Distributive Conflict and Interest Group Preferences in Deficit Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 66-107
Author(s):  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Ari Ray ◽  
Nils Redeker
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Opportunity Costs ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Structural Reforms ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Group Preferences ◽  
Distributive Conflict ◽  
Original Survey

The politics of adjustment in deficit countries were characterized by strong domestic discontent, leading to significant political upheaval. Why did policymakers in these countries nonetheless implement unprecedented austerity and painful structural reforms? Zooming in on the domestic drivers of this adjustment choice, this chapter highlights mechanisms by which internal adjustment grew more politically feasible in deficit countries. The chapter draws on original survey data on the policy preferences of 359 economic interest groups in Ireland, Spain and Greece. It finds that while groups were consistently negative to a full range of scenarios by which external adjustment could be achieved in deficit countries, their preferences toward austerity measures and structural reforms varied much more widely. This variation, it is argued, facilitated the formation of pro-internal adjustment coalitions in deficit country contexts. Moreover, the chapter shows that opportunity costs mattered. While opposed to internal adjustment in absolute terms, a large majority of interest groups in deficit countries grew pliable to the prospect of it when faced with a choice between this and the alternative of abandoning the euro; even if internal adjustment programs were comprised of policies that groups themselves distinctly opposed.

Distributive Conflict and Interest Group Preferences in Surplus Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 172-205
Author(s):  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Ari Ray ◽  
Nils Redeker
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Group Preferences ◽  
Economic Interest Groups ◽  
Distributive Conflict ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Broad Consensus

A key characteristic of the Eurozone crisis is that the burden of adjustment was carried almost exclusively by crisis countries. Surplus countries did not contribute to the necessary rebalancing, even though internal adjustment likely would have reduced some of the pressure on deficit states. The chapter argues that surplus countries’ resistance to internal adjustment is rooted in domestic distributive struggles about the design of possible adjustment policies. To explore this argument, original survey data is leveraged from 357 economic interest groups from Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands and qualitative interviews with interest group representatives. The chapter shows that although there is general support for internal adjustment among economic interest groups, they disagree heavily about how exactly to achieve this goal. Together with a broad consensus to avoid a breakup of the Eurozone, the resulting deadlock turned interstate financing—such as bailouts to crisis countries—into a politically attractive strategy. Rather than being rooted only in ordoliberal ideology or export orientation, distributive conflicts thus contributed significantly to surplus countries’ resistance to adjust.

Crisis Politics in Deficit Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-149
Author(s):  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Ari Ray ◽  
Nils Redeker
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
Labor Market Reform ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Group Position ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
External Actors ◽  
Crisis Responses

How did the preferences of interest groups shape the design and contentiousness of crisis policies in deficit countries? And how did external actors influence their crisis responses? This chapter investigates these questions by drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources including newspaper coverage, voter public opinion data, interest group position papers, sovereign bailout documentation, and original qualitative evidence from seventeen in-depth interviews with national interest group representatives in Ireland, Spain, and Greece. There was a large consensus among both interest groups and voters across all three countries that external adjustment—that is, unilateral euro exit—should be avoided at all cost. This left financing and internal adjustment as the only options, and significant conflicts flared up in all three countries about how the costs associated with internal adjustment (and to a lesser extent financing) should be distributed. Within the confines set by the Troika, which effectively narrowed down the range of options available to deficit countries, interest groups pushed for reforms to which they were least vulnerable. Business interests, for example, generally supported adopting comprehensive spending-based consolidation measures and labor market reform. Conversely, labor unions and social policy groups actively supported policies that would entail stronger burden-sharing between firms and workers. Overall, internal adjustment policies adopted across all three cases generally reflected the preferences of employer associations more than those of workers, but especially in Spain and Greece, this was associated with considerable political upheaval.

scholarly journals Interest Groups in Multi-Level Contexts: European Integration as Cross-Cutting Issue in Party-Interest Group Contacts

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joost Berkhout ◽  
Marcel Hanegraaff ◽  
Patrick Statsch
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
European Policy ◽  
Group Leaders ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
European Public ◽  
Multi Level

Policy-specific actor-constellations consisting of party- and group-representatives commonly drive the effective establishment of new policy programmes or changes in existing policies. In the EU multi-level system, the creation of such constellations is complicated because it practically requires consensus on two dimensions: the European public policy at stake and the issue of European integration. This means that, for interest groups with interests in particular policy domains, and with limited interest in the actual issue of European integration, non-Eurosceptic parties must be their main ally in their policy battles. We hypothesise that interest groups with relevant European domain-specific interests will ally with non-Eurosceptic parties, whereas interest groups whose interests are hardly affected by the European policy process will have party-political allies across the full range of positions on European integration. We assess this argument on the basis of an elite-survey of interest group leaders and study group-party dyads in several European countries (i.e., Belgium, Lithuania, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, and Slovenia) in a large number of policy domains. Our dependent variable is the group-party dyad and the main independent variables are the European policy interests of the group and the level of Euroscepticism of the party. We broadly find support for our hypotheses. The findings of our study speak to the debate concerning the implications of the politicisation of European integration and, more specifically, the way in which party-political polarisation of Europe may divide domestic interest group systems and potentially drive group and party systems apart.

How Internal Constraints Shape Interest Group Activities: Evidence from Access-Seeking PACs

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 792-808 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZHAO LI
Keyword(s):  
Observational Study ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Internal Constraints ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Group Activities ◽  
Know How ◽  
Group Strategy ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Original Survey

Interest groups contribute much less to campaigns than legally allowed. Consequently, prevailing theories infer these contributions must yield minimal returns. I argue constraints on PAC fundraising may also explain why interest groups give little. I illuminate one such constraint: access-seeking PACs rely on voluntary donations from affiliated individuals (e.g., employees), and these PACs alienate donors with partisan preferences when giving to the opposite party. First, difference-in-differences analysis of real giving shows donors withhold donations to access-seeking PACs when PACs contribute to out-partisan politicians. Next, an original survey of corporate PAC donors demonstrates they know how their PACs allocate contributions across parties, and replicates the observational study in an experiment. Donors’ partisanship thus limits access-seeking PACs’ fundraising and influence. This provides a new perspective on why there is little interest group money in elections, and has broad implications for how partisan preferences and other internal constraints shape interest group strategy.

On Joining Interest Groups: An Empirical Consideration of the Work of Mancur Olson Jr.

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
British Industry ◽  
Democratic Ideology ◽  
Mancur Olson

The academic literature on interest groups has tended to concentrate on the assessment of the relative influence of these groups in different political systems, and on the implications of the activities of interest groups for democratic ideology. In recent years, however, the work of Mancur Olson has stimulated an increasing interest in the formation of interest groups, and in the reasons why individuals (or corporate bodies) join them. The aim of this article is to examine Olson's analysis in the light of a study of one major British economic interest group, the Confederation of British Industry. In the course of this examination I hope to illustrate some of the weaknesses of Olson's analysis and to suggest how it might be refined and developed.

Explaining regional economic policies in China: interest groups, institutions, and identities

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Horowitz ◽  
C. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Joint Influence ◽  
Future Work

What explains variation in investment climates across China's provinces and urban autonomous regions? Three main explanations are considered: variation in the character and size of economic interest groups, in central government policies, and in pre-communist provincial identities and traditions. There is statistical and anecdotal support for the interest group and provincial identity factors. On the other hand, there is little evidence that variation in central government policy has had much effect. Future work should refine statistical tests and case studies to better understand the joint influence of interest group pressures and provincial identities.

Evading the Patronage Trap: Organizational Capacity and Demand Making in Mexico

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (13-14) ◽  
pp. 2097-2134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Palmer-Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Small Business ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Private Goods ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Interest Organizations

When do organizations broadly represent the interests of their economic sectors and when do they narrowly represent the interests of members? This article investigates how agricultural and small-business organizations in Mexico make demands for programmatic policies or patronage benefits. Contrary to explanations based on the class of members, I show that the source of organizational capacity shapes demand-making strategies. Organizations that generate selective benefits internally are able to engage in programmatic policies that shape sectoral competitiveness, whereas organizations that fail to solve membership challenges internally are vulnerable to the patronage trap, a self-reproducing cycle wherein they become specialized in demand making for discretionary private goods. I generate this argument through process tracing of two agricultural organizations in Mexico. Analysis of an original survey of economic interest organizations provides broader evidence that organizational capacity is a better predictor of policy demands than social class.

scholarly journals Silent Non-Exit and Broken Voice. Early Postcommunist Social Policies as Protest-Preempting Strategies

Südosteuropa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Pieter Vanhuysse
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Distributive Conflict

Abstract This essay contributes to the development of an analytical political sociology examination of postcommunist policy pathways and applies such an analysis in a reinterpretation of the social policy pathways taken by Hungary and Poland. During the critical historical juncture of the early 1990s, governments in these new democracies used social policies to proactively create new labor market outsiders (rather than merely accommodate or deal with existing outsiders) in an effort to stifle disruptive repertoires of political voice. Microcollective action theory helps to elucidate how the break-up of hitherto relatively homogeneous clusters of threatened workers into newly competing interest groups shaped the nature of distributive conflict in the formative first decade of these new democracies. In this light, we see how the analytical political sociology of postcommunist social policy can advance and modify current, predominantly Western-oriented theories of insider/outsider conflict and welfare retrenchment policy, and can inform future debates about emerging social policy biases in Eastern Europe.

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