Building Trust in Brussels: Lobbying Strategies of Nordic Interest groups

Abstract

In their pursuit of influencing EU institutions and decision-makers, Nordic interest groups face the choice of directly contacting the decision-makers or generating pressure indirectly through mobilizing and/or changing the public opinion. After choosing their policy issues, interest groups have to determine to either lobby alone or to join coalitions. This thesis investigates the lobbying strategies chosen by Nordic interest groups that are registered in the EU Transparency Register. I build my theoretical argument on a prominent school of thought that claims that resource-rich interest groups are more likely to choose inside lobbying strategies compared to resource-poor groups. The argument is tested through a mixed methodological approach, combining the analyses of a built for purpose dataset that provides information about all Nordic interest groups registered in the EU Transparency register. The empirical analyses show that a considerable fraction of the Nordic interest groups chooses inside lobbying strategies and/or outside lobbying strategies. However, the online survey answers reveal that a large majority prefers to lobby in coalitions. Additionally, it seems that Norwegian interest groups focus on outside lobbying as well as inside lobbying strategies (mostly targeting the Commission), to compensate for their lack of representation in the EU institutions. While lobbying resources and group characteristics matter to the choice of most lobbying strategies, the aspect of building reputation and trust is of importance when it comes to all lobbying strategies applied by the Nordic interest groups.