Why interests organize on only some issues: Assessing the density and diversity of interest organizations in Western Europe

Programmegroup Challenges to Democratic Representation

The aim of this NWO funded project is to fill a gap in the literature by describing and explaining the variation in the number (density) and character (diversity) of interest organizations in twenty policy domains in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Funded by: NWO

Period: 01/02/2013 until 31/01/2017 

In some policy domains, such as education, development and health care, a large number of organizations represent the interests of companies, citizens and public institutions. In other domains, such as defence, banking and housing, there are only a small number of organizations representing a relatively narrow range of interests. To date, these differences have not been systematically assessed. As these differences reflect the distribution of power and influence in society, they are likely to affect the attention of policymakers. Balancing the various legitimate voices in society is one of the main challenges which policymakers face. To address this challenge, a systematic analysis of the interest system is needed, as provided by the proposed research. 

Research methods 

The study will be innovative as it expands upon the Energy-Stability-Area model, a new theoretical framework developed in the United States. This model explains the density per domain, and it partially addresses the variety of organized interests. I will expand the model to include the diversity of interests, which is at least as important as the density because it provides information on the type of interests that are better represented than others. Various up-to-date registers and directories of interest organizations will be used. Density will be measured by classifying about a thousand interest organizations per country into domains, exhaustively covering all areas of government activity. Using a precise coding scheme for website information, I will examine diversity in terms of constituents, policy orientation, members-participation, and strategic focus. This will allow me to link organizational characteristics to members, mobilization and policy advocacy.

Published by  AISSR

26 September 2013