consequence this model must be used with caution.

Nonetheless it corresponds to concrete efforts towards the ideal of a rational administration and to a somewhat linear conception of policies in our political system. Most of all it makes sense to represent our theory schematically and to demonstrate its explanatory function in a manageable model. Moreover despite the possible criticisms, any model is subject to the risk of 'fallacy of misplaced concreteness' (Whitehead, 1925 in Parsons, 1995). Wayne Parsons illustrates this perfectly while remarking that a map of London, however accurate, will never be London (1995:58). For all of these reasons, the stage model -as an analytical research tool- seems particularly well fitted to our policy network theoretical framework.

Acknowledging the complexity of the real policy process and trying to overcome the inherent defaults of policy cycles, we propose to represent our theory under the form of flexible rather than discrete stages. Therefore our model represents a never-ending policy process and integrates feedback loops which de-rigidify the model. Thus using the sequential analysis we study the role of interest groups across the different steps of the policy making process while acknowledging the interrelations between the inseparable stages of a continuous process of decision making (particularly decision and implementation).

Several models have been defined with more or less refined stages (see Easton, 1953 ; Lasswell, 1956 ; Jenkins, 1978 ; Hogwood and Gunn, 1984), however we do not need to go into so much depth in the characterisation of ours. Nevertheless the policy network theory progressively came to analyse more parts of the policy process than at its beginning which is useful to us, as business interests are able to exert influence throughout the European policy process:

' (...) from initiation and ratification of policy at the Council of Ministers, agenda-setting and formulation at European Commission (EC) forums, reformulation of policy at the European Parliament (EP) committees, to the final interpretation, harmonization, and implementation of regulation in the nation state. In being one of the few actors to follow all points of the policy process'. (Coen and Richardson, 2009:145).

Therefore we include 4 stages in our basic policy cycle: Policy initiation, Policy formation, Policy decision, and Policy delivery (implementation and evaluation). Despite the involvement of interest groups in all the stages except decision, we will focus for our study on policy initiation and formulation.

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Figure 2.1 Basic policy cycle

II) Understanding the impact of the crisis on the European CPA

II.1. The crisis' implications on our model

Taking inspiration from Barron and Hultén's (2011) propositions, we deduce from our research framework a set of 5 hypotheses that we analyse and embed in a comprehensive stage model corresponding to our network approach (see figure 2.2). Using this sequential analysis allows us to explain the impact of the 2007-10 economic crisis on the European mode of business interest representation, as well as to draw conclusions for the more general impact of crisis on the corporate political activity in the EU.

At the basis of our model (inspired from Compston's work, 2009:50), lies the variation of one or several exogenous variables which are the starting point of the consequent questioning of existing equilibriums in resource exchanges. At the crux of these variables is the economic crisis which we consider has impacted all the terms of the exchange identifiable in our figure.

With this model, we show how interest groups play a significant role at several stages of the policy process (indicated by bold frames), and how the economic crisis modified their corresponding behaviour throughout the process (hypothesis indicated by blue circles).

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Figure 2.2 Policy network embedded in a policy process stage model

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Hypothesis 1: The temporary new balance of power between the European institutions has only marginally influenced corporate political activities.

The 2007-10 economic crisis might legitimately lead us to think that the temporary new balance of power among the European institutions has influenced the locus of interest groups' activity. However we think that the majority of business interest groups have not been directly concerned with the provisional shift of power in their lobbying of day-to-day politics. Nevertheless specific actors from the financial service industry such as banks, hedge funds and their corresponding associations were more impacted and have reinforced their corporate political activity at all levels.

Thus we deduce that:๏ The Commission remained the prominent legislative institution and stayed at the crux of the day-to-day politics, therefore remaining the major centre of lobbying activity in Brussels to most of business interests. In parallel it may have attracted more activity from the financial service industry as it worked on the reform of the banking system.

๏ Meanwhile the European Parliament might have lost some of its already weaker attractiveness for business actors because of the prevailing intergovernmentalism in times of crisis. However this probably remains marginal.

๏ To some extent actors from the financial service industry may have reinforced their influence over the relatively accessible Council of the European Union. The latter gained power with the prominence of Ecofin and the parallel rise of the Eurogroup meetings during the sovereign debt crisis. We believe these business actors notably pushed for the creation of the European Financial Stability Facility in May 2010.

๏ Although the European Council is usually lobbied through national channels, it is important to acknowledge that it has gained some importance. As the institution which historically deals with the most political and sensitive issues, it found a particularly tough mission with the economic crisis especially when considering the need to coordinate a global economic strategy to regain growth. Later the opposition on the merits of austerity set up to tackle the sovereign debt crisis also caused Heads of states and governments to negotiate on critical measures such as the so-called 'golden rule' and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (alias Fiscal Compact) in March 2012. These negotiations have mobilised the finance service industry actors as holder of government bonds.

Hypothesis 2: The impact of the crisis on problem definition and policy initiation We postulate that along with regular factors in every policy sectors, the economic crisis led to the initiation of new policies in the economic policy sector. Indeed public actors became aware of the need to restart the global economy, regulate finance and then to tackle the sovereign debt crisis. On the business side, actors acknowledged the necessity to pay a closer attention to interactions with policy makers as a consequence of the former's greater involvement in the economy.

Therefore we suppose that:๏ In terms of policy initiation the economic crisis had a direct influence only on the economic policies (macroeconomic policies, business regulation, investment, employment etc.)

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๏ Regarding the economic policy sector, the crisis has on one hand generated more proactive objectives for the most severely impacted business actors as they became more dependent on policy-makers (notably firms for credit facilities and competitiveness). But on the other hand it has led firms evolving in the less regulated financial systems to more defensive objectives in order to preserve their national institutional arrangements and competitive advantages (Baron and Hultén, 2011).

Hypothesis 3: The impact of the crisis on rules, norms and form of the network

Therefore, we expect that:๏ First of all the crisis has impacted the networks' forms in diminishing the business actors’ financial resources and therefore led to the exclusion of some of them. In the same relation, it is unlikely to have brought new ones in. The result is smaller and closer policy communities.

๏ We also deduce from our model that the crisis had a particular impact in the European Union because of its multi-level governance structure. Some business interest groups decided to withdraw a part, or the totality, of their activity of interest intermediation from Brussels and came back to their traditional national arena.

Although the rules and norms can at first appear unaffected by the crisis (and indeed there has been no specific report or white paper on interest representation and governance) the economic crisis might as well have modified this dimension of the networks. Thus we expect:

๏ A drop in the trust between the European institutions and some of their business partners (notably the financial service industry).

๏ A reduced room of manoeuvre for interest groups because of the high saliency of the issues, and the ideologically loaded interpretation of the crisis.

Hypothesis 4: The impact of the crisis on the Needs of Public Actors

We deduce from our research that:๏ The European policy makers had an increased need for information on the European and domestic interests from businesses and the way they effectively dealt with the economic downturn. Promoting urgent economic policies the EU institutions were more concerned than ever with the impact they had on the ground. Moreover as they decided to examine the source

Networks take different forms from small policy communities to larger issues networks. Network members are subject to formal and informal rules established to facilitate interactions in between them. They are the product and origin of procedures, routine and enhance the cooperation, negotiation, consultation and coordination. A change in rules/norms necessarily affects the policy formulation (stage 2)

Public actors accept to amend their policy decision in exchange of resources they perceived as necessary: their needs. Their positions condition the stage of policy formulation (stage 2).

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of the crisis and to regulate finance, the European authorities faced extremely technical challenges and needed the private sector's help.

๏ The European policy makers were also more interested in investment perspectives from the business side than before.

Hypothesis 5: The impact of the crisis on the Triangle: resources, strategies and preferences

Consequently we postulate that:๏ The economic crisis had an obvious impact on the profits and loss of interest groups' parent companies and consequently has reduced their financial resources. Public affairs management units are often an adjustment variable to the financial health of firms thus diminishing the general capabilities to weight in the resource exchange.

๏ The crisis has resulted in a loss of the legitimacy resource for certain business interests. Banks and other finance related companies suffered from a damaged public image and it is safe to say that their wider reputation was impacted. This is quite a damaging phenomenon as relations with European public actors are more and more based on credibility rather than representativeness.

Resources are also conditioned by strategies as the latter can be designed to gain a resource-asset vis à vis other actors. Indeed interest groups' strategies can lead to the acquisition of new resources in order to replace and exclude the competitors in the network. However we do not expect the crisis to have modified the regular behaviour of business interest groups.

We suppose that:๏ According to the hypothesis 3, the network tended to be smaller during the crisis and consequently strategies tended to be more cooperative and consensual.

Business interest groups strategies and tactics are also correlated to their resources as they are constrained by them. Consequently we postulate that strategies and tactics were affected in the following way:

๏ The strategy of financial support is not really relevant in the EU, however a constraint in financial resources implies that other strategies relying on expensive tactics are likely to have diminished (such as lobbying and litigation).

๏ We postulate that rather than entering long term relationships (as favoured by the European model of elite pluralism), business actors chose to enter short term and ad hoc relationships.

Resources affect directly the policy formulation (stage 2) as objects of the trade. Indeed, ceteris paribus an increase of private actors' resources raises the probability of gaining policy concessions, whereas the loss of resources results in less favourable policies.

Strategies influence directly the policy formulation (stage 2). They are constrained by the rules and norms of the network to the extent that norms constrain the range of legitimate actions.

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๏ We infer that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) restructured their means of action and had a greater recourse to collective action which is less resource intensive. We do not expect large firms to have externalised their government relation offices as they benefit from a larger 'organisational slack'.

๏ Associations are less likely to have suffered from the crisis in terms of resources. On the contrary they might have benefited from a partial externalisation of SMEs activity.

Resources influence preferences to the extent that an increase in resources is likely to make an actor more ambitious and vice-versa.

๏ In our case, this has probably resulted in business actors lowering their expectations to more realist positions.

Eventually a shift in strategy due to a reconsideration of the realist gain from the exchange can lead to a redefinition of the policy preference. We will not go into details on the preference as they depend on the issue at stake.

II.2. Empirical evidences

Little data has thus far been collected regarding the behaviour of business actors during the last economic crisis. Despite the need for empirical analysis to prove the validity of our hypothesis, this research project does not give rise to a proper empirical study. However we propose to use some data already collected by diverse sources in order to, if not totally prove, at least illustrate our deductions.

We lean on the data collected by the research and campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory and a UK-based polling research consultancy, ComRes. Although politically connoted, Corporate Europe Observatory provides some useful reports based on concrete facts and documents issued by different institutions and business groups. It also regularly publishes in reputed newspapers such as the Financial Times, The Guardian and European Voice. We thus consider its information as reliable. Concerning ComRes, we use a study led on 155 senior public affairs practitioners from consultancies, in-house corporate firms, trade associations and NGOs, delivered to the European Centre for Public Affairs on the 4th March 2009. ComRes has previously worked with the British government and major corporations, which make it an established and reliable source of information.

A report from The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO, 8 March 2013) points out the key role played by major business actors in pushing for austerity and liberal structural reforms such as privatisation. It appears that actors like Business Europe exerted an important influence in establishing the official path to end the crisis. They notably published numerous policy papers and action plans. It seems to validate our claim that business actors got involved in proactive actions in order to obtain a more profitable environment (in terms of credit facilities, fiscal pressure and labour laws) (Hypothesis 2, point 2). However this might oppose our claim that the crisis would result in a reduce room of

Preferences are established regarding each policy by public actors as well as business ones. They form the starting point for negotiation and therefore policy formulation (stage 2).

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manoeuvre for business interest groups and a drop of trust (Hypothesis 3, point 3 and 4). This might be explained by the ideological orientation of the Commission towards liberal or even neoliberal thinking.

Our claim that the crisis might result in a drop of trust in business is also invalidated by a graph from ComRes (Survey 4th March, 2009) showing that the Commission and the Council of the European Union continue to be more likely persuaded by business.

Figure 2.3 The impartiality of the Commission

Source: ComRes, March 2009

Figure 2.4 The impartiality of the Council of the European Union

Source: ComRes, March 2009

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The same report from the Corporate Europe Observatory also mentions the attempt of Business Europe to engage in 'a structured dialogue' with the Task Force on Economic Governance set up by the European Council in March 2010. The Task Force worked hand in hand with the Commission to set up the Sixpack legislative measures. This agrees with our deduction that business interest groups, especially from the finance industry, would try to lobby the Commission and the European Council despite the latter is ordinarily lobbied through national channels (Hypothesis 1, point 1 and 4).

Nevertheless, nearly 70% of the ComRes panel declared to perceive the Council of the European Union as inaccessible. This does not go against our claim that the financial service actors would temporarily target increasingly the Council of the EU (Hypothesis 1, point 2), however it corroborates the regular attitude evoked in our first Chapter.

We also found that financial resources have effectively been constrained during the crisis. According to a poll on the state of public affairs in 2009 presented by Andrew Hawkins, from ComRes (Survey 4th March, 2009), EU Public Affairs professionals were generally confronted to diminishing expenditure on public affairs. This marks a rupture with the continued growth in budget from 2005 to 2008. Public Affairs managers declared to be willing to maintain their activity at the same level while engaging in cheaper activities, innovating in less resource-intensive activities. 78% of the panel even declared to cut some activities. This seems to validate our claim that financial resources have decreased (Hypothesis 5, point 1) as well as the use of expensive tactics (Hypothesis 5, point 4).

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Conclusion

We deduced from our research framework some interesting and useful hypotheses about how European business interest groups reacted to the crisis and modified, or not, their behaviour. This offers an insight on how crisis can affect the policy process form a network perspective.

Nevertheless we are conscious of the necessity to qualify our account. Indeed, we built our model over the policy network theory and acknowledged an institutional insight of the European arena. However we did not consider the possible impact of cross country differences over business actors behaviours which my result from cross-country differences in institutional settings (Eising, 2003 ; Hutlén et al., 2012). Moreover shifts in behaviour of interest groups can be more or less important according to the nature of the network and therefore of the policy sector and institutional context.

This dissertation remains useful to practitioners to the extent that it offers a broad picture of the policy change mechanism and European institutional settings. The analysis of the crisis also delivers concrete indications on the behaviour of the business actors.

Our work also sets some avenues for future research and appeals to be continued. This dissertation has mainly been the occasion to set up a complete theoretical framework designed to study interest representation and its role in policy change at the European Union level. From this framework we have deduced the consequences of the last economic crisis on the activity of interest intermediation, but despite our attempt to illustrate our hypothesis, they do need to be tested. After this work of theory-building we therefore envisage to engage a complementary research project of empirical study.

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