New modes of lobbying for new modes of governance: Interest groups and experimentalist governance in the European Union

This thesis researches how interest-group behaviour contributes to the development and functioning of recursive, or experimentalist, governance frameworks in the EU. Following the theoretical framework of Sabel and Zeitlin’s experimentalist governance approach, the thesis looks at governance arrangements that are established under conditions of strategic uncertainty, polyarchy, and interdependence, in which interest groups may play a significant role in the recursive process of formulating, implementing and revising policy. Both the conditions that may favour the emergence of recursive governance frameworks – as opposed to more hierarchical models – and the governance arrangements themselves are expected to shape the behaviour of the relevant interest-group actors. At the same time, whether and how these actors engage in the relevant governance arrangements is important for the effective functioning of the policy process. The thesis thus analyses interest-group behaviour as a response to the policy-making context (both the nature of the policy problem and the governance arrangements), while it in turn also considers such behaviour as a crucial factor for the evolution and functioning of the governance framework itself. This means that the thesis addresses an endogenous research question in which governance arrangements and interest-group actor behaviour influence one another. As the influence of interest groups on the governance framework is not confined to preference attainment and lobbying efforts in the policy formulation (or legislative) phase, but depends critically on their participation in the institutions concerned with policy implementation, the thesis examines interest-group behaviour in both phases of the policy process