Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies
The project provides a truly comparative study of the varieties and impact of party-group relationships on a scale hitherto unparalleled within the social and political sciences. It breaks new ground by examining party-group links from both sides rather than using either groups or parties as starting point.
The relationship between political parties and interest groups is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, and how to study it is open to debate. Accordingly, we first looked for a way to conceptualize party-group relationships that reduces the dimensions along which they can vary so that, after having mapped similarities and differences, we can examine the factors that shape them and their political impact. Empirically, the major goals of the project are to:
- Map the character of contemporary party-interest group relationships, mainly as an organizational phenomenon
- Identify the shaping factors of party-group relationships in this sense (at the country and party/group level)
- Measure patterns of party-group influence and the impact of on public policy
In this way, we also hope to expose the broader role of party-group relationships in democratic governance.
Research Design
The project is designed as a genuine comparative study across countries. With an eye on tractability and feasibility, we concentrate on the national/leadership level of politics. The units of analysis for are first, political parties and second, interest groups, but also the relationships as such (the dyads). Countries will be compared in terms of general patterns of party-group relationships. We look at the extra-parliamentary organization, but include parliamentary groups, too, since parties in some countries only have weak central organizations. In this way, we can also compare across ‘faces’ of parties, and touch more directly upon public decision-making as far as general patterns of influence is concerned. The project is divided into three main empirical modules: 1) an extensive study of all long-established democracies, 2) a detailed comparative study of parties and interest groups in 7-8 selected countries and 3) use of other (existing) data sets. The project includes a considerable data collection effort, including mapping of party statutes, a party survey, and an interest group survey, mapping of elite networks and perhaps also interviews with those involved in policy-making.
Project Organization and Funding
The project runs from Autumn 2014 to Winter 2020 and is financed by the national funding scheme “FRIHUMSAM Young Research Talents” (The Research Council of Norway) together with the University of Oslo (UiO). A core research group of nine persons (see List of participants) with complementary general expertise and different geographical backgrounds all contribute to the development of the conceptualization, the more detailed research design, to the data analysis and to publications. The team members also serves as advisors for the data collection in various countries/areas, supplemented by a few country supervisors to be affiliated (see List of affiliated researchers). All of the team members bring extensive, but only partly overlapping research networks into the project. The project is managed at the University of Oslo, by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern. Numerous research assistants are engaged by the project, in different countries. Moreover, a postdoctoral fellow was recruited to work with the project manager in Oslo after the project started.
Parties and Interest Groups in Democracies 