OrgIntCEE - The Missing Link: Examining organized interests in post-communist policy-making

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Michael Dobbins
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 378988505

In recent years, political scientists have made significant advancements in comparatively analysing the influence of organized interests in the political process. However, the post-communist region has been largely neglected. Instead, large bodies of research have focussed on formal political institutions, party systems and the Europeanization of public administrations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The proposed project seeks to overcome this research gap by exploring the structures, democratic-participative incorporation and impact of organized interests on policy-making in four post-communist EU members: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary. First, the applicants wish to provide a broader stocktaking of the interest group landscape and underlying political cleavages by developing a database of the interest group ecology for three policy areas: healthcare, energy and higher education. The applicants then explore how interest groups organize civil society and contribute to the political preference aggregation process. The main part of the analysis explores the clout that interest groups wield over policy outputs. Against this background, the project comparatively focusses on the interest group-related, issue-related, and socio-economic factors that condition the influence of organized interests in post-communist politics. In parallel, we examine how European integration and EU accession have affected the structure, democratic-participative means, and impact of organized interests in CEE. Specifically, we address whether interactions between CEE interest groups and western European counterparts have resulted in their consolidation and professionalization at the domestic level, ultimately strengthening their impact on policy output. We also explore the counterhypothesis that Europeanization has prompted major interest groups to exit the national political arena and shift their activities to Brussels, thus increasing the clout of the state or previously structurally disadvantaged organized interests.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Partner Organisation: Narodowe Centrum Nauki (NCN)
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Rafal Riedel