National Interest Organizations in the EU Multilevel System

Rainer Eising is a Professor of Comparative Politics at the Ruhr-University Bochum. He has published widely on interest groups, multilevel governance, and policy-making in the EU. He was principal investigator in the INTEREURO project and has recently directed a MERCUR project on interest groups in German political arenas.Daniel Rasch is a post-doctoral researcher at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer. His research focuses on international as well as national interest mediation, governance and research methods.Patrycja Rozbicka is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the Aston Centre for Europe, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on the comparative analysis of interest groups’ activity in national and European policy-making, and politics of live music industry in the UK and Europe.

• Introduction: National interest organisations in EU policy-making Rainer Eising, Daniel Rasch and Patrycja Rozbicka Part I. Studying the alignments of national interest organisations 1. Who says what to whom? Alignments and arguments in EU policy-making Rainer Eising, Daniel Rasch, Patrycja Rozbicka, Danica Fink-Hafner, Mitja Hafner-Fink and Meta Novak 2. Government–business relations in multilevel systems: the effect of conflict perception on venue choice David Marshall and Patrick Bernhagen 3. German MPs and interest groups in EU multilevel policy-making: the politics of information exchange Arndt Wonka 4. Imperfect public goods and the logic of selective exit in EU interest organisations Rainer Eising Part 2. Europeanisation and access of national interest organisations 5. The multilevel interest representation of national business associations Beate Kohler-Koch, Peter Kotzian and Christine Quittkat 6. Adapting to Europe? Business interests and civil society groups in accession countries Aneta Cekik 7. Networkers, fund hunters, intermediaries, or policy players? The activities of regions in Brussels Michaël Tatham Part 3. Population ecology of interest organisations in the EU: a biased system? 8. Is the EU different? Comparing the diversity of national and EU-level systems of interest organisations Joost Berkhout, Marcel Hanegraaff and Caelesta Braun 9. Cultural capital and the density of organised interests lobbying the European Parliament Brendan J. Carroll and Anne Rasmussen