Marshall, David J.
(2012)
Organised interest representation and the European Parliament.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
This thesis is comprised of three papers, each making a distinctive theoretical and
empirical contribution to our understanding of interest representation within the
European Parliament (EP). The papers are unified by two assumptions: first, the
strategic behaviour of organised interests is significantly determined by the distribution
of legislative influence, and second, the opportunity to become influential is a function
of the EP’s decision-making rules. Each paper addresses a different aspect of this
opportunity structure, which together provides a coherent explanation of the link
between lobbying and the EP’s decision-making process. In so doing, insights are
provided into the distribution of legislative influence within the EP and the legitimacy
of the European Union’s policy process. The first paper explains how organised
interests’ strategic behaviour is considerably altered in response to changes in the
political opportunity structure afforded by each phase of the committee process. The
second paper presents and tests a theory of indirect lobbying of the rapporteur. Here
the institutional context is shown to be such that rapporteurs come to rely upon
officials from their committee’s secretariat for relatively independent policy advice.
But the policy expertise required by officials to carry out this role turns out to be
endogenously derived from amongst the same lobbyists whose informational
submissions the rapporteur seeks to verify. The final paper draws on longitudinal
survey data to assess the impact of institutional rules and European party group
membership, in the context of uncertainty amongst lobbyists as to whether their most
closely aligned large party group will form part of a given legislative majority. This
uncertainty provides an incentive for organised interests to lobby MEPs from opposing
party groups in addition to more natural allies. But crucially, in performing this action
lobbyists defer to their hard-wired principle and lobby the most closely aligned
members from the otherwise unfriendly party.
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