Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation: Interest Groups in Central and Eastern Europe [1st ed.] 9783030555207, 9783030555214

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INTEREST GROUPS, ADVOCACY AND DEMOCRACY SERIES SERIES EDITOR: DARREN HALPIN

Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation Interest Groups in Central and Eastern Europe Patrycja Rozbicka · Paweł Kamiński Meta Novak · Vaida Jankauskaitė

Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series

Series Editor Darren Halpin Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University Canberra, Australia

The study of interest groups and their role in political life has undergone somewhat of a renaissance in recent years. Long standing scholarly themes such as interest groups influence mobilization, formation, and ‘bias’, are being addressed using new and novel data sets and methods. There are also new and exciting themes, such as the role of ICTs in enabling collective action and the growth of global advocacy networks, are being added. Contemporary debates about the role of commercial lobbyists and professionalized interest representation are also highly salient. Together, they draw an ever larger and broader constituency to the study of interest groups and advocacy. This series seeks to capture both new generation studies addressing long standing themes in new ways and innovate scholarship posing new and challenging questions that emerge in a rapidly changing world. The series encourages contributions from political science (but also abutting disciplines such as economics, law, history, international relations and sociology) that speak to these themes. It welcomes work undertaken at the level of sub-national, national and supra-national political systems, and particularly encourages comparative or longitudinal studies. The series is open to diverse methodologies and theoretical approaches. The book series will sit alongside and complement the Interest Groups & Advocacy journal.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14850

Patrycja Rozbicka · Paweł Kaminski ´ · Meta Novak · Vaida Jankauskaite˙

Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation Interest Groups in Central and Eastern Europe

Patrycja Rozbicka School of Social Sciences and Humanities Aston University Birmingham, UK Meta Novak Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ljubljana Ljubljana, Slovenia

Paweł Kaminski ´ Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Political Studies Warsaw, Poland Vaida Jankauskaite˙ Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Kaunas University of Technology Kaunas, Lithuania

Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series ISBN 978-3-030-55520-7 ISBN 978-3-030-55521-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Martin Barraud/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book assesses the quality of democracy through the study of organized interests in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from the collapse of the Communism in 1989 up to the 2018. It presents an in-depth, an empirically grounded study comparing interest groups in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on democratic theory and comparative analysis, the book puts forward an evaluation of the effects of a legal framework, political and social context, on the interest representation in the post-Communist era. The book is an important contribution to debates on the performance of the young democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, where scholars argue that there is a ‘democratic crisis’ and democratic fatigue while the interest group system is labelled as weak and, in some cases, underdeveloped. This volume offers a much-needed comprehensive look into formal interest representation in the CEE countries, contrasting it with the model of Western democracies. Although great efforts have been made to deepen our understanding of interest organization and lobbying tools, the current literature fails to provide a comprehensive answer on influence of unsupportive environment on population ecology. The case of CEE countries shows significant effects

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PREFACE

of the political and social contexts on interest representation, stimulating a debate about the quality of democratic institutions after the collapse of communism. Birmingham, UK Warsaw, Poland Ljubljana, Slovenia Kaunas, Lithuania

Patrycja Rozbicka Paweł Kaminski ´ Meta Novak Vaida Jankauskaite˙

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank following colleagues: Paulina Po´spieszna and Aleksandra Galus from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, for help in data collection; Patricia Correa Vila, Balázs SzentIványi, Jörg Mathias and Luke John Davies, Aston University, Birmingham, UK, Alenka Krašovec, Damjan Lajh and Matevž Malˇciˇc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, for constructive comments. We would also like to thank our families for their support, and Dr. Kaminski ´ would like to, in particular, thank his wife Natalia and his son Jan. We also would like to acknowledge that part of this research was financed by the following: Research Foundation-Flanders, Grant No: G032814N, Slovenian Research Agency, Grant No: N5-0023 and Grant No: P5-0136; and the Research Council of Lithuania, Grant No: MIP030/15.

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Contents

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Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation: Interest Groups in Central and Eastern Europe in a Comparative Perspective 1.1 Interest Representation and Its Importance for Democracy 1.1.1 From Pluralism and Corporatism to Neo-Pluralism 1.1.2 Democratic Theory 1.2 Why Study Interest Groups in the Post-Communist Countries? Our Exemplary Case Studies 1.3 Research, Methodology and the Book’s Structure Bibliography Interest Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe: Evaluating Population Ecology 2.1 Explaining the Density and Diversity of Interest Group Systems 2.1.1 The Lithuanian Interest Group System and Punctuated Past 2.1.2 The Polish Interest Groups and Economic Shock Therapy 2.1.3 The Slovenian Europeanized Interest Group System

1 4 5 7 12 15 18

25 28 29 30 32 ix

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2.2

Defining Interest Organizations in the Post-Communist Context 2.3 Population Ecology: Density 2.4 Population Ecology: Diversity 2.5 Conclusions Appendix Bibliography 3

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Organized Interest in the Policy-Making Process 3.1 A Framework of Interest Representation in the CEE Counties 3.1.1 The Heritage of the Old System 3.1.2 The Europeanization Process 3.1.3 Characteristics of Interest Group Systems in CEE Countries 3.2 Legal, Institutional and Political Determinants 3.2.1 The Executive 3.2.2 The Parliament 3.2.3 The Economic and Social Committees 3.2.4 Other Forms of Inclusion in Policy-Making 3.2.5 The Legal Basis for Interest Groups 3.2.6 Regulation of Lobbying 3.3 Comparisons Between Post-Communist Countries and Western Democracies 3.4 Conclusions Bibliography The Drivers Behind Relations Between Interest Organizations and Political Parties in the CEE Countries 4.1 Discussing Interest Organizations and Parties’ Positions 4.2 The Post-Communist Transformation 4.3 Conceptualizing the Relationship Between Parties and Groups 4.4 Who Contacts Whom and Why? 4.5 Access Points: Lobbing Government vs Lobbing Parties 4.6 Analysis

34 39 40 48 49 53 59 59 60 61 63 66 66 69 73 75 80 81 83 85 87

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4.7 What Explains Party—Group Interactions? 4.8 Conclusions Bibliography

105 108 109

The Organizational Development of Nongovernmental Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe 5.1 Post-Communist Transformation 5.2 Mushrooming of NGOs 5.3 Analysis 5.4 Case Studies 5.5 Discussion and Conclusions Bibliography

115 116 118 120 125 132 133

The Significance of Trade Unions in the CEE Countries: Beyond Corporatism and Pluralism? 6.1 Trade Unions and Political Parties: Western Europe vs CEE Countries 6.2 Transition, Shock Therapy, Political Turmoil 6.3 Setting the Stage for Industrial Relations After 1989 6.3.1 Foundation of the First Post-Communist Trade Unions in Poland, Slovenia and Lithuania 6.3.2 Economic Shock and Public Discontent 6.3.3 The Changing Political Paradigm and Challenges to Trade Unions 6.4 Distrust Towards Trade Unions and Their Diminishing Political Base 6.5 Discussion and Conclusions Bibliography Seeking Access to Policy Stakeholders: Business ‘Lobbying’ vs Others 7.1 Venue Shopping in the CEE Political Systems 7.2 Strategies of Inside Lobbying 7.3 Explaining Access Goods 7.3.1 Data and Methodology 7.3.2 Results 7.4 Discussion and Conclusions Bibliography

137 137 140 143 143 147 148 150 154 156

161 161 164 169 171 172 175 177

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Interest Organizations in CEE Countries and the European Policy Process 8.1 The Effects of EU Accession on Population Ecology—Diversity, Structure and Numbers 8.2 EU Funding 8.3 Activity at the National vs European Level 8.3.1 Access to European Decision-Makers 8.3.2 Access to National Decision-Makers 8.4 Membership in European Umbrella Organizations 8.5 Discussion and Conclusions Bibliography Conclusions: The Future of Lobbying in the CEE Countries 9.1 Regime Change and the New Realities of Interest Groups’ Systems in the CEE Countries 9.2 Continued Effects of the EU Accession? 9.3 Lobbying in the CEE Countries in the Next Decade? 9.3.1 Future Research Bibliography

Index

181 183 186 189 190 193 196 199 202

209 213 214 215 216 218 221

About the Authors

Patrycja Rozbicka Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, Birmingham (Aston Centre for Europe). Her main areas of interest and publications include: participation of interest groups in the EU political system; coalitions and networks studies; and regulation of the music industry. Paweł Kaminski ´ Adjunct at the Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences His main areas of interest and publications include: political parties and civil society in Central Eastern Europe; and the relationships between political parties and interest groups. Meta Novak Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, and a researcher at the Centre for Political Science Research at the same faculty. Her research interests include interest groups, lobbying, civil society, political knowledge and opinion gaps. Vaida Jankauskaite, ˙ Ph.D. is a Researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology. Her main research interests include interest groups, lobbying, party-interest group relationship and political financing.

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Abbreviations

CEE CIGs CNVOS DGs DOPPS EU KNSS LDF LDS LGM LPSS LSDP MEPs MPs OECD OPZZ PHARE PiS PO SLD

Central and Eastern Europe Comparative Interest Groups Survey Centre for Information, Cooperation and Development of NonGovernmental Organizations Directorate-General Društvo za opazovanje in prouˇcevanje ptic Slovenije European Union Confederation of New Trade Unions of Slovenia Lithuanian Work Federation (LDF) Lithuanian Workers Union Lithuanian Green Movement Lithuanian Trade Union Centre (LPSC), the Lithuanian Trade Union Alliance Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) Members of the European Parliament Members of Parliament Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their Economies Law and Justice Party Civic Platform Party The Polish Democratic Left Alliance Party

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2 Fig. 7.1

Year of establishment Frequency of contacts with national institutions, mean value (1—we did not seek access, 5—at least once a week) (Source: CIG survey) Involvement in other activities of policy-making, mean value (1—we did not do this, 5—at least once a week) (Source: CIG survey) Seeking access to different governmental institutions Contacts with political parties Average marginal effects for contacting political parties The number of NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia since 1989, controlling for demographics The year each organization was founded The composition of NGOs’ budgets The source of NGOs’ budget Membership size of NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia Trade union density by country (Data OECD. Stat., accessed in November, 2019 [https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TUD]) Trust in trade unions over the years by country (Source Eurobarometer) Time allocated between direct and indirect strategies, mean value

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79 100 103 106 119 121 122 123 125

152 155 165

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 2.4 Table 2.5 Table 3.1 Table Table Table Table

4.1 5.1 7.1 7.2

Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3

An overview of organizations’ typology CIGs countries—Comparison of interest organizations per country size and population Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian national interest groups dataset, by type Interest groups’ diversity by declared area of activity (policy areas aggregated) Interest groups diversity by declared area of activity Trust in certain forms of interest groups (answer tend not to trust) Impact of interest groups contacting political parties Types of organizations analyzed Strategies applied by interest groups, percentages Inside lobbying venues used by business and non-business groups, mean values (scale 1–5) Inside lobbying venues for countries, mean values (scale 1–5) Linear regression analysis—factors of inside lobbying in different venues Period of establishment of interest groups from CEE countries Financing of interest groups from EU projects and programmes Interest for EU policies

37 41 42 46 50 65 104 120 166 168 169 173 185 188 189

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Table 8.4 Table 8.5

Table 8.6

Frequency of contacts with EU institutions, mean value (1—we did not seek access, 5—at least once a week) Frequency of contacts with national political institutions, mean value (1—we did not seek access, 5—at least once a week) Percentage of members to EU organizations

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195 198

CHAPTER 1

Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation: Interest Groups in Central and Eastern Europe in a Comparative Perspective

The study of interest group politics—the organization, aggregation, articulation and intermediation of societal interests that seek to shape public policies (Beyers et al. 2008: 1104)—is a relatively small field within political science. When compared to studies of electoral systems, legislatives and party politics, the research on interest groups (organized groups which represent the interests of their members and supporters and are politically active) remains under-published due to a much smaller scholars’ community working on the topic. Nevertheless, during the last 20 years, interest in group politics has grown. This is evidenced by numerous empirical studies, both qualitative and quantitative, within the fields of European Union (EU) studies (see for example: the results of the INTEREURO Project1 ), European politics, and American politics (see, in particular, publications in the dedicated ‘Interest and Advocacy’ Journal2 ). In recent years, interest groups scholars have moved beyond the Olsonian collective action paradigm and there has been growth in the importance of large-scale empirical research projects (e.g.

1 http://www.intereuro.eu/public/. Accessed 17 October 2019. 2 https://link.springer.com/journal/41309. Accessed 17 October 2017.

© The Author(s) 2021 P. Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation, Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4_1

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Advocacy and Public Policy Project3 ). In particular, the European scholarship on interest groups has become more empirical, systemic and has drawn increasingly on sophisticated methodological techniques and consistent theoretical approaches (Coen 2007). The majority of the scholarly research has analysed interest groups’ activities in one political system. Studies have chiefly focused on the EU, the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France; with the later addition of Sweden (e.g. Naurin and Boräng 2012), England (e.g. Mohan 2012), and Denmark (e.g. Chiristiansen 2012). This volume takes on board the vast accomplishments of the interest groups literature, explored theories, methodological and normative issues related to the study of political interests in the EU and elsewhere and applies them to a new area, the post-Communist democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The intellectual principle here is that understanding interest group systems remains crucial to understanding the functioning of advanced democracies, especially in areas which have undergone a democratization process only within the last 30 years. The pluralist argument that without groups there would be no democracy retains much plausibility and finds a resonance in social capital research (Putnam 2000; Beyers et al. 2008). Due to the transformation of the European national state and the declining importance of electoral and party politics in the Western democracies (Bartolini 2005; Mair 2006), more and more attention has been paid to the prominent position of interest groups within policy networks and policy negotiation. The neo-Tocquevillian approach emphasizes the importance of internal aspects of associational life for the proper functioning of democracy and democratization (Kaufman 1999). From that perspective, interest organizations are central democratic partners in the policy process enhancing its open, transparent and participatory character. The emergence of interest groups in the post-Communist countries should be treated as one of the prerequisites of successful democratization. In post-Communist CEE countries, contrary to Western democracies, the emergence of modern civil society and the political system was not the effect of a century-long process, but rather rapid and unexpected regime change in the 1980s and 1990s. This regime change created opportunities for interest communities in several countries to emerge

3 http://lobby.la.psu.edu/. Accessed 17 October 2019.

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in similar, but somewhat idiosyncratic environments as there had been substantial variations in introducing democratic and economic reforms. The regime change allows scholars to study interest groups’ population in these countries—deriving from population ecology (i.e. Gray and Lowery 2000)—almost as a living organisms’ life cycle. The population ecology theory explains that density and diversity of interest groups in any given system is more dependent on political and organizational environments than on micro-level decisions among groups themselves. It could certainly be the case for CEE countries, where groups initially struggled not only with a lack of supportive social infrastructure, but also a scarcity of resources and chaotic political actors. We explore in the book an essential question: which factors influence interest groups in the CEE countries, their populations and organizational behaviour? Following Crawford and Lijphart (1995), we argue that the collapse of Communism and transition to democracy introduced a set of internal and external factors, which have characteristics that influence the formation and maintenance of groups’ populations. Fink-Hafner (2011) contended that, in particular, an institutional choice in the transition to democracy (internal factor) was not only about the relations between the democratic opposition and the old regime, but also formed idiosyncratic opportunity structures which influenced the early processes of interest group formation (in particular, the socio-economic partnerships). In the case of external factors, the key aspect was the process of Europeanization (Berglund 2003; Maloney et al. 2018). The CEE countries, due to external pressure, implemented reforms to meet various economic and democratic criteria, including the Copenhagen Criteria to join the EU, as well as the liberalization process along the lines of the Washington Consensus, to have access to the World Bank and IMF credit lines (Bohle and Greskovits 2007). The implementation of these was viewed by observers as symptoms of emerging democracies and moves towards the creation of a functional and representative civil society. While the transition took place over 30 years ago, authors agree that changes within interest groups’ population ecology and organizational behaviour are slow and it takes major focus events to alter them (Gray and Lowery 2000). The type of events which alter these factors do not have to be of an explosive nature but rather, similar to the changes themselves, they can take place over an extended period.

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The assessment of the quality of democracy through the study of organized interests in the post-Communist CEE remains vastly unexplored. This is an apt time for an in-depth analysis and reflection on the population of interest groups in the CEE region, especially in a comparative perspective to their West European counter parts. The aim of this volume is to lay down a sound basis and empirical data for such future research. Taking its theoretical, conceptual and methodological basis from existing Western democracies’ research, the volume avoids the risk of heroic empiricism. Moreover, the research on CEE countries in a comparative perspective is relatively fragmented and the integration and exchange among various strands of the research in this book will contribute to a more robust and consistent research agenda. This introductory chapter outlines in detail interest representation and its importance for democracy, underlining the place of this discussion in a broader political science debate. In particular, we focus on an evolution from the pluralist and corporatist perspective to neo-pluralism. We consider different elements of the participatory, representative and associative democracy. And, further support the argument by reference to Tocqueville’s associanalism. We focus on our intellectual principle of interest representation as a necessary element of democracy and elaborate on a comparative yardstick of functional representation. We further explain the focus on the post-Communist CEE countries. As the empirical results presented in this volume are based on extensive qualitative and quantitative research in the methodology section we introduce the Comparative Interest Groups Survey Project (CIGs) and more in-depth information on the data collection in the countries selected for the analysis. In an overview of the volume’s structure, we conclude the introduction with a brief discussion of the key arguments and result.

1.1 Interest Representation and Its Importance for Democracy Until the mid-twentieth century, research on interest groups participation in the decision-making process did not consider the question of the impact on democracy (Jordan and Maloney 2007). The initial wave of positive research on the topic was linked with the pluralist celebration of groups as a means of face-to-face interaction to enhance social integration and direct democracy itself. Since then, however, the debate on the democratic deficit and questions regarding the role citizens participation

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should play in the political process has given way to a more normative body of literature on the role of ‘organized civil society’ (Saurugger 2008). Following Tocqueville’s approach, the new approach has considered interest groups as crucial actors in truly democratic systems. The discussion below critically analyses the potential contribution that interest groups make to improvement of the democratic character of political system, potentially addressing the democratic deficit. 1.1.1

From Pluralism and Corporatism to Neo-Pluralism

No matter their differences with regard to group involvement in the political system, in their perception of the balance of power between groups, or whether or not such associations enhance or undermine governance solutions, both pluralism and corporatism cast interest groups in a significant role as a part of democratic life. To pluralists, interest groups are core legitimate actors in the policy-making process. They consider politics to be a competition between freely organized interest groups in society that compete for access to a government that is unbiased and willing to listen to different voices. In contrast to critical political economy approaches, pluralists assume that no single interest, elite or class is able to dominate society (Hosli et al. 2004: 46). Instead, policy-making is competitive and fragmented. The state is a mere arena for the struggle between different interest groups (Williamson 1989: 55), where the free interplay of interest groups leads to a system of ‘checks and balances’, preventing the potential dominance of a particular societal group, or of a powerful state. Policy is made within a ‘social equilibrium’ (Bentley 1908). Interest groups are assumed to contribute to a more reasonable process of policy-making, especially by providing information and analysis based on a multitude of different perspectives (Watts 2007: 14–21). In the pluralist heaven, effective interest representation is enabled by the mobilization and representation of a plurality of social and economic interests that organize in interest associations (Dahl 1961; Truman 1958). Far from posing any form of threat, these groups’ existence serves to enhance democracy. Indeed, they are the very substance of the democratic process (Watts 2007). The corporatist perspective favours a strong role for interest groups in policy-making, but only under the overarching leadership role of the state (Hosli et al. 2004: 46–47; Molina and Rhodes 2002: 316). The overall aim of corporatist initiatives is economic growth and a fair

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share in its rewards. Due to increased demands, the state depends on the assistance of societal actors in formulating and implementing policies (Lehmbruch 1979: 52). In particular, there is a demand on the part of public actors for the expertise and compliance of private actors (Wonka and Warntjen 2004: 17). Interest groups gain access to the formal decision-making process, when they provide compliance with the agreements reached and thereby add to the overall steering capacity of the state (Rasmussen and Gross 2015; Bouwen 2004; Klüver 2013; Flöthe 2020). Groups’ eagerness to engage derives from a consensus that is reached on the formulation level, which realizes the interests of a larger number of actors. The output of democracy is being enhanced (Schmalz-Bruns 2002; Heinelt et al. 2002: 17–18). Pluralism and corporatism are widely discussed, however more and more attention is being given in the literature to normative questions, such as the general desirability of interest groups, the potential biases in access, the attention different societal interests gain, and the societal consequences generated by interest group activities. Interest groups are often perceived as advocating for the interests of powerful business or small sections of the public which are in conflict with the public good or the preferences of the majority of citizens (Flöthe and Rasmussen 2018; Schattschneider 1948). More recently, questions have been raised regarding the transparency, accountability and representative character of interest groups. Given that interest groups lack an electoral mandate or formal authorization from a clearly defined constituency (Halpin 2006), it remains a tricky question what their substantive representation should look like (Pitkin 1967: 115). When acting in the interest of their represented constituents, who are interest groups actually representing? In response, neo-pluralism, while not entirely discarding its predecessor, acknowledges that the mobilization of groups is not a onedimensional process and it often involves competition between the groups themselves (Saurugger 2008). Interest groups interact with policymakers, but also organize themselves into stable or more ad hoc coalitions (Gray and Lowery 2000). The influence production process is not unidirectional—there are significant feedback mechanisms among and between different stakeholders. As Saurugger (2008: 1277) underlines, neopluralist research concludes that organized interests are only imperfectly constrained by democratic politics. They still have ample opportunities to influence politics in ways that may not fully reflect the democratic conceptions of the pluralist ‘heavenly chorus’. Neo-pluralism takes into

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account that not all policy issues might be equally represented and some of them might indeed be mostly biased towards elites. From that perspective it abandons the pluralist equality of interest representation. Last, but not least, the neo-pluralist perspective assumes that there are political contexts and constraints in policy influence that groups face. Here, the neo-pluralist research’s overarching narrative focuses on what specific aspects of legal, social and political factors have a bearing on how and to what extent interest groups participate in the democratic policy creation process. Neo-pluralism thus encourages empirical research, which looks beyond the groups themselves and asks scholars to study the context in which groups are placed and act. 1.1.2

Democratic Theory

Could organized interests provide a core contribution to the reduction of the democratic deficit? Schmalz-Bruns (2002: 59) concludes that the direct inclusion and involvement of citizens, both individually and collectively (through associations), is an obvious solution to the deficit of democracy. He suggests there is a direct and mutually reinforcing link between the virtues of direct participation on the one hand, and the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of policies that emerge under the structural shortcomings of representative institutions within a system characterized by dispersion, poli-centricity and fragmentation on the other (whether we look at it from the pluralist, corporatist or neo-pluralist perspective). Three arguments support his assertion. The growing dependency of policy success on the willing acceptance and active support of those whom it affects. The inclusion of those directly affected not only by a policy measure, but also by the problems which the policy is intended to solve widens and improves the infrastructure of knowledge upon which policy-decisions are based, helping to produce better results (Lindblom 1965). The interchange of views between different ‘holders’ of rights and claimants to participation improves the sustainability of the policy (because of complex negotiation and intermediation between those factors that drive political action—interest, power, values and knowledge). From a more ethical perspective, the experience of a plurality of views on a subject matter is expected to heighten participants’ awareness of differences and thus their moral sensitivity towards each other. This could have the effect of a willing identification not just to a particular project and

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group, but also with wider and more encompassing concerns and the activities in which they are embedded (Schmalz-Bruns 2002: 59). From that perspective, interest groups are seen as a substitute for other forms of democratic legitimization, ensuring that different types of interests are taken into account in policy-making (Greenwood 2007; Heritier 1999). In national contexts, it is a commonly held assumption that group involvement in policy-making boosts legitimacy. The literature on public consultations has even argued that, in some respects, interest groups can serve as a surrogate for the public in the policy process (Lundberg and Hysing 2016). Although democratic legitimacy is a core concept in political science research, it is certainly not the only relevant or possible criterion for normative evaluation. According to Knill and Lehmkuhl (2002), private governance contributions might compensate for the decreasing capacities of national governments in defining and providing public goods in light of the internationalization of markets and the emergence of transnational information and communication networks (Knill and Lehmkuhl 2002: 85). The limited problem-solving capability of authoritative regulation (and technological solutions) creates the need for a more cooperative, consensual and inclusive policy style. This style should be aimed at gaining the acceptance and input of business actors and ordinary citizens, which are both concerned with policy objectives and their responsibility to the collective good (Lenschow 1999: 42). The perception that successful policy depends on economic and private actors ‘internalizing’ their responsibility has further consequences for the choice of policy instruments, implying a more limited role for top-down regulatory instruments and a more prominent role for market-oriented, self-regulatory as well as informational and communicative instruments (Lenschow 1999: 42). Decision-makers and legislators may have their own views on issues of broad community benefit, but on matters involving technical understanding and perhaps help in the implementation of policy they are reliant on the advice and assistance of well-resourced groups (Watts 2007: 78–79). A cornerstone of any democratic society is the capacity for its citizens to have a political voice so that citizens ‘can express their views, preferences, and interests towards political institutions and hold public officials to account’ (Fraussen and Halpin 2016: 476). Although political representation is achieved through voting for or joining and supporting

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political parties, elections are irregular occurrences and scholars question the participatory character of parties (e.g. Marsh 2006). The well-documented debate regarding the transformation of party political systems in Western democracies (expressed through electoral volatility and the fragmentation of party landscapes) and dissatisfaction with the representative system of government, has pushed scholars to explore the role of interest groups as mechanisms of political expression enhancing the quality and breadth of political participation (e.g. Fraussen and Halpin 2016 but also: Klüver 2015; van Biezen and Poguntke 2014). Here in particular we focus on the principles of associative, deliberative and participatory democracy. Associative democracy incorporates the neo-Tocquevillian approach emphasizing the importance of internal aspects of associational life for the proper functioning of democracy and democratization, viewing interest organizations as central democratic partners in the policy process enhancing its open, transparent, and participatory character. From this perspective voluntary associations become the basis of contemporary conceptions of a third sector between the market and the state. Berger and Neuhaus (1977) used the neo-Tocquevillian notion of non-profit and civil society organizations as intermediate social institutions whose function is to mediate between citizens and government. These associations provide information to policy-makers on members preferences, equalizing representation, they promote citizens education (by acting as schools of democracy) and offer alternative implementation, governance and administration functions. The associonalist further acknowledge that for their system to work, the state has to monitor the functions and composition of associations (Hirst 1994; Cohen and Rogers 1995a). However, they disagree with regards to the ‘sponsoring’ of organizations. Cohen and Rogers (1995b) favour the option where the state has a role in supporting groups to emerge where they would do not so naturally. Hirst (1994) and Carter (2002) challenge this artifactual approach and conclude that, by default, the state’s sponsorship will build weaker organizations, dependent on the state’s favouritism. Despite those doubts, the principles of associative democracy see organized interest groups as actors in the democratic system responsible for the provision of information and expertise to policy-makers, the representation of excluded and marginalized groups, and democratic capacity building.

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The discussion on alternatives to diminishing citizens’ participation has been greatly enhanced by focusing on deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy understands the democratic policy process differently under different concepts: from the Rawlsian theory of public reason, Dahl’s non-participatory pluralism, Arrow’s social choice, Riker’s rational choice and the Habermasian theory of communicative action (or the discursive account of decision-making; Zeleznik 2016). The analysts of deliberative democracy indicate numerous attempts at improving the quality of political participation; from the involvement of deliberation in well-constituted forums which responds to the critique by encouraging participants to take a broader perspective on questions of common interest (Gutmann and Thompson 2004: 10) to ‘macro deliberative’ theorist contributions to improve the quality of political participation. In principle, however, deliberative democracy is about communication and willingness of different sides to change their views (Dryzek 2000). What is crucial to deliberative democracy is that through discussion and deliberation citizens have the potential to move beyond their individual preferences. Within an engaged, ‘deliberating’ society, Habermas (1996) distinguishes between groups that engage in ‘clientele bargaining’ with the state, such as business associations, trade unions and ‘supplier’ groups. Supplier groups give voice to social problems, make broad demands, articulate public interests or needs and attempt to influence the political process from a normative point of view. The border between two groups is however blurry, as even suppliers groups often represent the interests of their constituencies, while ‘clientele bargaining’ can be extended to debates on common goods. According to Fung (2005: 671) deliberative democratic mechanisms are a crucial component for the democratic policy process, but they are not sufficient, and participation needs to be improved. A response to that seems to be provided by participatory democratic theory, which understands democratic notions in terms of direct empowerment vs representation. Out of the three indicated approaches, participatory democracy is the most concerned with a political system built on equality of voices. It addresses the imperative for group empowerment and representation, but also the need to focus on democratic procedures that facilitate inclusion (Cunningham 2002). Among others, the Baker et al.’s (2009) characteristics of participatory democracy include: widespread political participation through different forms of association, which has to be diverse and representative (including marginalized groups), committed to a democratic

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ethos and open to deliberation. It is based on a qualified delegate model, with an assumption of accountability. The delegate acts in the interest of its broadly defined constituency, consults with them when necessary, but also provides leadership, by inspiration and the transparency of information. In practice that means within the assigned mandate and always within the perceived interests of their membership. Baker et al. (2009) primarily apply this qualified delegate model to the role of elected representatives and political parties, but this approach also offers insights for how interest groups might establish their representative legitimacy. In practice, this approach means that leaders within interest organizations should operate within the framework of the agreed values and mission of their organizations, provide their members with opportunities to engage in ongoing reflections and deliberation and ensure that their members are adequately resourced and supported to avail of these opportunities. Interest organizations serve here as spaces for deliberation, where interests can be articulated, developed and negotiated to later be passed and negotiated within the local and national state institutions (Wainwright 2003: 188). Groups can be a mechanism by which citizens can hold governments accountable for their actions and strengthen democratic structures. This way, interest organizations are acknowledged as making a contribution to participatory democracy. In the above understanding, the three concepts (associative, deliberative and participatory democracy) should be incorporated equally and in mutually comprehensive terms within the institutions of representative democracy to fully grasp the importance of interest groups for democracy. Interest groups can hold the democratic state accountable; they can act as advocates for better democracy; can build democratic capacity (enhancing citizens’ indirect participation); can create spaces for discussion, debate and deliberation; facilitate representation of excluded communities; and, can provide expertise to policy-makers. It is not however without limitation or necessary control. The regulation of access is one of the central arguments stressed by the theorists of associative and participatory democracy (Saurugger 2008: 1277). Contrary to classic pluralist assumptions, public intervention is necessary to guarantee the equal representation of all groups. Secondly, resources (understood in a very broad sense) are crucial for interest groups to intervene in the public, political and private debates to the degree required by the three models. Throughout this section, we have provided a broad overview of the role interest groups can play in the enhancement of a democratic state.

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Neo-pluralism and participatory democracy in particular have offered frameworks to analyse the democratic legitimacy of interest groups participation in the different Western political systems. While neo-pluralism acted till now as a framework to structure empirical research on normative premises within a number of those democracies, participatory democracy approaches have led to a large number of normative studies on how interest groups can and must participate in decision-making to increase the democratic nature of a system in which they partake. While analysts use an increasingly critical tone when studying the involvement of interest groups and civil society organizations in various governance structures (e.g. Fraussen and Halpin 2018), a large-scale comparative research design is still missing which would allow for a comparison of those in the CEE countries.

1.2 Why Study Interest Groups in the Post-Communist Countries? Our Exemplary Case Studies Against the above background, the emergence of interest groups politics can be perceived as one of the decisive factors in the democratic transformation of post-Communist societies. CEE countries and their accelerated transition to a market economy provide a ‘fast-forward’ study of advanced post-Communist societies that enables us to anticipate the social structures and issues shaping interest groups politics in the new democracies. Although all the CEE communist countries have undergone democratic transformations, the region is characterized by a high degree of political diversity, with considerable cross-national variations in the existence and pace of the transformation process. The theoretical explanations of differences in the trajectory of democratization in those countries is linked to a number of factors. Socio-economic developments across the region (Huntington 1991; Lipset et al. 1993) it is argued explain a growth in the scale and complexity of government and an accompanying diffusion of political power. The diffusion of power brought in its wake a more open and participatory political style conductive to associational activity. This perspective brings a sharper focus on the relationship between the economy and democracy, locating the socio-economic foundations of associational activity in patterns of social stratification generated

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by market relations. Following this perspective, we would expect to find correlation between pluralism and the more rapid market transition found in Poland and the Czech Republic. Stunted economic transformation in the Balkan countries, by contrast, can be expected to constrain the pluralists’ developments. In comparison, Szablowski and Derlien (1993) suggested that variation between post-Communist countries comes from the different patterns of elite interactions that accompanied regime change. They argued that the transition process left economic elites relatively undisturbed and the associational order was likely to be marked by the persistence of old structures and modes of behaviour. Where regime change was done through negotiations between Communists and counter-elites, as in Poland and Hungary, interest groups politics can be expected to assume a dual character, with familiar patterns of association persisting alongside emergent pluralist forms. When the democratization process was a result of the collapse of old regime and involved a radical elite turnover, as in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we might expect a cleaner break with the past. When we add to the combination ethno-linguistic conflict, as in the Balkans, associational activity on socioeconomic lines is likely to be darkened by more fundamentalist forms of mobilization. While the analysis in this book is attentive to these differences, a comprehensive and systemic cross-national comparison of interest groups activity across the region is beyond its scope. Rather than a more general comparative study of the diverse characteristics of group activity in all post-Communist societies, this volume focuses on interest groups in three example CEE countries: Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia, in a comparative perspective to their West European counterparts. The comparison of Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia is a good sample for the CEE countries as it includes one Višegrad country, one ex-Yugoslavian country and one Baltic state, giving the reader a solid snapshot of the region. Between the selected countries, we can find similarities as well as differences. All three countries have non-federal/centralized systems, albeit to a different degree (Poland, for example, due to its size shows signs of significant decentralization). Some differences are also observable (beyond the obvious difference of the size of the country). In Poland, the transition to a capitalist economy and new liberal-democratic order was done through economic shock therapy, in contrast to, for example, a much smoother process in Slovenia (Maloney et al. 2018). In terms of the vibrancy of the interest groups system, both Lithuania and Poland are quite dissimilar

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to their West European peers with extremely low numbers of associational engagement. In Poland the associational engagement in voluntary organizations did not reach 25% within the last decade, nor in a broader understanding, recording only 34% at its heyday in 2013 (Adamiak 2013). And in Lithuania civil society is judged to be weak and poorly empowered (see for example: Freedom House 2018; Sustainable Governance Indicators 2016). While Slovenia is neo-corporatist, Poland incorporates a mixture of neo-corporatist traditions—through, for example, the socioeconomic councils—but tries to maintain a pluralist approach, through public consultations. In contrast, Lithuania does not show much evidence of neo-corporatism as it is more common in other European countries. In 2008, Hrebenar et al. concluded that the Lithuanian system could evolve eventually into a modified form of ‘corporatism without labour’ as labour is very weak in Lithuania, however for now it remains, at least in general terms, a pluralist model with minor elements of the corporatist set up (Hrebenar et al. 2008: 62). The previous research on the three selected countries leaves us with a number of clues but is also quite inconclusive. The edited compendiums on lobbying and/or interest representation in Europe usually include single chapters on instances of lobbying in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia (see for example: edited by Bitonti and Harris [2017] chapters on Poland by Michałek, Spurga on Lithuania and Fink-Hafner on Slovenia). However, Michałek himself concludes that studies on Polish lobbying, and by proximity those within the CEE countries, are extremely lacking and are rarely conducted in a comprehensive and comparative way (Michałek 2017: 268). Fink-Hafner did pioneer work in the comparative study of civil society and interest groups in countries of the Former Yugoslavia such as an edited volume in 2015 and a special issue of the Journal of Public Affairs edited with Thomas (Fink-Hafner and Thomas 2019). However, both publications limit their study only to the region of ex-Yugoslavia. The second set of publications incorporates interest organizations into a larger discussion on civil society in the post-Communist countries (see for example: Jacobsson and Korolczuk 2017). However, the editors explicitly point to the fact that they look at political activism outside of formal participation in policy processes, excluding insider lobbying, which is the main focus of our work. The third set consists of texts written in the national languages. While those are useful and provide us with a solid base to work on, their common pitfall is a

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lack of translation into English limiting their usefulness for comparative study. There is also quite a variety between available publications from the studied countries. In the case of Poland, two existing publications explicitly dealing with interest representation by Polish organizations focus on: (1) the early evaluation of the effects of Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004 (Jasiecki 2011), which requires an update (while published in 2011, as mentioned above, it explicitly dealt with the immediate effects of the 2004 Polish accession to the EU), or (2) prioritize the European context and concentrate on business organizations, rather than more broadly understood interest organizations (which would include also NGOs, trade unions and professional associations; Kurczewska 2016). In the case of Slovenia, the unparalleled sources of information are texts by Fink-Hafner (Fink-Hafner 1998, 2011; FinkHafner and Krasovec 2005). Worthy of notice is the fact that uniquely the texts on Slovenia are also available in English. The majority of the publications are, however, limited to journal articles and single country case studies, leaving more elaborate and comparative analysis unattended. The research on Lithuanian interest groups is fragmented, episodic and mostly focused on case analyses. Meanwhile, the interest group system is still not a popular research object per se and publications existing to date are exclusively in the Lithuanian language.

1.3 Research, Methodology and the Book’s Structure The empirical base of the book is data collected within the Comparative Interest Groups Survey Project (CIGs; https://www.cigsurvey.eu/), expanded further by a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature and qualitative interviews. While a lot of the analysis is rooted in secondary sources, the core of the book is based on mapping and surveying exercises conducted in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia from 2016 to 2017 as part of the CIGs. Up till the present date, the CIGs Project covered one other post-Communist country (Montenegro), two post-authoritarian ones (Spain, Italy) and three established democracies (Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands), with study in the Czech Republic ongoing.

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Similar attempts, but to a much smaller degree, were attempted within the INTEREURO Project4 (locating, among many others, Polish and Slovenian interest groups active in the European level consultations between 2008 and 2010) and EUROLOB II5 (investigating, among others, Polish business associations’ activities in policy-making between 2010 and 2016). Poland was one of the main case studies in the EUROLOB II but focus there was explicitly only on business groups thus studying only one type of group within the whole population. Slovenia was one of the comparative case studies in the INTEREURO, but there the focus was only on groups’ engagement within EU policy-making, leaving all the national activities unexplored. Our results are informed by these attempts but go far beyond their initial exploration. The CIGs project followed a joined uniform definition of interest group. We defined them as: organized groups which have some sort of constituency either in the form of supporters or members and which represent the interests of their members and supporters or the interests of others who cannot represent themselves, such as children, animals, and the environment. These groups are either politically active or their political activity is dormant (they have an interest in being active and a capacity to act, but most of the time their activity is not political; when they encounter a new political issue of interest, they may become politically active). This definition of interest groups includes trade unions, societies and religious groups. We excluded law firms, consultancy firms, and all types of private companies. We only took into consideration national level groups and excluded those from the regional and local levels. The first step in our approach has been an extensive mapping exercise of all national level interest organizations (for details see Chapter 2). Priory to mapping, we had asked the question of whether the system of interest groups is capable of ensuring the representation of a variety of public and private interests. Addressing this conundrum required data that maps the essential traits of the population of organized interests— its density and diversity in a given country. Thus, we focused on the previously unexplored system-level approach that delivered important insights into the nature of the Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian interest

4 http://www.intereuro.eu/public/. 5 http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/d7/en/projects/eurolob-ii-europeanization-ofinterest-intermediation.

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group systems, as well as providing a framework for subsequent work conceptualizing advocacy activities or lobbying dynamics in specific policy domains. In the second step, we surveyed a sample of groups focusing on a number of issues related to interest group activity. The translated versions of the same questionnaire have been circulated to all surveyed groups (Beyers et al. 2016; preceded by official invite letter and followed by email with the link leading to the online survey). The invitation was sent to 905 organizations in Lithuania, 1369 in Poland and 1203 in Slovenia. The response rate differed per country, with 41% in Lithuania, 28% in Poland and 36% in Slovenia. In the survey, we asked various sets of questions. Those sets informed further qualitative research and evidenced comparative trends we identified in the existing research on West European interest organizations. A major focus in the survey was on the participation of interest groups in the policy-making process. We explore those in Chapter 3, where we further ask about the provisions within political systems in the CEE countries that stimulate interest groups’ engagement in them. We pay attention here to both attitudes seen at the micro-level of individual participation in interest groups, but also macro-level patterns of political competition, where structural political factors affect organized interest groups. The survey also looked into groups’ interactions with specific stakeholders. Chapter 4 analyses factors informing the relations between interest organizations and political parties in Lithuania, Poland, and Slovenia. The fundamental question there is whether these young democracies, using Western democracies as established benchmarks, have been able to develop complex linkages involving parties and interest organizations. Chapter 5 explores the organizational development of nongovernmental organizations and their organizational capacity to interact with various stakeholders. Chapter 6 focuses on trade unions’ activities. We point there to the fact that unions in the studied CEE countries did not build stable and long-term relationships with political parties as are observed in the Western democracies. We further explored groups’ strategies and lobbying activities. Chapter 7 analyses the differences in strategies for inside lobbying (i.e. direct interactions with policy-makers or participation in policy consultations) between business and non-business organizations in studied countries in a comparative perspective. The results indicate that lobbying is concentrated on the government and national ministries,

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interestingly omitting the interactions with directly elected representatives. Chapter 8 looks into different forms of engagement in the European policy process, both at the European and national levels, analysing the existing institutional framework for consultations in the European policy process. We summarize the results of research conducted for this book in Chapter 9. We revisit there the three themes that flow throughout the book, the effects of legal, social and political contexts on interest organizations’ population and activities in the CEE countries. Coming back to our theoretical framework, we view those effects through a prism of internal and external factors that explain the trajectories of regime and system change. The book is an important contribution to debates on the performance of new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, where scholars argue that there is a ‘democratic crisis’ and democratic fatigue. By focusing on associational vibrancy, we look into the possibility of CEE organizations bridging the ‘democratic deficit’ by bringing citizens closer to their policy-makers. This volume offers a much-needed comprehensive look into formal interest representation in the CEE countries, contrasting the model of Western democracies. Although great efforts have been made to deepen our understanding of interest organizations and lobbying tools, the current literature fails to provide a comprehensive answer on the influence of and importance of a supportive environment within a population ecology. The book picks up on the tension between a ‘liberal’ and ‘pluralist’ idea of democracy in which interest groups can thrive and, in contrast, also a more ‘plebiscitarian’ and ‘populist’ idea of democracy, which sees interest groups as enemies of the people. The book is addressed to both scholars of comparative politics, interest groups and civil society organizations, experts working for interest groups, as well as those who wish to explore the realities of post-Communist democracy in more detail.

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CHAPTER 2

Interest Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe: Evaluating Population Ecology

A cornerstone of any democratic society is the capacity for its citizens to have a political voice, so that citizens ‘can express their views, preferences, and interests towards political institutions and hold public officials to account’ (Fraussen and Halpin 2016: 476). Although political representation is achieved through voting for or joining and supporting political parties, elections are irregular occurrences (every 4 years in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia) and scholars question the participatory character of parties (e.g. Marsh 2006). The well-documented debate regarding the transformation of party political systems in Western Democracies (expressed through, for example, electoral volatility and the fragmentation of party landscapes) and dissatisfaction with the representative system of government, has pushed scholars to explore the role of interest groups as mechanisms of political expression (e.g. Fraussen and Halpin 2016; but also: Klüver 2015; van Biezen and Poguntke 2014). Against this background, a crucial inquiry is the potential of the interest group system to address these democratic challenges and whether it can ensure the representation of a variety of public and private interests. The composition of the group system—its density and diversity—is an important way to judge such questions. The study of the essential traits of populations of organized interests has grown steadily since 1995 (Gray and Lowery 2000; Berkhout et al. 2015). Inspired by core theories of population biology and organization ecology, the research © The Author(s) 2021 P. Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation, Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4_2

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within this area has been applied to a wide range of political systems. The largest concentration of studies focused on analysis of the United States (see for example: Nownes 2015; Walker and McCarthy 2010; Brulle et al. 2007; Nownes 2004), Western European countries (e.g. Van Waarden 1992, in the Netherlands; Naurin and Boräng 2012, in Sweden; Mohan 2012, in England; Klüver 2015, in Germany; Fisker 2013, and Christiansen 2012, in Denmark) and in the EU (see for example: Berkhout 2015; Berkhout and Lowery 2010; Coen and Katsaitis 2013). The notable publications on the composition of organized interest ‘systems’ in the post-Communist democracies include: Slovenia (FinkHafner 1998, 2011; Maloney et al. 2018), Lithuania (Hrebenar et al. 2008), Czech Republic (Císaˇr and Vráblíková 2010, 2012; Císaˇr 2013), and the Western Balkan countries (Cekik 2017). While these countries have established democratic elections, modern judicial systems and institutions of representative government, most of the literature agrees that successful democratization requires the construction of a civil society provided with functional channels of interest representation (see especially: Hrebenar et al. 2008). Studies of interest organizations in the post-Communist countries are still a rarity and they are primarily based on normative assessment and lack an empirical base (Dobbins and Riedel 2018). The lack of study of groups’ populations from Central and Eastern Europe is surprising as it would provide a unique opportunity to observe a new environment—created by the extended focus events: the collapse of Communism and transition to democracy. Distinctively, those realities introduced a set of internal and external factors, which have characteristics that influence the formation and maintenance of groups’ populations (Crawford and Lijphart 1995). Fink-Hafner (2011) contended that, in particular, an institutional choice in the transition to democracy (internal factor) was not only about relations between the democratic opposition and the old regime, but it also formed idiosyncratic opportunity structures which influenced the early processes of interest group formation (in particular, the socio-economic partnerships). In the case of external factors, the key aspect was the process of Europeanization (Berlung 2003; Maloney et al. 2018). Due to external pressure countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) implemented reforms to meet various economic and democratic criteria, including the Copenhagen Criteria to join the European Union (EU), as well as the liberalization process along the lines of the Washington Consensus, to have access to the World Bank

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and IMF credit lines (Bohle and Greskovits 2007). The implementation of these was viewed by outside observers as symptoms of emerging democracies and moves towards the creation of a functional and representative civil society. Yet, studies dealing with population ecology in those countries are still a rarity, despite the fact that they present a unique case that could explain drivers behind a population’s growth and downfall due to internal and external factors. To strengthen the argument here, while we are talking about events that took place over 30 years ago, authors agree that changes within population ecology are slow and it takes major focus events to alter them (Gray and Lowery 2000). The events altering the population do not have to be of an explosive nature, rather, similar to the change itself, they can take place over an extended time period. The challenge is how we can build on these research foundations in such a way as to say something more concrete about the size (density) and composition (diversity) of the aggregate systems. First, we report on the construction and content of the interest groups’ datasets for Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia that capture the density and diversity of the group systems. This will enable a better sense of their scale and composition. We use this data to answer some fundamental questions such as how big are the systems and what are the balances between different types of interests. These questions relate to major topics within interest groups research, namely representation and bias. Without system-level data, these topics cannot be fully explored. The second objective is to offer a basis for further research on the interest groups populations in our three studied countries. Our aims, while we engage in a pioneering systemic study, are to report a small number of facts about a large number of groups. The chapter starts from a look at Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia through a prism of their historical legacies and changes triggered by the liberalization of their economies. We explore here, after Crawford and Liphart (1995), factors that influenced the development of and changes within population ecology establishing a firm ground from which to move to the analysis of the current populations. We continue with information on data collection and an evaluation of available sources from which we obtained the material to reconstruct interest groups’ populations. Related work in other countries participating in the Comparative Interest Groups Survey Project (CIGs)1 that our three cases were part of, mostly

1 http://www.cigsurvey.eu.

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utilized lobby data or information available on stakeholders participating in national consultations, or relies on data from formal associational registers. As no equivalent, ready-made dataset concerning advocacy activity existed for all three cases, we utilized a number of resources and contrast them with sources available in other countries to provide a reliability check. As will become evident, we argue that different sources have to be cross-checked and require an intervention. We outline the modifications, coding decisions and conceptual distinctions required to make those sources work for the larger research community within the CIGs Project. After clarifying how we used sources to provide an estimate of the interest populations for the three countries, we provide an analysis of the size, composition and diversity of their interest group systems. More specifically, we consider the balance between different organizational types (including resource levels) and the age dimension of the interest group system. We also look into the size of the population from a comparative perspective and areas of the groups’ activity. In the conclusion, we highlight our main findings and suggest some promising avenues for future research.

2.1 Explaining the Density and Diversity of Interest Group Systems After Crawford and Liphart (1995), we argue in the Introduction to this book, that to fully understand the current ‘realities’ of post-Communist countries, the legacy of the countries’ past (transformation to democracy) and essentials of liberalization (transformation to a capitalist economy and accession to the EU) have to be taken into consideration. In no country could upheavals equivalent to those that occurred to the formerly Communist states of Europe fail to leave a lasting impact on different aspects of its society and this is certainly true in the cases of Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia and the emergence and modification of their interest groups populations. Their experiences however have not been universal and we must analyse each in turn to understand how the dynamics played out and draw common threads from them, turning first to the case of Lithuania.

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The Lithuanian Interest Group System and Punctuated Past

In Lithuania, civil society and the associational organizations that form its structure have evolved in several stages. The modern system of Lithuanian interest groups essentially consists of three types of organizations: the restored organizations that were operating in the interwar period, organizations that were founded in the Soviet era and de-nationalized at the dawn of independence and modern interest groups, formed during liberal democracy. The origins of the system of Lithuanian interest groups lie in interwar Lithuania (1918–1940), when the first civil society organizations were founded. At that time various student fraternities, creative societies and unions appeared and operated. At the same time, some of the largest and most important civil organizations, such as the Lithuanian Riflemen Union, the Lithuanian Catholic Federation ‘Ateitis’ and others, were founded. After the Second World War, the Soviet regime essentially exterminated civil society, completely taking control of the space between society and the individual (Auers 2015: 121). Nonetheless, as Krupaviˇcius (1999) observes, it is not that there were no interest groups in Lithuania during this period: various professional associations, creative societies and trade unions functioned as pseudo or even semi-interest groups during the communist period. However, these organizations, although similar to interest groups in their structure, did not have autonomy and were largely controlled by the state apparatus. On the other hand, during transition from the Communist regime to liberal authoritarianism some semi-interest organizations gradually gained wider autonomy and new organizations. Those groups in particular had a better link with the new social movements that highlighted issues in European civil society at that time: various environmental organizations, human rights and equal opportunities groups. After the restoration of Lithuanian independence, significant progress was made during the first decade in creating representative government institutions, a multi-party system as well as civil rights and freedoms aiming at the consolidation of a pluralistic political culture (Hrebenar et al. 2008: 52). However, the process was rather monopolized by the emergence of newly formed political parties, leaving interest groups on the periphery of the political process. During the early years of independence, Lithuanian interest groups were at the stage of interest formation and in search of an identity (Krupaviˇcius 1999), while the relationship

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between civil society as a whole and the government was marked by mutual mistrust (Laurenas ˙ 2003). Lukošaitis (2004) explains that this was caused by a number of reasons. First, the delay in the formation of the necessary legal framework made regulation of interest organizations more difficult, and complicated their legal separation from other public organizations. A very similar conclusion is also present in Poland. Second, a significant number of interest groups in the post-Communist period were de-nationalized. In the case of trade unions, for example, this raised the question of their legitimacy in the eyes of the public due to their strong connection with the state and the Communist Party in the Soviet era. Third, business groups developed slowly due to lack of experience and predecessors, and in constant competition with each other, which led to high volatility within this interest groups community. Finally, according to Laurenas ˙ (2003), politicians did not regard civil society as an equal participant in the political process and did not recognize it as competent to participate in the formation and implementation of political decisions. In 2005, Lithuanian interest groups were still described as underdeveloped, apt to corrupt practices and having a negative image among representatives of the Lithuanian political elite (Hrebenar et al. 2008). Meanwhile, civil society itself has been characterized by anti-systemic attitudes, an attempt to be depoliticized and unwilling to cooperate with the authorities. Various studies, reports and expert evaluations show that civil society in Lithuania is developing but remains weak and poorly empowered (for example: Freedom House 2018; Sustainable Governance Indicators 2016). Consequently, membership in interest organizations is unpopular and based not on the freedom to participate but rather on the freedom from participation (Žiliukaite˙ 2012). 2.1.2

The Polish Interest Groups and Economic Shock Therapy

In the case of Poland, the beginning of the democratic transition was very promising with regard to its potential to increase groups’ numbers. Already between 1980s and 1990s, Solidarity—a social movement and trade union—had been very active, pushing for democratic reforms, and ultimately being a part of the Round Table Talks with the Communist regime (February–April 1989). The optimism of people could be clearly felt between 1989 and 1991, particularly in the form of civic and political engagement, as Solidarity was seen as a success story of a genuine social

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movement, not only a workers’ organization. However, it did not last long, as a discrepancy between elites and the masses arose regarding the way the economic and political transformation should be implemented (Rozbicka and Kaminski ´ 2020; Blanchard and Diamond 1992). As a continuation of a departure from labour-friendly policies, Poland introduced the guidelines of embedded neoliberalism as the default type of capitalism (Fink-Hafner 2011; Apeldoorn 2009). In the case of Poland, it meant the maintenance of a broader public sector presence on the supply side of the economy, while pursuing deep and often rigorous market-oriented reforms (i.e. the Balcerowicz Plan), which were not favourable for trade unions. The effects of the Plan on Solidarity and other workers’ movements were dramatic. In the span of 22 years, the number of union members went down from 4 million in 1991 to 1.5 million in 2012 (Kaminski ´ and Rozbicka 2016). In parallel, the rise in the number of employers’ associations and business organizations was stagnating (from 2300 in 1997 to only 3600 in 2012; Statistical Office of Poland), while the number of established new associations was rapidly growing (from an initial 20,700 in 1997 to 69,500 in 2012; Statistical Office of Poland). The economic reforms activated civil society across all levels, as it was assumed. It can be however, questioned if activation was a result of adaptation to reforms, and thus a shift towards neoliberalism associated with the state’s democratization (Makowski 2015) or rather, it was an effect of increased opposition and dissatisfaction with changes and a need for an organized interest representation to deal with reforms’ negative effects (see for example: Glinski ´ 2006). The increase in the number of associations is also linked in Poland, and also in Slovenia, similarly to other CEE countries, with EU accession ˇ (see especially: Berlung 2003; Fink-Hafner 1998, 2011; Crnak-Megliˇ c and Rakar 2009). Some authors linked it to forthcoming EU funding and requirement of nongovernmental organizations inclusion in their distribution (Jasiecki 2011; Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot 2016). These conditions sparked a wave of registration of different issue-oriented organizations, which were created in response to the formalization of the process. A similar upsurge was also identified recently in new accession countries: Montenegro, Macedonia, and Serbia (Cekik 2017). Others suggest that reforms ignited by EU accession increased pressure on national legislators to regulate social dialogue, public consultations and nongovernmental, voluntary and public benefits organizations and their

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interactions with policy-makers (Ko´zlicka 2002; Rozbicka and Kamnski ´ 2020). The introduced regulations included for example: the Pact of the National Entrepreneurship in the transformation process (1993), the Act on the Triangular Commission for Socio-Economic Affairs and social dialogue (2001),2 and the Act on Legislative Lobbying (2005).3 However, the analysis conducted by Kwiatkowski (2016) and corroborated by the experience of Michałek (2017) suggests that the introduced regulations are ineffective. They impose extensive obligations and restrictions on the interest groups. But, they also impose additional extensive and detailed reporting requirements on policy officials and administrators, who as a consequence, tend to avoid contact(s) with professionals at the national level and move any lobbying activities to more sub-national levels. 2.1.3

The Slovenian Europeanized Interest Group System

The development of the interest group system in Slovenia has been strongly influenced by its socialist past, neo-corporatist arrangements and joining the European Union. Slovenia’s Europeanization process (which started with the signing of the Association Agreement in 1996) has been gradual and selective (Andreou and Bache 2010: 41). Yet, it had the most profound influence on the political culture of interest groups within our three studied countries transforming them into more active organizations (Fink-Hafner et al. 2015a). Despite Slovenia being one of the post-Communist countries, which are often labelled as countries with weak civil society (Howard 2003), the Slovenian interest group system started to develop relatively early and has a long tradition albeit with periods of inhibited development. A number of authors trace its historical development to 1848, when freedom of association as well as the legal basis for established associations ˇ was created (Crnak-Megliˇ c and Vojnoviˇc 1997: 156). Others underline the importance of interest groups in the social, political and cultural 2 Ustawa o Trojstronnej Komisji do Spraw Spoleczno-Gospodarczych i wojewodzkich komisjach dialogu spolecznego z dnia 6 lipca 2001; publish in Dziennik Ustaw nr 100, poz. 1080 z dnia 18 wrzesnia 2001. 3 Act on Legislative Lobbying (2005) as published in the OJ 2017 poz. 248: Ustawa z dnia 7 lipca 2005 r. o działalno´sci lobbingowej w procesie stanowienia prawa (tj. Dz.U. 2017 poz. 248).

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life of Slovenia in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth ˇ century (Bibiˇc 1997: 22; Crnak-Megliˇ c and Rakar 2009: 239). While within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and later Yugoslavia, the interest group system before World War II was very vivid, diverse and comparable to other European countries (Kolariˇc et al. 2002: 97). Similar to Poland and Lithuania, the development of interest groups slowed down after World War II with the change of political system and with the advent of socialism. During that period some of the organizations died out and others came under state control, mirroring the developments that took place in Lithuania and Poland. Organizations whose activities have been limited to the local level or whose content did not interfere with political power continued to function. Organizational life became limited to social-and political-organizations and associations that received state support (Hvaliˇc et al. 2001: 7; Kolariˇc et al. 2002: 99–102). A major variable in Slovenia, that in particular distinguishes it from the above assessments in Lithuania and Poland, has been the change in its constitution in 1974 (the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution) and adoption of the Act on Societies (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019).4 The Act provided for citizens a constitutionally ensured freedom to associate, to carry out their interests and to establish societies. It was a pioneering document and similar developments in Lithuania and Poland took place only in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. During this early period new, autonomous, citizens’ initiated organizations have been established (e.g. in field of sport, culture and social security, touristic organizations, hunter’s societies, fisheries’ societies, technical societies, societies for the protection and breeding of animals, societies of the retired and of patients, trade unions, professional associations and associations in the field of education and research have been established). The pluralization in the area of subcultures and social movements such as peace, ecological, spiritual and feminist movements was highly encouraged (Kolariˇc et al. 2002: 108– 109; Fink-Hafner 1992: 249–250). In comparison, similar processes in Lithuania and Poland took place only after 1994. With the independence of Slovenia in 1991, the change of political system and the introduction of the market economy, the number of ˇ interest groups further increased (Crnak-Megliˇ c and Rakar 2009: 237;

4 Ustava Socialistiˇcne republike Slovenije (1974).

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Fink-Hafner 1998: 290) and in the mid-1990s Slovenia was one of the countries with the highest number of interest groups within the region (Kolariˇc et al. 2002: 116). Members of parliament equally observed increased activity of those groups in policy-making (Fink-Hafner et al. 2015b: 77). In the second half of the 1990s, identically to Lithuania and Poland, the interest group system became affected by the Europeanization process. Interest groups in Slovenia started to receive funding from the EU, although donations from foreign funds were not present to the same extent as in some other post-Communist countries. Networking with EU level umbrella groups and with interest groups from other EU member states became very important for the development of national interest groups, their empowerment and in terms of new resources such as information and know-how (Fink-Hafner 2007). During this period interest groups also participated in the negotiation processes for the accession to the EU (Fink-Hafner et al. 2015b). With full membership of the European Union, interest groups received new opportunities including for funding from EU projects and programmes. Interestingly, the research on similar patterns in Lithuania and in Poland is still in its nascent state, thus we cannot expand this conclusion to our two comparative cases. Slovenia represents the most developed neo-corporatism system among our three studied countries. The system importantly defines a number of functional opportunities for interest groups to become active in national policy-making. In the framework of the Economic and Social Council which was established in 1994, business and labour interest are represented and have the opportunity to access decision-makers. In contrast to the Polish experience, the Council is an active and influential institution (see Chapter 3). The National Council, an upper chamber of legislative power that represents territorial and functional interests includes representatives of trade unions, employers’ organizations and professional interests (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019). It is a striking contrast to internal factors that are present in Lithuania and Poland that influenced the density of their interest groups system.

2.2

Defining Interest Organizations in the Post-Communist Context

Nownes (2015) established firmly that claims to provide definitive interest groups’ populations at either national or international level are illusory. This is not only because there is a disagreement on how to define interest

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groups (even with our attempt at it above), but that the sheer number of groups makes counting them a labour intensive action. Thus, what we report here is best understood as a very good estimate of the three countries’ interest groups population. Importantly, our research approach’s reliance on a number of resources and their very detailed analysis in a comparative perspective means that any omissions are systematic across all teams within the project. From our thorough investigation of the content of our database and those from other teams, we can say that the datasets do not include organizations only barely established (explained by a lag between the formation of an organization and its entry in any of the official, national legal entities directories), consequently we disproportionately undercount very new groups and groups with little or no policy engagement. This is consistent with specialists’ findings that suggest that well-known groups, owing to their larger resources, are more likely to be listed in these kinds of directories (see: Fraussen and Halpin 2016; Johnson 2014; and, Walker et al. 2011). In contrast, such data collection is unlikely to miss the most active, large and policy-relevant organized groups at a national level. These issues are important to be aware of but they are not critical. Our main goal is to have a well-researched and reliable dataset that is a good proxy (with the above limitations stated upfront) for the population at large and thus a legitimate population from which to assess the size and diversity of the Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian interest group systems and to sample from in our future research. To identify a representative population of Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian interest groups, we followed a mixture of a top-down and bottom-up approaches. In Lithuania, due to a lack of an official and publicly available interest groups register (similar to in Italy), a directory of Lithuanian business entities, Rekvizitai.lt, was used (Šarkute˙ et al. 2017), supported by civil society organizations’ lists provided by several Lithuanian ministries and governmental agencies. Our main source of information on the Polish interest organizations was the National Court Register (KRS),5 similar in nature to the Lithuanian Rekvizitai.lt, supported by the voluntary nongovernmental organizations’ registration page fundacje.org. In Slovenia, the source of information on legal entities is the Agency of

5 https://bip.ms.gov.pl/pl/rejestry-i-ewidencje/krajowy-rejestr-sadowy/elektronicznydostep-do-krajowego-rejestru-sadowego/, last accessed 18 May 2017.

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the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services (Fink-Hafner et al. 2015c). For comparability reasons, we confirmed that identical databases were also identified in other CIGs counties, for example, the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (Kruispuntbank) in Belgium similarly provides information on all economic entities. However its search system is better organized than the one in Poland with specific sub-codes for different types of organizations. In contrast, the Lithuanian and Polish databases and registries are far behind the ultra-transparent Swedish system. There, access to all incoming mail to the government ministries is made public providing a very solid overview of politically active interest organizations (Boräng and Naurin 2017) removing a need to double check groups’ activity status. The voluntary character of Polish fundacje.org database, to which organizations may but to do not have to register, is similar to the case of the Italian ‘Guida Monaci’, even if expanded by other types of groups. Both the sources’ imperfect organization and the broad focus meant that many entries did not meet our definition of an interest group, which we conceptualized as a collective membership organizations (individuals or institutions), with a defined constituency, representing the interests of others or themselves, that are substantively engaged in public policy (Jordan et al. 2004) or whose political activity is latent (Fink-Hafner et al. 2015c). Latent activity refers to a situation when (or where) groups have an interest in being active and a capacity to act, but most of the time their activity is not political. When they encounter a new political issue of interest, they may become politically active. This definition of interest groups includes business organizations, professional associations, trade unions, identity and cause groups (including religious groups and to a degree leisure groups; see Table 2.1 for code scheme and descriptors). We excluded law firms, consultancy firms, and all types of private companies. We only took into consideration national level groups and excluded those from the regional and local levels. We identified groups as inactive and excluded them from the sample if the organization had no website or a social media profile (Twitter or Facebook), or the organization had a website but we could not find any position papers, issues raised or news about the political activity of the organization and neither did any additional search (conducted at the final stages of databases cleaning) confirm political activity. If we could not find the page, but were able to obtain information on the group’s activity and contact details from other resources, in particular email, we kept them in the sample.

Institutions and public authorities

Leisure

Cause groups

Identity groups

Labour unions

INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE …

(continued)

Organizations that have business companies as members, e.g. the American Association of Car Manufacturers, or umbrella organizations whose members are organizations with companies as members, e.g. the International Association of Car Manufacturers Organizations bringing together professional individuals as doctors, teachers, lawyers, e.g. the Belgian English Language Teachers Association, or an umbrella association of such organizations, e.g. European Lawyers Association Organizations of individual employees (trade unions) or their umbrella organizations, e.g. European Trade Union Confederation Organizations bringing together individuals with characteristic identity: ethnic groups, elderly groups, patient organizations, as well as religious groups; and their umbrella organizations, e.g. European Disability Forum This category also include organizations which indicate no formal membership on their website (but for example get donations or involve volunteers) Cause groups, e.g. Plan België, Quart-Monde, consumer organizations, and their umbrella organizations, e.g. European Environmental Bureau This category can also include organizations which indicate no formal membership on their website (but for example get donations or involve volunteers) Sport, arts, music, literature groups, for instance sports associations like the Dutch Rowing Federation, and their umbrella organizations, e.g. the International Rowing Federation Organizations that have public authorities as members, i.e. authorities that are part of the political system. These are cities, provinces, mayors, etc. Not included are organizations that are part of the bureaucracy such as hospitals, police forces, or schools, e.g. EUROCITIES; and their umbrella organizations, e.g. the International Association of Cities Organizations that have non-profit institutions as members (i.e. public or semi-public organizations without members such as hospitals, schools, universities, etcetera), e.g. European University Association; and their umbrella organizations, e.g. the International Hospital Federation

Business

Professionals

Description

An overview of organizations’ typology

Organizational type

Table 2.1

2

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Description A network or coalition of interest groups. This is a group of interest groups that cooperate, but there is no (formal) hierarchy within the network, e.g. the Alliance of Energy Intensive Industries or the Green 10 Research organization/think tank. The primary function of this organization is to do research, e.g. CEPS—Centre for European Policy Studies Foundation. Organizations that are funded by one or a few persons. Key is that they do not depend on members for financial survival, although often people can also contribute to these organizations, e.g. the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Other

(continued)

Organizational type

Table 2.1

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We ended up with 905 organizations in Lithuania, 1546 organizations in Poland and 1203 organizations in Slovenia which can be defined as national level interest organizations according to the criteria indicated above. Table 2.1 provides an overview of the organizational types identified in our set and a short description of their key features. The table distinguishes between a number of categories: business, professional associations, trade unions, identity groups and cause groups. We also included leisure groups and institutions. All those identified are collective in their nature and also have an advocacy component. The last category (‘Other’) includes networks, think tanks and foundations. While they do not fit exactly within the above categories, a number of these groups conduct lobbying activities, and a number of authors advocates their inclusion in interest groups’ analysis (see for example: Berkhout 2015; Fraussen and Halpin 2016).

2.3

Population Ecology: Density

The main goal of this chapter is to generate a map of the Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian interest group population ecology focusing on their density and diversity. The estimates that would allow us to check for the reliability of our results are hard to come by. As indicated before, comprehensive large-scale studies of interests from these countries have been a rarity. The reasons for this are various. Michałek (2017) suggests that it is due to incomprehensive registration systems, especially in Poland. A number of authors (see for example: Jacobsson and Korolczuk 2017), do not distinguish interest groups from a broader category of civil society, thus inflating the numbers. Other texts are outdated (see for example Jasiecki 2011, whose book focuses on Polish interest groups pre-2004 or Hrebenar et al. 2008, reporting on Lithuania pre-2007). Comparable numbers that are available are always focused on particular categories of groups. For example, the EUROLOB II Project identified 56 Polish national level business interest associations (Kohler-Koch et al. KohlerKoch and Kurczewska 2013). The team working on the INTEREURO Project, while looking into the activities of different interest groups on European level issues, found only 5 Lithuanian and 15 Polish broadly defined interest organizations active within the EU consultation process, and in contrast 306 groups from Slovenia. A point of notice here is that Slovenia was one of the main comparative cases, while Lithuanian and

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Polish groups were identified only as a by-product of looking into jointly submitted and co-authored consultation papers. The comparison to other CIGs countries brings a bit more reliable information due to comparable sampling procedures (see: Introduction), but points also to a few problematic issues (see Table 2.2). Both Lithuania and Slovenia are classified as smaller countries based on both their size and population. Poland is the second largest when considering population (after Spain) and third when it comes to country size (after Spain and Sweden) when comparing CIGs Project countries. The identified set of organizations is the smallest for Lithuania and the fourth largest for Poland. In smaller countries, the density of interest groups is proportionally higher (for example 1.203 interest groups in Slovenia with 2 million citizens). Values per square km in Poland resemble those in Spain, both countries with a similar density of citizens’ population (Sweden here being an outlier). In contrast, smaller countries like Slovenia and Lithuania show an extremely high concentration of national level interest organizations per 1000 citizens (respectively: 0.582 and 0.320), with Polish groups’ concentration of only 0.04 per 1000 citizens. That points to a phenomenon of a rather small national level interest organization population in Poland. Lowery and Gray (1993) point to the fact that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the density of the interest group system does not increase with economic complexity nor the size of the state. The relationship between economic size and interest group system density is generally negative; as size increases, the average economic base of interest groups increases, indicating a decline in density (Lowery and Gray 1993: 204). The relationship between these two variables is curvilinear, so that as the size of economy increases, the decline in density diminishes. Finally, for the smaller states, density appears to be an artefact of what the authors labelled ‘natural groups’ (i.e. groups that represent interests that must be actively represented in any state irrespective of size or complexity, which would explain the situation in countries like Slovenia, Belgium or the Netherlands).

2.4

Population Ecology: Diversity

In the first part of this section, we focus our attention on the balance between different group types, as well as the age of these organizations (Table 2.3). Subsequently, we examine some of the resources that groups

2636 1542 2479 905 1352 1203 1546

CIG-s interest organizations’ populationa 505,990 450,295 41,543 65,300 30,528 20,273 312,679

Country size (km3 )

46,423,064* 10,023,893*** 17,100,475*** 2,827,947*** 11,250,585** 2,065,879** 38,454,576**

Population (mln)b

0.005 0.003 0.060 0.014 0.044 0.059 0.005

Interest organization per square km

a Source National CIG Survey reports, available at: http://www.cigsurvey.eu/data/, last accessed 27 May 2017 b Source List of European countries by area and population, Wikipedia.org, *2015, **2016, ***2017

~13,200 ~19,200 ~18,250 ~25,000 + 5600

Full interest organizations’ population

CIGs countries—Comparison of interest organizations per country size and population

Spain Sweden The Netherlands Lithuania Belgium Slovenia Poland

Country

Table 2.2

0.057 0.154 0.145 0.320 0.120 0.582 0.040

Interest organizations per capita (per 1000 citizens)

2 INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE …

41

42

P. ROZBICKA ET AL.

Slovenia

Poland

Lithuania

Table 2.3 Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian national interest groups dataset, by type Type Business Professionals Labour unions Identity groups Cause groups Leisure Institutions and public authorities Other Total Business Professionals Labour unions Identity groups Cause groups Leisure Institutions and public authorities Other Total Business Professionals Labour unions Identity groups Cause groups Leisure Institutions and public authorities Other Total

n 80 106 23 51

% 21.9 29.0 6.3 14.0

Staff (FTE, median) 4.43 3.04 1.3 3.28

Foundation (median) 2002 1992 1991 1999

29 52 24 365 336 88 51 139 751 58 15 108 1546 41 147 34 63 35 98 10 11 439

7.9 14.3 6.6 100 21.73 5.69 3.30 8.99 48.58 3.75 0.97 6.99 100 9.3 33.5 7.7 14.4 8.0 22.3 2.3 2.5 100

0.88 3.6 3.02 4 2 2 01 6 3 1 2 6 3 02 0 1 0 0 0 1 6 0

1995 2003 2002 1998 1999 1998 1983 1999 2000 1995 1994 2002 1999 1999 1993 1992 1997 2003 1998 2000 1992 1996

a With mean of value 5 b With mean for respective categories: business—7, professionals 1.04, labour unions—119.85, identity

groups 4.75, cause groups—4.11, leisure—1, institutions and public authorities—2, rest—16.44, total 11.65

have at their disposal when they engage in policy advocacy. We link our findings in this regard to the broader debates on interest group bias and inequality and, the commonly perceived, dominant presence of business groups. In this section, we shift from the analysis of the full population of interest groups in the three countries to a representative sample. A sample consists of the organizations that answered survey questions that we send to the full populations in 2017 (Lithuania and Slovenia) and 2018 (Poland). The sample size is representative to organizational type and keeps proportional arrangements between the group types in each country. The first obvious feature of the data is the overwhelming numerical dominance of cause groups in Poland and professional associations in

2

INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE …

43

Lithuania and Slovenia. They account for 49% of the entire Polish national system, 29% in the Lithuanian and 33.5% of the Slovenian system. This numerical dominance is not in itself a proxy for power. In fact it has been argued that the predominance of one category of interest groups can be interpreted as a sign of a lack of unity, and hence of power (see or example: Jordan and Halpin 2012). In contrast, a smaller number of groups representing the economic sector (e.g. business with 22% and unions with a 3% share of the total in Poland and only 9 and 7%, respectively, in Slovenia) could be a sign of strength, as those seem to unite a number of interests and seem to be speaking with a single voice for the entire domain and could thus be more effective in threatening policy-makers with economic pressure (Lowery et al. 2015: 1220). Yet, viewed from a purely pluralist perspective, it does give a sense of the skewed nature of the voices organized in the three political systems, as cause groups and to a degree professional associations seem to dominate the sets. Those results corroborate the argument presented above with regard to Poland: the decline of economic interest representation and the increase of nongovernmental organization numbers in 1990s. However, it is contradictory to the pattern present in most of the Western Democracies, which register profuse bias of business organizations (see for example: Boräng and Naurin 2017, in Sweden; Frausen and Halpin 2016, in Australia; Grey and Lowery 2000, in the USA; Klüver 2015, and Kohler-Koch et al. Kohler-Koch and Kurczewska 2013, in Germany). In our case, in all three countries, business organizations amount to 1/5 of the set (Lithuania and Poland) or even less (1/10 in Slovenia). Related to the question of power are resources. Our data includes a measure of the number of staff each group has, defined by the full time equivalent (FTE). It is immediately visible that identity groups in Poland have the largest numbers of permanent staff, with the lowest number of FTEs in Slovenia across the whole set. While low numbers for different types of organizations may be surprising against common perceptions, they reflect findings in other countries. Both Scholzman (2012), for American organizations, and Fraussen and Halpin (2016) for Australia, conclude that the stereotype about interest groups having extensive offices with resources should be abandoned. Most of the organizations, due to their increased professionalization, operate on the basis of one or two in-house lobbyists or the services of a single outside firm (Scholzman 2012: 35). A similar result is also visible in other CIGs countries, with groups in the Netherlands employing a median of 1 FTE,

44

P. ROZBICKA ET AL.

and, for example those in Sweden employing 3 FTE. A slightly larger number of permanent staff employed in the identity groups may suggest that they will be more prone to deploy more resource-intensive lobbying campaigns. However, without available data on the exact budget of the organizations, we cannot conclude as such with certainty. Taken the regime changes and intensive democratization of the three countries in the 1990s, as described in Sect. 2.1, it is not surprising that most of the groups are relatively young (an exception here being Slovenia, where we would expect a slightly older age, but even there only 21% of groups were established before 1989). The median year of establishment for the whole set is 1999. The amalgamation over time (Fig. 2.1), sustains a conclusion from the above: the majority of the organizations started their activity in the late 1990s following the democratization process, with its culmination in the early 2000s preceding Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia’s accession to the EU. That makes the populations of Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian interest groups relatively young in comparison to other countries in the CIGs group (i.e. Belgium with a median of 1975, the Netherlands with a median of 1986, and Sweden with a median of 1980).

Fig. 2.1 Year of establishment

2

INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE …

45

Another interesting element of the groups’ age story is the variation by group type. Trade unions are on average older than other categories (with a median of 1983 for Poland, 1991 for Lithuania and 1992 for Slovenia), with the oldest union still in operation founded in 1872 (Poland). In the case of the trade unions, we know from other works that there has been a strong process of concentration of unions over the years in Western Democracies, where older groups swallowed up many of their contemporaries (Levesque and Murray 2010; Halpin and Jordan 2009). A similar process took place gradually also in Poland, with its culmination in 2011, albeit, as indicated above (Sect. 2.1.2), caused by changes to the economy that undermined the unions’ role. Furthermore, our data confirms a rapid increase in the numbers of identity groups and cause groups (except in Lithuania) starting from the 1990s (up to the early 2000s; to some degree also for business and professional associations) reflecting the democratization process and the implementation of extensive reforms to engage with civil society. However, for all group types, both in Poland and Slovenia, we see a rapid decline in the number of new groups established after the mid2000s. While not the only explanation, that corresponds with the date of the two countries’ accession to the EU and decline in the EU accessionrelated funding (Cekik 2017). In contrast, the numbers in Lithuania did not decrease. The argument here comes back to the previous section, where we identified the Lithuanian interest groups system as the youngest and least advanced from the three studied countries. As a final point, we take a closer look at the relative numerical dominance of different industry and social sectors in the interest group systems (Table 2.4). Following Binderkrants et al. (2014), we aggregated different areas of interest groups declared activity into three policy areas: business regulation (agriculture, labour market, environment, energy, and business and consumer regulation), general regulation (macroeconomics, civil rights, immigration, justice, housing, foreign affairs, EU, local and regional politics and others) and public sector regulation (the state church, health, education, culture and sports, traffic, defence and research). In Lithuania, the two largest types of interest organizations are business (22%) and professional associations (29%). Those two groups of actors are also the most active on a majority of different policy areas, leaving other types of organizations far behind. An interesting conclusion here could be that the majority of other types of organizations are politically

6.04 4.69 24.12 36.46

23.75 45.97 24.48 25.00 16.57 8.04 7.99

Public sector regulation

Business regulation

General regulation

Public sector regulation

Business regulation

General regulation

Public sector regulation

28.73

8.06

28.35

25.00

23.75

31.29

22.09

General regulation

Professionals

Business regulation

Business

7.99

14.07

15.47

4.69

2.68

4.84

6.13

8.13

7.36

Labour unions

16.67

25.13

9.94

11.46

15.44

8.87

11.88

16.25

14.27

Identity groups

6.94

10.55

11.60

44.27

44.97

24.19

Cause groups

18.40

12.56

12.15

2.08

0.67

0.81

7.66

5.63

5.52

Leisure

Interest groups’ diversity by declared area of activity (policy areas aggregated)

Areas of activity

Table 2.4

Lithuania

Poland

Slovenia

2.43

3.52

2.21

1.04

1.34

7.61

15.71

15.00

Ins. & public authorities 10.43

3.13

2.01

3.31

6.77

7.38

5.65

6.51

6.25

8.59

Other

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Total

46 P. ROZBICKA ET AL.

2

INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE …

47

latent. It may simply be that they focus on protecting their interests within existing frameworks and laws rather than trying to change policy and the legislative level. Taken the argument in the previous section, on the low level of civil activity and engagement with policy-makers, that result is not surprising. Consequently, a number of interests are not represented by the groups that traditionally would voice them. For example, employees’ rights (i.e. fair pay, maternity rights, health and safety legislation, encompassed by the employment policy) would be advocated by trade unions. If trade unions are not doing so, but business associations are (with, in the case of Lithuania the overwhelming presence of business actors, 34.85% are looking just at that policy; see Appendix, Table 2.5), one would expect that these policies are being written and enacted in ways which conform to the agenda of business organizations. In Poland, the findings demonstrate that in most policy areas linked to business regulation (i.e. agriculture, labour market, environment, energy, and business and consumer regulation) business groups are the most active. Similarly, we observe a declared high level of cause group activity related to human rights, cultural policies, social and gender policies, as well as health policy, being jointly classified as general and public sector policies. Professional groups, trade unions as well as leisure groups are active in several policy areas, however they are not a dominant presence in any of them. Business associations indicate high levels of activity within policies which are commonly associated with cause groups and or identity groups (i.e. environmental policy, consumer protection), and those important for trade unions (i.e. employment policy). Following Fraussen and Halpin’s (2016) arguments, we could suggest here that, for some predominantly social policies, the absence of dedicated advocacy groups (i.e. identity and cause groups) is often accompanied with a larger number of non-advocacy service related organizations (i.e. business). But, that is contradictory to the fact that cause groups in Poland constitute almost 49% of the whole population, far exceeding the number of business associations. In Slovenia, taken that the numbers of professional organizations are highest (33.5% of the whole set), they also represent the largest diversity with regard to the area of their activity, covering a wide range of policy areas including education, the fight against crime, environment and consumer protection and others. The Slovenian professional organizations are also the most active on a range of different policies, which potentially could be of interest to other groups. For example, scientific research

48

P. ROZBICKA ET AL.

policy that normally would be the domain of business groups, defence policy, which is rarely tackled by interest organizations, or consumer protection, which normally would be a domain of cause groups. It has to be concluded that the diversity of the Slovenian system is inadequate to ensure sufficient coverage of different policy areas.

2.5

Conclusions

This chapter started from the assumption that a more nuanced and detailed study of interest group populations in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia will profit from an overview of the groups’ broader universe. To realize that, we have mapped national level interest groups in the three countries and analysed their typology and areas of activity. This work provides a reliable source from which to sample groups. The dataset can be used to identify groups’ typology and subsequently examine the organizational differences between these groups, or their varying degree of political engagement. This chapter provides an assessment of the extent to which interest groups fulfil democratic aspirations and ensure the representation of a variety of economic and social interests. As it is a first attempt at the presentation of the study of Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian national level interest groups, the chapter sets the baseline from which future developments related to the mobilization of interests and lobbying activities of particular groups might be assessed. Following the conclusions from the research done on other CEE countries, we focused on internal and external factors influencing the density of the population and its adjustments. The evidence from the three cases corroborates the conclusion on the increase of civil society organizations’ numbers during the transition process to democracy. While initially based only on strengthening the numbers of trade unions (in particular in Poland), we identified a rapid growth in groups’ density associated with the countries’ accession processes to the European Union. In the chapter, we have discussed a number of resources used for the identification of interest groups, pointing to particular issues of sources reliability, accuracy and a lack of up-to-date information. We estimated the density of national level interest organizations at ~900 in Lithuania, barely passing the marker of 1500 groups in Poland, and ~1200 groups in Slovenia. The number of national interest organizations in Lithuania and Poland, however, did not come as a surprise, especially when compared to

2

INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE …

49

other countries studied in the CIGs Project. We argued that the inflated numbers in Slovenia are linked to its historical past and unique lobbying regulation dating back to the 1970s. Contrary to the findings in Western Democracies, we identified cause groups as more numerous in Poland and professional organizations in Slovenia. However, resource wise they are similar to their peers elsewhere. There is a potential reason for concern about the small numbers of active groups representing trade unions across the three countries. However, as suggested above, their power should not be measured by their numbers, but rather by available resources, which puts them on an equal footing with other groups. An important limitation of our study, and the CIGs Project itself, is the focus on national level groups. In the context of the size of Poland and its administrative organization, the work we have done here warrants further development at the regional level. Studies on the federal systems of the United States (Gray and Lowery 2000) and some of the Benelux countries (Vollaard et al. 2014) provide a sense of how useful it may be to clearly indicate flows of the interest groups population away from the capital. A promising research avenue is how groups organize in multilayered systems, how they align their internal structures to the policy demands of a multi-layer system, and how they deal with competition and cooperation between national and sub-national level groups.

Appendix See Table 2.5.

31.71 33.82

23.53 31.03 29.03 34.62 25.81 34.85

Regional or cohesion policy

Human Rights

Transport policy

Cultural policy

Employment

27.27

25.81

30.77

20.97

31.03

38.46

32

23.33

21.62

31.71

27.27

30.23

European integration and cooperation Scientific research policy

18.60

Consumer protection

32.73

30.77

29.09

Environmental policy

25.23

Defense policy

25.23

Social policy

21.74

32

34.78

Gender policy

29.11

Foreign policy

23.42

Education

20.83

30

29.17

Energy policy

13.04

International development policy

30.43

Fight against crime

23.30

28.38

28.16

Health policy

31.03

31.25

Fundamental rights of EU citizens

25.86

Economic and monetary policy

27.27

31.25

Migration policy

Professionals

Agriculture policy

Business

3.03

9.68

11.54

6.45

13.79

7.72

12.20

0

8

6.67

9.46

9.09

6.98

5.41

5.41

4.35

5.06

4.17

13.04

1.94

5.17

12.50

Labour unions

7.58

9.68

7.69

16.13

6.90

11.76

4.88

0

8

10

13.51

15.15

9.30

14.55

18.92

13.04

11.39

12.50

8.70

15.53

15.52

6.25

Identity groups

Interest groups diversity by declared area of activity

Areas of activity

Table 2.5

Lithuania

Cause groups

7.58

9.68

7.69

6.45

0

5.88

2.44

0

0

10

5.41

0

4.65

1.82

4.50

4.35

6.96

4.17

4.35

8.74

3.45

6.25

Leisure

10.61

16.13

3.85

14.52

10.34

11.76

12.20

23.08

12

13.33

14.86

6.06

13.95

7.27

15.32

17.39

19.62

16.67

17.39

12.62

10.34

Ins. & public authorities 12.50 0

9.09

3.23

3.85

6.45

6.90

4.41

4.88

7.69

8

6.67

6.76

15.15

16.28

9.09

5.41

4.35

4.43

12.50

13.04

9.71

8.62

Other

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Total

50 P. ROZBICKA ET AL.

Poland

Health policy

34 2.13 66.67 10.81 46.15

Human Rights

Transport policy

Cultural policy

Employment

44.83

4

37.5

European integration and cooperation Scientific research policy

Regional or cohesion policy

2.5

14.29

2.56

2.7

4.76

4.26

6.9

0

0

5.71

4

8.7

Defense policy

65.22

Agriculture policy

5.88

42.11

73.53

Consumer protection

1.72

Foreign policy

41.38

Environmental policy

0 3.26

2

11.96

Social policy

48.57

23.08

Gender policy

2.38

International development policy

21.43

Education

3.45

10

1.67

11.54

0

Professionals

Fundamental rights of EU citizens

48.28

Energy policy

30

8.33

Economic and monetary policy

Fight against crime

27.27 63.46

Migration policy

Business

Areas of activity

10.26

2.7

14.29

6.38

6.9

6

5

14.29

15.79

5.71

8

0

0

0

4.35

2.56

3.17

10.34

5

6.67

5.77

9.09

Labour unions

10.26

13.51

4.76

17.02

6.9

6

15

28.57

10.53

5.71

26

8.7

2.94

12.07

19.57

15.38

15.08

10.34

20

18.33

1.92

22.73

Identity groups

20.51

51.35

4.76

59.57

20.69

38

25

28.57

21.05

20

46

8.7

11.76

34.48

52.17

48.72

48.41

17.24

30

61.67

7.69

31.82

Cause groups 0 0

2.56

5.41

0

2.13

0

0

2.5

0

0

0

2

0

0

1.72

1.09

2.56

1.59

0

0

1.67

Leisure

2.56

5.41

4.76

2.13

6.9

2

5

14.29

5.26

2.86

4

8.7

2.94

3.45

2.17

2.56

1.59

6.9

0

1.67

1.92

Ins. & public authorities 4.55

5.13

8.11

0

6.38

6.9

10

7.5

0

2.26

11.43

8

0

2.94

5.17

5.43

5.13

6.35

3.45

5

0

7.69

4.55

Other

(continued)

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Total

2 INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE …

51

6.38 5.50 15.63 17.24 43.18 2.53 18.18

Gender policy

Social policy

Environmental policy

Consumer protection

Agriculture policy

Fundamental rights of EU citizens

International development policy

4.94

Cultural policy 13.64

14.29

Transport policy

Employment

2.88

22.73

24.69

28.57

23.08

14.29

51.22

12.20 20

30.77

44.44

20

27.27

20.25

11.36

37.93

30.21

13.76

19.15

38.46

28.57

41.18

26.60

16.67

24

Professionals

13.85

Human Rights

Regional or cohesion policy

European integration and cooperation Scientific research policy

0

8.21

Education

Defense policy

14.29

Energy policy

10

5.88

Fight against crime

Foreign policy

4.26

Health policy

0 18.75

Migration policy

Economic and monetary policy

Business

(continued)

Areas of activity

Table 2.5

Slovenia

31.82

9.88

21.43

20.19

8.57

6.10

15.38

11.11

10

9.09

17.72

6.82

10.34

6.25

21.10

23.40

6.67

14.29

11.76

15.96

35.42

20

Labour unions

13.64

19.75

7.14

28.85

20

8.54

15.38

16.67

25

9.09

30.38

2.27

6.90

10.42

33.94

21.28

14.87

7.14

11.76

32.98

6.25

28

Identity groups

6.06

4.94

10.71

13.46

11.43

7.32

9.23

11.11

15

13.64

13.92

20.45

13.79

17.71

12.84

8.51

7.18

28.57

17.65

11.70

12.50

12

Cause groups

3.03

27.16

17.86

5.77

17.14

8.54

13.85

11.11

15

15.91

10.13

11.36

13.79

16.67

3.67

14.89

19.49

7.14

11.76

4.26

2.08

4

Leisure

1.52

2.47

0

2.88

8.57

1.22

1.54

0

0

6.82

1.27

4.55

0

2.08

5.50

2.13

2.56

0

0

2.13

4.17

Ins. & public authorities 12

7.58

6.17

0

2.88

0

4.88

0

5.56

5

0

3.80

0

0

1.04

3.67

4.26

2.56

0

0

2.13

4.17

0

Other

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Total

52 P. ROZBICKA ET AL.

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Fink-Hafner, D., Hafner-Fink, M., Novak, M., Kronegger, L., & Lajh, D. (2015c). Protocol on Defining Population of National Interest Groups in Slovenia. Ljubljana: Centre for Political Science Research. Fisker, H. M. (2013). Density Dependence in Corporative Systems: Development of the Population of Danish Patient Groups (1901–2011). Interest Groups & Advocacy, 2, 119–138. Fraussen, B., & Halpin, D. (2016). Assessing the Composition and Diversity of the Australian Interest Group System. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 75(4), 476–491. Freedom House. (2018). Nations in Transit 2018: Lithuania. Freedom House. Prieiga internetu. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/NiT2018_L ithuania.pdf. Glinski, ´ P. (2006). Style działan´ organizacji pozarzadowych ˛ w Polsce: grupy interesu czy po˙zytku publicznego? IFiS PAN: Wydawn. Gray, V., & Lowery, D. (2000). The Population Ecology of Interest Representation: Lobbying Communities in the American States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Halpin, D., & Jordan, G. (2009). Interpreting Environments: Interest Group Response to Population Ecology Pressures. British Journal of Political Science, 39, 243–265. Howard, M. (2003). The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hrebenar, R. J., McBeth, C. H., & Morgan, B. B. (2008). Interests and Lobbying in Lithuania: A Spectrum of Development. Journal of Public Affairs: An International Journal, 8(1–2), 51–65. Hvaliˇc, S., Ramovš, J., & Ramovš, K. (2001). National Report: Third Sector in Slovenia. Ljubljana: Inštitut Antona Trstenjaka. Jacobsson, K., & Korolczuk, E. (Eds.). (2017). Civil Society Revisited: Lessons from Poland. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Jasiecki, K. (Ed.). (2011). Grupy interesu i lobbing. Polskie do´swiadczenia w unijnym kontek´scie. Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN. Johnson, E. W. (2014). Towards International Comparative Research on Associational Activity: Variation in the Form and Focus of Voluntary Associations in Four Nations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(2), 163S–1841S. Jordan, A., & Halpin, D. (2012). Politics Is Not Basketball: Numbers Are Not Results. In D. Halpin & A. Jordan (Eds.), The Scale of Interest organizations in Democratic Politics: Data and Research Methods (pp. 245–262). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jordan, A., Halpin, D., & Maloney, W. (2004). Defining Interests: Disambiguation and the Need of New Discussions? British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6(2), 195–212.

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Michałek, W. (2017). Poland. In A. Bitonti & P. Harris (Eds.), Lobbying in Europe: Public Affairs and the Lobbying Industry in 28 EU Countries. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Mohan, J. (2012). Above and Below the Radar: Mapping the Distribution of Civil Society Associations in England. In The Scale of Interest Organization in Democratic Politics (pp. 202–222). Berlin: Springer. Naurin, D., & Boräng, F. (2012). Who Are the Lobbyists? A Population Study of Interest Groups in Sweden. Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 114(1), 95–102. Novak, M., & Fink-Hafner, D. (2019). Slovenia: Interest Group Developments in a Postsocialist-Liberal Democracy. Journal of Public Affairs, 19(2), 1–13. Nownes, A. J. (2004). The Population Ecology of Interest Group Formation: Mobilizing for Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States, 1950–98. British Journal of Political Science, 34, 49–67. Nownes, A. J. (2015). Organizational Demography Research in the United States. In D. Lowery, D. Halpin, & V. Gray (Eds.), The Organization Ecology of Interest Communities: Assessment and Agenda. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Rozbicka, P., & Kaminski, ´ P. (2020). Have They Already Emerged? Mapping the Population of National Interest Organizations in the Post-Communist Poland, Europe-Asia Studies, fortcoming. Šarkuté, L., Krupaviˇcius, A., Jankauskaité, V., & Simonaityté, V. (2017). Sampling Procedure of Lithuanian Interest Groups Survey. Kaunas: Institute of Public Policy and Administration. Scholzman, K. L. (2012). Continuing the Voices in the Heavenly Chorus: Pressure Participants in Washington Politics. In D. Halpin & A. G. Jordan (Eds.), Thes cale of Interest Organizationin Democratic Politics: Data and Resarch Methods (pp. 22–43). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sustainable Governance Indicators. (2016). Sustainable Governance Indicators 2016: Lithuania Report. Prieiga internetu. http://www.sgi-network.org/ docs/2016/country/SGI2016_Lithuania.pdf. Szent-Iványi, B., & Lightfoot, S. (2016). Determinants of Civil Society Influence: The Case of International Development and Humanitarian NGOs in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Comparative European Politics, 14, 761–780. Van Biezen, I., & Poguntke, T. (2014). The Decline of Membership-based Politics. Party Politics, 20(2), 205–206. Van Waarden, F. (1992). Emergence and Development of Business Interest Associations: An Example from The Netherlands. Organization Studies, 13, 521–561. Vollaard, H., Beyers, J., & Dumont, P. (Eds.). (2014). European Integration and Consensus Politics in the Low Countries. London: Routlage.

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CHAPTER 3

Organized Interest in the Policy-Making Process

3.1 A Framework of Interest Representation in the CEE Counties The existence of interest groups has become a factor for measuring the quality of democracy in CEE countries, but there is no consensus on what the role of interest groups and their resources should be (PérezSolórzano Borragán 2006). In this chapter, we seek to explain different effects that shape the institutional environment and opportunity structures for the involvement of interest groups in the policy-making process at the national level in CEE countries. While countries from Central and Eastern Europe share some common ground, there are also differences between them. Different historical experiences, cultures, political regimes, democratic transitions and institutional arrangements may have led to different roles and positions of interest groups (Cox 2012). To explore these differences we will limit our analyses to the cases of Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia but also provide some comparable information. In general we can say that three processes affected the role of interest groups and their relationship towards other political institution in CEE countries, these are: the heritage of the old system (Fink-Hafner 2011), the Europeanization process (Fink-Hafner and Lajh 2005, 2006; FinkHafner 2007: 42) and the characteristics of interest groups systems in CEE countries (Cox 2012; Fink-Hafner 1998).

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From research done in Western Europe we already know that the state shapes the interest groups system with sponsorships, direct establishment by the government and the public policies they adopt (Christiansen 2012). Depending on whether there is a pluralist or corporatist system interest groups are differently integrated into the policy process (Fisker 2013). Which also means that different institutional arrangements can lead to different patterns of interest groups mobilization (Binderkrantz et al. 2014). Similarly in CEE countries, openness and the opportunity structures set by political institutions define the interest group system. The relationship the political institutions and actors have with interest groups is further impacted by the quality of democracy, funding and state support. The division of power between political actors determines the targets of influence, access points and strategies (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). The executive has major influence in policy-making compared to other political actors and interest groups (Meyer et al. 2017). The Parliament has less influence but is more accessible and has more access points (Fink-Hafner and Krašovec 2005; Fink-Hafner et al. 2012). Especially in neo-corporatist systems, the economic and social committees are the main formal channel for interest groups involvement. The chapter on inclusion of interest groups in the policy-making process in CEE countries is organized as follows. We will continue by further explaining the role of each process that influences the system of interest mediation via the encouragement or obstruction of interest mediation. We will continue by describing the relationship between separate political institutions and interest groups in general and in the individual countries of the analysis. To offer a larger picture we will present the relationship of interest groups and political institutions in a comparative perspective in the CEE countries and Western Democracies. In the conclusion, we will sum up the main findings and offer possible development trends in the future. 3.1.1

The Heritage of the Old System

The articulation of interest groups in CEE countries is still obstructed by the heritage of institutions and the political and economic order from Communist times. It was in this framework that consultative policies in CEE countries have been developed (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2006). With interest groups systems developing mostly after the change

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of the political system from Communism to democracy and a free market economy in the 1980s, the institutional framework did not adapt with the same speed to new consultation arrangements, often neglecting the role and potential of interest groups in policy-making processes. During the transformation process in the 1980s, the policy-making process was not yet ready to include interest groups in the process of decision-making. Consultative procedures were limited. The institutional channels for interest groups to access decision-makers were not established (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2001, 2006). The lack of pluralism during Communist times also led to the belief among society that the state should solve all social and economic problems (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019) and many saw no need to include interest groups in policy-making. The political system consequently shows signs of immaturity and lacks a tradition of consultative politics at the national level (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2001, 2004). In the Western Balkans the development of interest group systems was further obstructed by the Homeland War in the first half of the 1990s, which promoted ethno-nationalist ideologies and hindered public recognition of pluralism throughout the 1990s (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). The state kept the most prominent role in managing politics, which led to the development of corporatist arrangements in some countries that shaped the environment for the inclusion of interest groups in the young democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Tripartite arrangements between the state, employers and employees played a crucial role in developing social dialogue and enabling and mediating negotiations between social partners in CEE countries (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2006). 3.1.2

The Europeanization Process

Soon after the change of the political system, CEE countries turned towards the European Union and expressed the ambition to become EU member states. The increasing effects of the Europeanization process on interest groups and politics in the CEE countries importantly shaped the institutional framework and the relationship between the state and nonstate actors at a national level (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2001; Meyer et al. 2017). During the accession process, the EU contributed to a greater inclusion of interest groups in the EU policy-making process and

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changed the roles of other political actors in a way that decreased the power of interest groups. Due to the conditionality criteria, candidate states were actively encouraged and obliged to include interest groups in negotiations and to implement civil society friendly policies. It also helped establish a number of ways to enable contact between the executives and interest groups (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). National governments were pressured to offer access to information, consult different interest groups when they prepared public policies, prepare new regulations on social dialogue, public consultations and nongovernmental, voluntary and public benefits organizations and to act in a transparent way. The pressure was most evident during the accession and negotiation period which led to more formalized, predictable and accessible policy-making procedures for interest groups (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019) and contributed to their importance (Meyer et al. 2017). Interest groups were included in the whole process of the Slovenian negotiations for joining the EU (FinkHafner and Lajh 2005, 2006; Fink-Hafner 2007: 42). This was also noticed during the accession process of the youngest EU member states. In Croatia the international support for creating a more favourable environment for interest groups development led to liberalization of the legal framework for freedom of association, participatory decision-making and the promotion of inclusive styles of governance (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019: 86). However, the dialogue between the state and interest groups was established only for EU affairs (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019a). With the intention to get EU funds, interest groups established contact with political parties to get access to EU funds distributed by national authorities (Maloney et al. 2018). With the accession to membership of the EU the opportunity structures for interest groups to influence EU policies through national channels were reduced (Fink-Hafner and Lajh 2005, 2006; Fink-Hafner 2007: 42). The expectation of the EU to include interest groups in policy-making was still present but less controlled. The practice of consultations remained limited once these countries became EU members with a lack of efficient implementation in the majority of CEE countries (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2006). EU membership opened new access points for interest groups that can now also contact EU level institutions and get involved in national policy-making via the EU level (see Chapter 8).

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On the other hand, the EU integration process changed communication between the executive, national Parliament and interest groups by giving more power to the executive (Fink-Hafner 2011). The increased power of the executive as a consequence of adaptation to the EU diminished the role of other actors. The main actor that represented the interests of CEE countries in negotiations at the EU level were the national governments. Interest groups thus needed to established better contacts with national government and Parliament if they wanted to influence the national positions towards EU policies. Consequently, national governments and Parliament became lobbying targets when it came to EU policy-making (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2004). 3.1.3

Characteristics of Interest Group Systems in CEE Countries

Due to the youth of the interest group system in CEE countries, interest groups lack financial resources, experienced staff, expertise and lack the professionalization1 to be included in policy-making and be perceived as trustworthy by decision-makers. The interest group system is mainly composed of young associations (Cekik 2015). Newly established interest groups lacked skills, strategies, knowledge and the level of organization needed for active inclusion in policy-making. Some organizations did not understand the concept and role of lobbying and did not know how to lobby effectively: when to lobby, how to be informed about the policy agenda, how to establish contacts with policy-makers, how to effectively present their views and how to form coalitions. Interest groups from CEE countries in general lacked experience in getting access to decision-makers. In fact, some researchers claim that latent groups have not yet transformed into politically active groups (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2001, 2004). A lack of resources and public support is another reason that the inclusion of interest groups in policy-making was hindered. The majority of interest groups lacked the necessary financial resources, expertise and staff to engage in lobbying activities (Cox 2012). They rely mostly on public funding, but since the economic crises in 2008 the decline in public funding has been noticed. For this reason, international donations especially from the EU to interest groups were very valuable. 1 For a comparison of the age of interest groups, budget size and number of staff see Chapter 2.

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They also helped establish and fund new organizations. The international community, humanitarian and human rights organizations supported the development of interest group systems together with increasing the level of democratization and stabilization (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). Especially in those countries from CEE that are not yet members of the EU we still notice a high level of dependency on international donors (Meyer et al. 2017). However, although donations may help establish new organizations and support their activities, they also created dependencies and challenges to survive once the donor withdraws (Vandor 2017). The interest group system anticipates further decreases of public funding thus interest groups may also be forced to further adapt their activities to potential donors outside of their countries (Meyer et al. 2017). Consequently, the interest group system in CEE countries has been marked as weak and passive, with low levels of membership as well as a lack of political activism from interest groups that need to communicate with the state, which exhibits an elitist character and little political influence from interest groups on government and policy-making (Howard 2003). Different reasons have been identified for the lack of political involvement of citizens from CEE countries in interest group activities: the resistance to membership of interest groups based on the experience of compulsory membership during Communist times, the persistence of private and family networks, low levels of trust, the demoralization of citizens, the increasingly influential role of the executive, the dominance of the elites, the weakness of regional bodies, trade unions, employers’ associations etc. and the ‘overParliamentarisation and overparticisation’ of politics (Cox 2012; Howard 2003; Miszlivetz 1997; Rueschemeyer et al. 1998). Some authors, particularly those from CEE countries, warn that the weak engagement of interest groups from CEE countries in policymaking is an overestimation (Cox 2012; Fink-Hafner 1998) since the relationship between interest groups and the state is more dynamic than appears at first sight (Cox 2012). Interest groups may engage in other ways to change public policies such as by applying indirect strategies like organizing conferences and stakeholder meetings, communicating with journalist, publishing reports, working in coalitions, organizing press conferences, involving in media debates, engaging members and

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Table 3.1 Trust in certain forms of interest groups (answer tend not to trust) Country

Belgium Lithuania Netherlands Poland Slovenia Sweden

Trade unions (%)

Charitable and voluntary organizations (%)

Consumer associations (%)

Big companies (%)

38.06 37.50 29.95 36.70 45.00 41.63

25.98 26.44 18.64 23.70 51.26 30.69

21.25 27.59 9.85 18.60 32.80 11.55

45.90 53.48 48.70 53.30 52.08 57.60

Source European Commission, 2005, 2007 (European Commission, Eurobarometer: Trust in Institutions [trade unions 2007, charitable and voluntary organizations 2005, consumer associations 2007, big companies 2005])

supporters in letter-writing campaigns and petitions or publishing statements and positions.2 Even though the interest group system from CEE countries has been labelled as having low membership numbers, recent data show that in some countries almost half of the population is involved with associations: in Slovenia 52.3%, Czech Republic 41.9%, Estonia 39.5%, and Croatia 39%. While, in Lithuania 26.4% of the population is members of some sort of association and in Poland 15.5%. In comparison, not all Western Democracies have levels of involvement in associations as high. For example, in the Netherlands 87.3%, in Belgium 66.1% and in Sweden 62.5% of the population are members of associations. On the other hand, in Italy it is only 38% and in Spain only 24.7% (EVS 2016). In this regard the level of involvement in interest groups is higher in CEE countries than in some South European countries. While trust levels in interest groups in Slovenia are very low, Lithuania and Poland are comparable to the levels of other Western Democracies (see Table 3.1). This means that based on the share of the population with membership in an interest group and trust levels in interest groups, we cannot yet evaluate the interest groups systems in CEE countries as weak. To sum up, the current political system and openness to interest groups involvement is a result of the influence of the inheritance from the old system, foreign influences mostly demonstrated in the process of Europeanization, as well as the attitude of the political culture towards citizens’ 2 See Chapter 7 for the use of indirect strategies by interest groups.

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involvement in interest groups and the trust levels in the activities of those interest groups. The effects of all three forces have shaped what the system looks like today. By this we mean, the individual power of a political institution, its openness towards interest groups, the organization of different institutions that facilitate the activities of interest groups, how much political institutions in reality take into account interest group’s positions as well as the activities and strategies of interest groups for their involvement in the public policy process. Below we will discuss the relationship between interest groups and individual political institutions for CEE countries in general and separately for the analysed countries.

3.2 Legal, Institutional and Political Determinants The Interest group system is influenced by institutions and the environment (Meyer et al. 2017). It is the performance of their functions that defines the interest group system (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2006) and shapes the opportunity structures for interest groups to get involved in policy-making processes. These relationships are also defined by the quality of the country’s democracy and the role of the state in providing finances and support to interest group’s activities, as well as by ensuring favourable conditions for the development of an interest group system (Cox 2012). The locations of political power directly impact and determine the access points and strategies used by interest groups (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). The state can limit these access points and the number of interest groups that can access the decision-making institutions. By doing so, the state provides some stability and moderation from interest groups in exchange for access to the policy-making process and to privileged information on government activities (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2006). In this part of the chapter, we will explain the role of different political institutions in relation to interest groups and how open they are to interest group involvement. In particular, we will focus on the relationship between the state actors and interest groups in our selected countries: Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. 3.2.1

The Executive

In CEE countries the relationship between policy actors remains stable while the state plays a central role (Fink-Hafner 1998). However, the executive has an incomparable influence in policy-making in comparison

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to interest groups and is of crucial importance (Meyer et al. 2017). It is the major political force in most stages of the policy process (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). The government remains the main actor in providing the initiatives, solutions and ideas and is the primary sponsor of adopted laws, although also other institutions such as Parliamentary working bodies, political groups and individual members of Parliament can propose new laws (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). At the same time, it also has a high impact on the interest group system by creating legal frameworks for the interest group system favouring or interrupting the establishment of new groups, enabling or restricting their access to decision-makers, distributing national and international funding and influencing their effectiveness (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2004; Meyer et al. 2017). The change of government from centre-left to centre-right parties has consequences for the relationship of the government towards the interest group system. While some governments are more open to interest groups and introduced participatory mechanisms into policy-making others are more distrustful towards interest groups and strengthen the role of the state. Constant changes made it difficult for the interest group system to become a stable partner in policy-making and gain access to the government. Some Visegrad countries have recently experienced authoritarian right-wing parties in government: apart from Poland in 2015 this has also happened in Hungary in 2010, while in Slovakia in 2016 support for the neo-Nazi party increased. This change led to repression and sanctions against interest groups in Hungary. In Poland on the other hand illiberal nationalist groups emerged (Meyer et al. 2017), which hardly contribute to the quality of democracy. Different opportunity structures are offered to interest groups through the government. In Lithuania the government represents an important lobbying target. Since Ministries prepare content for government meetings, ministries are important targets (Spurga 2017). However, access to the decision-makers is largely based on personal connections, compared to Estonia and Latvia where interest groups to a larger extent contacted the government (Hrebenar et al. 2008). Lithuanian national interest groups are more likely to maintain contacts with the executive and bureaucrats than with political parties and their representatives (Jankauskaite 2018a, b). During recent years interest groups increasingly participated in the public opinion process and contributed to government decision-making processes. However, due to the government’s inadequate approach to the

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engagement of interest groups in consultations, the advocacy potential of interest groups remains limited (USAID 2018). In Poland the government is the primary initiator of legislation and thus the primary target of interest groups who need to get familiar as early as possible in the policy process with the agenda to successfully monitor the whole legislative process (Michałek 2017). With the change of the government to the right, the government decreased the use of public consultations and avoided them even for important laws. This means that although interest groups actively engage in advocacy activities their efforts have deteriorated. Some interest groups also broke off contact with the government since they did not accept the ruling party’s policies (USAID 2018). At the same time, the Law and Justice Party established a new governmental institution—the National Freedom Institute—Centre for Civil Society Development. The aim of the institute is to strengthen interest groups by providing the necessary funding. However, the biggest grants go to right-wing organizations—think tanks, policy institutes, associations promoting patriotism etc. In Slovenia governmental bodies have been established to greatly support interest groups and their inclusion in policy-making. Under the Ministry of Public Administration, an Office for Non-governmental Organisations offers support to civil society. They also prepared a handbook on inclusion of the public in policy-making (Forbici et al. 2015). The handbook offers support to officials on organizing consultations. In addition, a special state secretary is responsible for establishing a dialogue with civil society, coordinating civil initiatives and social entrepreneurship. Public administration is obliged to include the public in processes of decision-making and to allow a 30-day-long public debate on any new legislation since 2009 according to guidelines published in the Resolution on Legislative Regulation. However, the analysis of violations of the resolution monitored by the Centre for information, cooperation and development of nongovernmental organizations (CNVOS) shows that the resolution is violated in more than 50% of cases due to the administration not organizing consultations, providing deadlines that are too short or no deadlines at all (CNVOS 2019b). Furthermore, the Rules of Procedure of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in article 9 specify an obligation on the applicant of a legislative act to invite professional and other public organizations into the policy-making process. Under article 50 the public needs to be informed about the procedure and the decisions taken. The government must ensure public participation in

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policy-making, through the Web portal E-democracy (E-demokracija). All in all, interest groups conducting advocacy activities can establish direct contact with policy-makers without major difficulties (USAID 2018). The relationship between the government and interest groups in CEE countries remains rather formal. Critics of this relationship emphasize that governments keep contact with interest groups to meet criteria for the legitimization of policy results. On the other hand, due to structural weaknesses and the underdevelopment of the interest group system (lack of operational funding, financial struggles, absence of human resources) their contribution is not adequate, and the impact remains low (Rakar et al. 2011: 41, 53–54). Despite new institutionalized channels of influence, informal contacts and lobbying continue to be used by the most powerful interest groups (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). As a result, government fails to recognize the interest groups system as a relevant partner in policy-making. Although the majority of interest groups were active in consultation activities, a minority of them were influential in shaping policies. However, most policy officials evaluated contacts with interest groups as useful and helpful in improving policy-making (Cox 2012). 3.2.2

The Parliament

Members of Parliament separate from the executive, interest groups and experts form policy networks in CEE countries (Fink-Hafner 1998). Yet, interest groups do not access the executive and Parliament equally. The involvement with Parliaments in CEE countries is dependent on the constitutional system, the development of the interest groups system, international organizations and the institutionalization of social partnership (Fink-Hafner 2011). Interest group’s activities are more oriented towards Parliament in those CEE countries that have Parliamentary systems, where the regulation of lobbying and transparency in the public sector is better and in countries with a participatory political culture and favourable environment for civil liberties and a strong civil society (Fink-Hafner 2011). Among our cases only Slovenia has a Parliamentary system whereas Lithuania and Poland have semi-presidential system. On the other hand, interest groups focus more on the executive in systems with more presidential elements and in Parliamentary systems where the executive is chosen by the legislature (Vidˇcak and Kotarski 2019; FinkHafner 2011). In this system the relationship between interest groups

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and Parliaments is thus weaker. The same situation is also present in systems with a strong social partnership (Fink-Hafner 2011). With regard to both criteria, the executive being chosen by the legislature and a strong social partnership, the Slovenian system anticipates the executive as the main lobbying target of interest groups. This explains why interest groups from all three countries, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia, contact ministers and civil servants at individual ministries more often than party groups in the Parliament (see Fig. 3.1 and Chapter 7 for more details), although the Parliament is more accessible and has more access points (Fink-Hafner and Krašovec 2005; Fink-Hafner et al. 2012): Parliamentarian committees, party groups, individual members of Parliament (MPs). Various interest groups are also closely connected to the party in government and as well as informal influence perform direct political lobbying of traditional power groups by relying on close friends and associations in government to reach their goals (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). However, the contacts are often informal and not regulated (PérezSolórzano Borragán 2006) due to a number of obstacles and a lack of institutionalized structures of dialogue (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). Additionally, interest groups get in contact with the Parliament once a new policy solution is already on the agenda, during the policy adoption stage and then present their position on proposed legislation, which is late in the policy process. Their inclusion in the policy formulation stage would allow them to identify alternative solutions and have a bigger impact on the policies. Consequently, with the executive having more power over the adopted policies, interest groups more frequently contact the executive. In Lithuania the Seimas is the main target of lobbying. Although the government prepares the legislative proposal, it is the Parliament that introduces major changes. Therefore, it is most reasonable for interest groups to lobby members of Parliament or party groups (Spurga 2017). Various interest groups contact the Parliament about their problems. Business associations have better contact with the Parliament compared to other associations due to resources. Additionally, the majority of deputies have some sort of business connections (Hrebenar et al. 2008). The naturally occurring interaction between political parties and interest groups does not exist in the Lithuanian context. Relations between Lithuanian national interest organizations and political parties are poorly developed, fragmented, rather sporadic and largely uninstitutionalized. That is, Lithuanian interest groups and political parties

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Courts

Naonal civil servants working for the coordinaon of EU affairs

Naonal civil servants working in departmental ministries

Naonal civil servants working in the Prime Minister's Office

Elected members from minority or opposion pares of parliament

Elected members from the majority of governing pares of parliament

Ministers

0 Belgium

Netherlands

Sweden

0.5 Lithuania

1

1.5 Poland

2

2.5

3

3.5

Slovenia

Fig. 3.1 Frequency of contacts with national institutions, mean value (1—we did not seek access, 5—at least once a week) (Source: CIG survey)

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have almost no inter-organizational relations with each other. The study also revealed that cooperation between interest groups and political parties has practically no ideological axis to unite them. Trade unions, meanwhile, are actively seeking access to both right-wing and left-wing parties, albeit with closer links to the latter. Similarly, the expected close links between business interest groups and right-wing parties have not been documented (Jankauskaite 2018a, b). In Poland the Parliamentary committees cover the last phase of the policy process when the particular draft of a new piece of legislation is already developed and thus, they are less targeted compared to the executive. Mostly they are contacted by trade unions and local governments, but also by NGOs, business organizations, professional associations and the Catholic Church (Michałek 2017). Social consultations, the default procedures in environmental planning, area development planning and in various development policies, are in many cases compulsory in Poland. This is defined in the Constitution: articles 54, 61 and 74 and also by several bills. The unstable committee membership of the Sejm limits interest groups involvement in decision-making (Olson et al. 1998). In Poland, as in Slovenia, the Parliament is bicameral with the upper house representing diverse interests. However, in both countries this institutional form of interest groups representation does not meet the desired outcomes. In Poland the upper house, the Senate, is a representative body that has far less importance than the lower house, the Sejm (Michałek 2017). Members of the Senate, unlike Members of the Sejm, are elected by direct vote. It therefore represents local interests. Although the Senate has the right to take legislative initiatives it does not have any tools to control the executive. In that sense it has a weaker position when compared to the Sejm. Since the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), the Senate also has the right to report issues about implementation of European legislation in Poland to the EU institutions. That seems to remain the only relevant point for interest groups where they can influence the process. Yet, as indicated above, due to the lower importance of the chamber, interest groups rarely use that access point. In Slovenia, Article 46 of the National Assembly’s Rules of Procedure foresees the involvement of interest groups in Parliamentary work, the working committees of the National Assembly, with the intention of gathering information, may ‘organise public hearings and invite experts and other persons who might provide useful information’ (PoDZ-1 2002).

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These rules enable the inclusion of interest groups, but they do not require it. The National Council, a semi-second Parliamentary chamber, represents social, economic, professional and local interests (National Council 2019). It is composed of 4 representatives of labour, 4 representatives of business, 4 representatives of agriculture, trade and free professions, 6 representatives of non-economic activities and 22 representatives of local interests (National Council 2019). However, the National Council has limited competencies and mainly has a consultative and representative role. Its main power originates from a suspension veto whereby the National Council may request the National Assembly to decide again on a passed law, this time with a more demanding majority. Although, in all three countries the executive represents the main target of influence, contacts with the legislative authority are also important. After all, contacts with the Parliament bring several access points since interest groups can target the upper or lower house, Members of Parliament, political groups or committees. In this way, the Parliament is more accessible and enables final changes to new legislation. 3.2.3

The Economic and Social Committees

The prominent role of the state, political parties and path-dependency mechanisms limit the access points for interest groups to get involved in policy-making in CEE countries. In neo-corporatist countries, such as Slovenia, the representation of trade unions and employers’ associations is guaranteed by the Economic and Social Council. The economic and social committees (the tripartite bodies where employers, employees and the government meet) can be the main formal channel for interest groups involvement in CEE countries. They ensure regular contacts between all the involved actors and bases for new policy communities despite disagreements (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2004). However, the role and power of economic and social committees varies across CEE countries. In Lithuania the pluralist model of interest representation prevails with only some elements of corporatism. Various interest groups have equal opportunities to get involved in the policy-making process. The main interest groups that were supposed to have regular negotiations with policy-makers due to elements of corporatism are not legally embedded in the Lithuanian environment whilst the influencing of policy-makers happens spontaneously (Spurga 2017). The tripartite Council of the

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Republic of Lithuania, established in 1995, is composed of representatives of employees, employers and the government. The council is composed of at most seven members of each partner. Since the Council frequently received unripe drafts, a permanent commission of the Council was established to examine proposals made by partners and draft laws. Additional commissions were established for civic dialogue to examine certain problems and to provide findings and suggestions. The Council has a mostly consultative role. Observations, proposals and recommendations prepared by the Council are not binding for the government nor the Parliament, with the exception of the amount of the minimum wage (European Economic and Social Committee 2010). Trade unions are also weak, poorly organized and fragmented due to outdated strategies and tactics (Hrebenar et al. 2008). In the past, the Council was effectively used by trade unions to influence policy outcomes. However, in 2015 the government did not get the approval of the Tripartite Council concerning changes in the employment act (Spurga 2017). Poland tries to maintain a pluralist approach through public consultations, but also incorporates a mixture of neo-corporatist traditions. In 1994, the Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Affairs was established that represents the most important national dialogue institution. Its members are representatives of the government appointed by the Prime Minister, representatives of larger employees, unions and employers’ associations. Each of the partners is represented by 7 members. Further other actors with an advisory voice are represented in the Commission such as the Central Statistical Office, the National Bank of Poland, the Council on Public Benefit Activities and representatives of local governments. The Commission forms opinions on social insurance, labour law, collective agreements, budget, salaries and social benefits, economic policy, labour market, social dialogue development, public services cooperation with ILO, structural funds of the EU, as well as the European Social Charter (European Economic and Social Committee 2010). Trade unions are rather weak and do not have a strong enough independent position to bargain with political practitioners and oppose unfavourable policy solutions (Kaminski ´ and Rozbicka 2016). Yet, all in all, the Commission’s effectiveness is small. And with time its importance has diminished. The survey answers collected in the CIGs Project clearly indicate the unsatisfactory nature of the Commission, its lack of consistency and even its unsustainable agenda.

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Slovenia has a neo-corporatist arrangement where the tripartite body the Economic and Social Council (ESC), established in 1994, equally represents employees, employers and the government. Each partner has eight members. It is one of the most influential bodies in Slovenia. Other organizations that are not members of the ESC can also play an active role in its work when issues related to their interest are discussed. The ESC prepares legislation, social pacts or national wage agreements. Decisions within the ESC are made by unanimity and are binding on the organizations and working bodies of all three partners. However, there are no legal sanctions for not complying with the prepared opinion of the ESC (European Economic and Social Committee 2010). The role of the ESC as ‘the highest-level body representing social partners in Slovenia’ (Economic and Social Council 2019) has lately been decreasing (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019a). Its role is however still more important than in other CEE countries. After all, Slovenia is the only post-Communist society where social pacts have been concluded systematically since the mid-1990s and have also been relatively influential and efficient mechanisms in the formation (and legitimization) of public policies (Stanojevi´c and Krašovec 2011: 232). Trade unions and business associations are in the view of other interest groups identified as influential due to their role in this neo-corporatist model of interest representation. As representative partners they are recognized in policy-making and there is a set dialogue between the partners. But they are losing their influence in policy-making compared to the past (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019a). The importance of economic and social committees varies depending on the policy-making system of the country. In a neo-corporatist system the economic and social committees have a bigger role then in a pluralist system. However, due mostly to the non-mandatory nature of membership in chambers and trade unions and the ageing profile of members in trade unions in neo-corporatist countries, the economic and social committees are slowly losing their previous power. In future years, it will be interesting to follow changes in the role of the trade unions and the economic and social committees. 3.2.4

Other Forms of Inclusion in Policy-Making

One of the other indicators of interest groups’ involvement in national politics is their membership in advisory or permanent working bodies within the political institutions. To ensure stability and negotiate order,

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some states are likely to maintain manageable and stable relationships with selected interest groups through the organization of consultative bodies. In this way, interest groups get valuable information, influence agenda setting and the formulation of public policies (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). In Lithuania, consultations with interest groups are fragmented and have more of a declaratory and recommendatory tone. Usually the consultations concentrate on draft legislation and on the search for consent instead of policy alternatives. Government institutions are not interested in the opinions of interest groups, but they are happy to stress that they were consulted on policies. In these instances, consultations are only a formal mechanism. The consultation with the government exists in the form of opinions, notices and suggestions for draft legal acts. The Rules of Procedure of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania enable ministers to consult the opinion of interest groups, but this is in practice rare (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). According to the Statute of the Seimas, every citizen has the right to participate in the procedure of the consideration of draft acts. Every draft of a legal act and other relevant information is publicly available on the website of the Seimas (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). Interest groups participate also in Committees of the Seimas that organize discussions during the preparation of the legislation and also in which representatives of interest groups can also participate. Interest groups can present their positions and suggestions that can be submitted beforehand (Spurga 2017). Legislation drafts are prior to the meeting of the committees sent to state institutions, local governments, political parties and interest groups. The participation of interest groups in the legislative process at the Seimas is limited to this stage of committee hearings and deliberation (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). The Confederation of Industrialists, an umbrella organization that gathers different companies as members has permanent professional representatives in Government and the Seimas and in this way makes regular contact with decision-makers (Spurga 2017). The law on Public Administration additionally defines that public administration needs to consult with interest groups about administrative decisions (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). In Poland, the first consultations with interest groups were organized between the 1980s and 1990s when a major trade union, Solidarity, formed a part of the Round Table Talks with the then Communist

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government (Kaminski ´ and Rozbicka 2016). Today both the government and local governments are encouraged to organize consultations with interest groups that can take the form of special commissions and include representatives of government, experts and interest groups. The aim of these commissions is to utilize the expertise and knowledge of interest groups and to come to a common position. Often permanent advisory work groups, councils and commissions for each of the Ministries are established and gather together representatives of ministries, experts and interest groups (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). The Legal Act on Lobbying Activities also established an institution of public hearings. The Council of Ministers needs to publish a programme of legislative activities at least every six months. The Parliament and ministries organize public hearings that need to be announced at least seven days before they take place. Interest groups need to confirm their participation at the hearing. However, the act lacks clarity on the reporting of public hearings. At the same time, it is not clear if the hearings have any effect (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). In Slovenia, consultations for social and economic policies are organized in a neo-corporatist style, while for other policy areas such as the environment, agriculture, research and education are organized in a pluralist style (Fink-Hafner 1998). Any legislative committee can invite experts and representatives of interest groups to their meetings to participate in debate or organize a public presentation of their opinion of a draft act. Consultations with interest groups have been formalized with the establishment of government consultative bodies (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). Interest groups with membership in councils or working groups at ministries select from among themselves representatives that will take part in the council or working group and collaborate with the government and other organizations (CNVOS 2019a). The power of the council depends on the interest groups represented in the council (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). However, consultations are often organized too late in the policy process, when the legislative proposals are already prepared, and this does not allow substantial changes from the public. They also lack summaries in plain language that would allow the broader engagement of the public (USAID 2018). New opportunity structures in Slovenia are also enabled through e-democracy tools where citizens and interest groups can share their positions on several platforms which aim to increase the participation of individuals and interest groups in the decision-making process: (1)

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predlagam.vladi.si, (2) e-demokracija and (3) stopbirokraciji.si. Platform Predlagam.vladi.si was established in 2009. In five years, they received 1505 initiatives but only 1.5% were taken into account (Cerar 2015). The use of referenda by interest groups as a method to influence policy-making remains limited. Nevertheless, we can find some examples in Slovenia in the case of the second track of the Divaˇca-Koper railway line and the case of family law. In the Western Balkan countries, the constitutional design enables the participation of interest groups in Parliamentary committees of the national Parliaments, but this is not well developed in practice (Cekik 2015). In Croatia, the government created more than 100 advisory bodies that involve more than 800 representatives of different interest groups in the policy-making process in addition to the Economic and Social Committee for social dialogue. Parliamentary working committees include more than 100 representatives of interest groups that serve as permanent members and have regular access to decision-makers in the Parliament (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). When we compare data for the inclusion of interest groups from Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia in open consultations and advisory boards we may notice that interest groups are more likely to participate in advisory boards than in open consultations. Although the majority of interest groups are not involved in any of these activities, interest groups from Poland participate in a higher share of open consultations while interest groups from Lithuania have more frequent participation in advisory boards (see Fig. 3.2). Besides the national level political actors, interest groups can lobby local or regional level authorities. This is especially the case in Lithuania and Poland. In Lithuania, municipalities are important targets of lobbying as they pursue and supervise a lot of economic activities (Spurga 2017). In Poland, interest groups prefer to lobby at the regional and local level than at the national level. This is mainly a result of reforms implemented in 1999 that reduced the centralized decisional character of Poland and introduced a three-level division of the state territory. Local governance is now conducted through the Councils which are decision-making and supervisory bodies operating at the lowest (gmina)—administrative level (Michałek 2017). They possess a reasonable level of independence as implementing agencies due to wider regionalization in the country (Demidov 2017). Taking into account the high degree of independence of the councils, it is not surprising that the vast majority of lobbying takes

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Networking with groups that have conflicng interests to your organizaon

Presenng research or technical informaon to policymakers

Served on advisory commissions or boards

Established coalions with like-minded organizaons

Responded to open consultaons by the government

0 Lithuania

Poland

Slovenia

0.5 Belgium

1

1.5

Netherlands

2

2.5

3

3.5

Sweden

Fig. 3.2 Involvement in other activities of policy-making, mean value (1—we did not do this, 5—at least once a week) (Source: CIG survey)

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place at the lowest possible level reducing a need for the existence of national level representation. In Slovenia, interest groups evaluate local officials as one of the most easily accessible political institutions but at the same time also as one of the least influential (Fink-Hafner et al. 2012). Nevertheless, the participation of interest groups in the decision-making process at the local level is improving. In 2017, guidelines for public participation in decision-making at the local level were prepared (USAID 2018). 3.2.5

The Legal Basis for Interest Groups

Legislation on civic associations, foundations, religious organizations and voluntary services such as a code of public consultations, procedures for adopting new laws, rules of procedure, etc. manage and enable the functioning of interest groups as well as setting out opportunities for interest groups to engage and participate (Cox 2012). In CEE countries, the regulation of interest groups is fragmented into different laws that also determine the role of interest groups, their rights and responsibilities. These acts in general do not guarantee the inclusion of interest groups in the policy process but only their right to be organized and active. In Lithuania, several acts guarantee the right of the public to influence policy-making and get information. This includes the Law on the Framework of Legislation, the Law on the Development of Non-governmental Organizations, the Law on Associations, the Law on the Adjustment of Public and Private Interests in Public Service, the Law on Petitions, the Law on Funding of Political Parties and Political Campaigns, and Control of Funding, the Law on the Prevention of Corruption, and the Law on Public Service and the Statutes of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (Spurga 2017). In Poland, the Foundations Act was adopted in 1984. Five years later (in 1989) a Law on Associations was introduced. A Law on Public-Benefit Organisations and Voluntary Activity was adopted in 2003 and renewed in 2010 (Ekiert et al. 2017). It defines public benefit activities as charitable activity and social assistance, science, education, gender equality, ecology and the promotion and organization of voluntary work. Other interest groups are regulated by different acts such as the Act on Education and acts that regulate relations between church and state (Ekiert et al. 2017). Based on the Law on Public-Benefit Organisations and Voluntary Activity the Council of Public Benefit Activities was established. It consists

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of representatives of the government, local governments and interest groups and is the main body in which interest groups are represented at the national level (Chabanet and Trechsel 2011). In 2017, the Law on Assemblies was amended to introduce a hierarchy between the assemblies. The Act on the Transparency of Public Life was put into law in 2018 and controls financial support from abroad, which has a potentially restrictive impact on public participation and allows insufficient time for consultations. The government recently also established a new central agency (the NCRSO) based on the Act on the National Centre for Civil Society Development that administers the development of interest groups and centralizes government supervision over interest groups (USAID 2018). In Slovenia, freedom of association was enabled in 1986 with a modernized law on societies. Today, different acts recognize mainly three forms of associations: societies (društva), institutes (zavodi) and foundations (ustanove) (Fink-Hafner and Novak 2017). Other forms of interest groups are regulated by the Cooperatives Act, the Freedom of Religion Act, the Youth Councils Act, the Students Associations Act, various Chambers acts and the Representativeness of the Trade Unions Act (Novak 2017). In 2011, the Act on Volunteering and Social Entrepreneurship was adopted, and this was then amended in 2015. Since 2018, the Non-Governmental Organizations Act is also in force. The adoption of the act was a result of a long process of negotiations and was eagerly awaited and assisted by the nongovernmental organizations (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019b). 3.2.6

Regulation of Lobbying

Regulations and laws on lobbying and contact between interest groups and decision-makers influence the character and extent of contact between such groups and political institutions (Fink-Hafner 2011). Laws on the regulation of lobbying can contribute to the more transparent inclusion of interest groups in the policy-making process and as a consequence, higher approval and trust ratings for interest groups. Unfortunately, these laws in CEE countries often do not contribute to more transparent interest mediation. In Lithuania, the law on lobbying was adopted in 2000. The latest amendment to the Law came into force in 2017, introducing two important alterations. The concept of a lobbyist has been changed to include not only natural persons but also legal entities. It also introduced a new

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transparency and accountability-related change: the concept of a lobbying activity report. The reporting and content of the lobbying activity report obliges all natural and legal persons engaged in lobbying activities to submit an annual lobbying activity report identifying their clients, as well as which legal acts or draft legal acts for which the lobbyist has performed lobbying activities (Lašas and Jankauskaite 2019: 15). The law foresees that lobbyists have to register with a special register of lobbyists and by this obtain the right to pursue the lobbying activities. The register until now includes only around 35 registered lobbyists which do not reflect the actual scope of lobbying activities in Lithuania (Spurga 2017). However, the problem still remains with various interest organizations—NGOs and other associations—that are still not obliged to register as lobbyist. Due to gaps in the act, lobbying often takes advantage of informal contacts, is not transparent or regulated and is unrecorded. In Poland, the Act on Lobbying adopted in 2005 was a result of EU pressures. In principle, the law regulates only professional lobbyists, requiring them to register their interest in such activity, under a financial penalty of performing lobbying without registration. After the registration the lobbyists receive a 3-month certificate that has to be presented by the professional lobbyist while contacting a politician or representative of the public administration. On the other side politicians and, with increasing emphasis, also figures in the public administration are obliged to prepare a detailed report on every contact they have had with professional lobbyists, including the level of the lobbyists influence on the decision made by the public body. Such reports are supposed to be made public. However, the law is ineffective (Kwiatkowski 2016; Michałek 2017). It imposes extensive obligations and restrictions on the professional lobbyists in their contacts. Thus, many lobbying activities were taken over by associations that are not regulated by the act on lobbying (Michałek 2017). The act also imposes additional extensive and detailed reporting requirements on policy officials and administrators, who, as a consequence, tend to avoid contacts with professionals. By default, lobbying activities have moved towards lower administrative levels, where the registration procedure is not required. In Slovenia, lobbying activity is regulated in the same act as corruption (the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act). Consequently, lobbying activity is perceived as closely connected to corruption and informal practices. At the same time, the definition of an interest group in the same act is rather negative as it limits the activity of interest group only to lobbying.

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Joining lobbying activity and corruption under the same regulation is one of the main criticisms of this act. The act came into force in 2010 but has been amended twice already in 2011. An additional problem of the act is that the majority of interest groups remain inadequately familiarized with it (Fink-Hafner et al. 2012). Lobbyists (in the form of natural persons) are obliged to register. In 2019 the register included 76 registered lobbyists. However, employees and representatives of interest groups do not need to register. Policy officials on the other hand need to report on the contact that they had with different interests. The information on this contact is publicly available. In the first year, hardly any officials reported on their contact with interest groups but in more recent years the numbers of reported contacts are increasing. However, especially at the local level, there are hardly any reports of the contact between lobbyists and local authorities. Despite the criticism, the Slovenian regulation of lobbying is evaluated as exemplary for promotion of ethical lobbying by Transparency International followed by Lithuania among European countries (Spurga 2017).

3.3

Comparisons Between Post-Communist Countries and Western Democracies

The inclusion of interest groups in the policy-making process can bring valuable knowledge, insights and data on specific issues, warn about poorly deliberated and difficult to implement public policies, prevent corruption and hold the government accountable (Martini 2012). It is for these reasons that the inclusion of interest groups in policy-making is favourable. It has been a much longer established tradition in old, established, Western Democracies and it translates from the national level also to the supranational level. Hafner-Fink et al. (2016) demonstrated that interest groups from older democracies and older EU member states have more frequent contact with EU political institutions and are more likely to take advantage of the opportunity structures offered at EU level. To be able to estimate the level of interest groups inclusion in Central and Eastern Europe it is worth comparing the data also with countries from Western Europe. In this way, we can get a larger picture on interest mediation in the policy process. However, the system of interest mediation is not only different between CEE countries and Western Democracies, but we can also find different levels of interest groups involvement in policymaking within the region. For this reason, we will compare contacts with

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national political institutions and the utilization of other opportunities for involvement in policy-making by interest groups from CEE countries and other Western countries. We will use data from the Comparative interest groups survey (CIGs survey) (Beyers et al. 2020). When we compare interest groups from Slovenia, Poland and Lithuania, we can notice similar patterns of access to national political institutions. Interest groups seek access most often with national civil servants working in departmental ministries and with individual ministers. Interest groups from Lithuania have slightly more frequent contacts while Slovenian interest groups lag behind the other two countries (see Fig. 3.1). When looking at the countries from Western Europe as a comparison, interest groups from the Netherlands have more frequent contacts with civil servants from departmental ministries as well as with members of Parliament from both coalition and opposition party groups. Interest groups from Belgium and the Netherlands have less frequent contacts with ministers in comparison to interest groups from CEE countries. Interest groups from Sweden have comparably frequent contacts. However, in all countries, interest groups more often contact civil servants at government ministries than Members of Parliament. In the Western Balkan countries, interest groups have frequent and good contacts with their national political institutions although the maintenance of contacts brings certain levels of difficulty, especially in Serbia. The most frequent contact occurs at the local level between interest groups and local self-government institutions. The executive remains the central actor and many lobbying activities are directed towards the working level of the government. In fact, the frequency of contacts is highest with executive institutions, where most of the legislative proposals are prepared. On the other hand, interest groups less frequently contact national Parliaments, political parties, individual members of Parliament or Parliamentary committees. At the same time, it is most difficult to get access to national governments and national Parliaments (Cekik 2015). The inclusion of interest groups in national policy-making is often only formal and a result of international incentives. Nonetheless, there are differences between interest group types. Business groups and professional associations experience the least difficulty in accessing both the government and the Parliament (Cekik 2015). Research in Hungary in 1994, 1998 and 2001 revealed that interest group’s activities were directed towards the government. More than

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two-thirds of interest groups were at least somewhat active, and the percentage of very active interest groups increased over the years. Interest groups used different strategies to access the government from formal and informal contacts to demonstrations and protests. Despite the frequent activities of interest groups and a wide range of tactics and strategies used to influence government policy, the effectiveness of interest groups is not self-evident (Cox 2012). When we compare the data on the inclusion of interest groups from Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia in other forms of participation, we notice that interest groups from Lithuania are, in comparison to other CEE countries, the most active in networking activities, presenting research and in serving on advisory boards. Interest groups from Poland on the other hand, are more likely to respond to open consultations by the government and to organize coalitions. Slovenian interest groups are the least active in comparison to interest groups from Western Europe, which are predominantly more involved in diverse opportunity structures, but the differences are not always big and depend on which two countries are compared. Interest groups from Sweden are more likely to respond to open consultations and to establish coalitions. Belgian interest groups are the most active members of advisory boards. Interest groups from the Netherlands are more likely to network with conflicting organizations and just a little bit more active than Belgian interest groups in presenting research and technical information to policy-makers (see Fig. 3.2). Research result show that although interest groups from Western Europe appear to have more frequent contact with national political institutions and more often take advantage of opportunity structures for their involvement in decision-making, the differences between CEE countries and Western European countries are not that big nor always present. It mostly depends on which two countries you compare.

3.4

Conclusions

Despite interest group’s activity and involvement in policy-making in CEE countries, the interest groups system is often perceived as weak especially in relation to Western Democracies. However, research shows that in post-Communist countries, extensive interest group activity and examples of successful lobbying for policy results can be found (Cox 2012). Additionally, the access of interest groups to policy-makers and the use of opportunity structures among CEE countries is not always

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the lowest. However, the primary possession of power by the executive obstructs the establishment of a level playing field, which would be helpful for new interest groups and their involvement in policy-making (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). The institutional structure differs between CEE countries. While it is fairly favourable in Slovenia, it already finds some challenges in Lithuania especially due to the weak Tripartite Council and the absence of an upper house in the Parliament and there are serious obstructions in Poland where the new right-wing government is decreasing the use of public consultations. The easiest access to policymakers does not always means the most frequent access (e.g. the case of Slovenia). It seems like the institutional structure does not explain the frequency of contact, but we have to keep in mind that the frequency of contact does not include any information about the accessibility of the institutions and the efficiency of such contacts. It might also be that where the institutional structure is more favourable to interest groups, these interest groups do not need to frequently contact the policy-makers since they already have an established relationship and each contact is more successful. The development of institutional structures can be the result of different factors. The institutional structures in the CEE countries is a result namely of three different processes. One in particular is the external forces that influence the involvement of interest groups from CEE countries in policy-making. Among these forces the most noticeable is the effect of the European Union. In many countries the accession process contributed to the development of consultation mechanisms which have lost meaning after the accession or were followed only at the minimal level, with the intention to fulfil the demands of the European Commission and at the same time ensure a more operative and practical process of policy-making. While the Europeanization processes in general contributed to more inclusive policy-making, the other two processes: the heritage of the old, Communist system and the characteristics of interest group systems that are predominantly young and inexperienced in lobbying inhibits the development of the unbiased inclusion of interest groups in decision-making. The processes can in this way support or obstruct open institutional structures. In the future, we can expect that the effect of Europeanization process will further increase while the effect of the heritage of the old system will slowly die out. With the changing effects of these two processes, the characteristics of the interest groups system will change. The opportunities for national interest groups from

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CEE countries to participate in the policy-making process will be in this way, more and more dependent on the politics of national governments and parties in power as well as the politics of the EU.

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CHAPTER 4

The Drivers Behind Relations Between Interest Organizations and Political Parties in the CEE Countries

4.1 Discussing Interest Organizations and Parties’ Positions While political parties have kept scholarly attention, research on interest groups has also gained popularity. With a few notable examples however (Thomas 2001; Witko 2009; Allern 2010; Allern and Bale 2012, 2017; Otjes and Rasmussen 2017), we lack a systematic analysis of the interactions between these two actors. As Allern argues (2010: 5), party–interest group relationships have simply been taken for granted. Beyers et al. (2008) further adds that both groups are often seen as living in parallel universes, which have developed in similar and symbiotic ways (Beyers et al. 2008). Usually, scholars look at the most obvious examples—relationships between parties and their collateral organizations. Typically, the usual suspects are left-wing parties and trade unions, peasant parties and agrarian associations or conservative parties and business groups. It is assumed here that interest groups and political parties are mutually dependant on each other. Groups could provide parties key resources during election campaigns, and then it is reciprocated by giving them privileged access to policy-makers (Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013). The salience of such—often centuries long—relationships has recently waned (Katz and Mair 1995). Parties still interact with groups but in a less structured and institutionalized way. Contacts between groups are less frequent,

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usually ad hoc and consist of occasional meetings and campaigns (Otjes and Rasmussen 2017). Furthermore, when focusing solely on collateral organizations a myriad of other types of organized interests are often omitted: social movement organizations, professional associations or leisure groups. Such groups may not have long-lasting relationships with political parties, however these groups, which Truman (1993) called latent interest groups, could episodically become interested in contacting political parties. Groups are seen here as transmission belts between society and the political system, where they aggregate policy preferences and bring them to the political arena, in the form of agenda setting, as well as influencing policy processes. For instance, when interest groups and the public are on the same page in terms of policy preferences, the likelihood of adopting the related law rises (Gilens 2012; Rasmussen et al. 2018). However, the existing research on interactions between political parties and interest groups usually takes into account only West European countries or the United States. We know much less about what the patterns of interaction between parties and groups look like in post-Communist democracies from Central Eastern Europe (CEE). Particularly, the role of organized interests—with some notable exceptions1 —has been neglected in the literature (Dobbins and Riedel 2018). This chapter attempts to shed some light on these patterns by using cross-national surveys of almost 1200 interest groups from Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. Firstly, we provide an overview of democratic transformation and highlight the differences in the evolution of civil society and political parties in Western Europe and CEE. Secondly, we investigate the factors behind the patterns of interactions between different types of interest groups and political parties through multivariate analysis. Our key contribution is to determine which interest groups contact political parties and what characteristics these groups have.

4.2

The Post-Communist Transformation

The development of civil society and political parties has been different in CEE countries (Kitschelt 1995; Kitschelt et al. 1999; Mair 1997; Enyedi 2006; Casal-Bértoa and Mair 2012). The departure point for democracy 1 It is worth mentioning here research on Slovenia (Fink-Hafner 1998; Fink-Hafner and Krasovec 2005), Czechia (Císaˇr and Vráblíková 2013), and Lithuania Hrebenar et al. (2008).

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was not a centuries-long overlapping process, but rather the unexpected collapse of Communism. In consequence, the transition was three-fold, with the simultaneous creation of new political, economic and constitutional systems, and in some cases also new states (Offe and Adler 1991; Bunce 1995). Furthermore, there has been consensus in the literature that the Communist past still matters (Pop-Eleches and Tucker 2012). 45 years of authoritarian regimes destroyed traditional parties, weakened classes and interests and undermined the social trust necessary to kick-start social participation (Crawford and Lijphart 1995). While in Western Europe, organizations representing major interests in civil society were active in promoting democratization, in CEE, the regimes usually tolerated only those organizations that were controlled by the Communist commissars. On the supply side, immediately after the fall of Communism, there was an urgent need to hold competitive elections. However, political parties barely existed and political leadership did not actually know what voters wanted. As a consequence, parties inflated the market, came and went, creating surges in voting volatility. As Enyedi (2006: 211) argues, the post-Communist party systems have been relatively weakly institutionalized, fragmented or even atomized, feeble and unrepresentative. The relationship between parties and citizens has often been soured further by the elitist character of party politics. Where does this leave us with CEE countries? As Katz and Mair (2012) point out, political parties in the post-Communist democracies share many problems with the ones in old democracies, but contrary to them, they do not have the institutional advantage of functioning for several decades. Moreover, it has been debated that parties in CEE might jump right away to the cartel model, where relationships with interest groups and, in general, civil society would be loose (Szczerbiak 2001; Sikk 2003; van Biezen 2003). At the same time, there have been concerns that civil society itself would be so weak and fragmented that it would not channel societal interests into organized forms (Dobbins and Riedel 2018). Katz and Mair (2012) even argued that political parties instead of arduously building relationships with civil society, could take a shortcut, building their own organizations and establishing a permanent dominance over them. Despite this gloomy perspective, the political parties in CEE still play an important role as gatekeepers to political power: controlling government, legislation on the national and European level, the distribution of

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European Union funds, as well as being influential with local communities. More importantly, all three countries have legislative processes as well as lobbying regulations anchored in their national parliaments, with the involvement of MPs and political parties, which convince us it would be a desired venue for them to seek access (Fink-Hafner 2017; Spurga 2017; Olejnik 2014). Lithuania adopted a law that regulated lobbying and interest group access to policy-makers. The Law on Lobbying, adopted in 2003, established a mandatory register of lobbyists. Once a lobbyist or an interest group is registered, they have access to parliamentary and commission hearings. The current regulations have many critics as NGOs and various associations do not have to be registered to seek access to policy-makers or influence legislation (Spurga 2017). Similarly to Lithuania, Poland also introduced regulations on lobbying in 2005, by adopting the Lobbying Act. The public register is mandatory and also requires interest groups to declare when and where they attempted to influence legislation. It also requires all public authorities participating in the law-making process to declare their lobby contacts. Apart from the lobby register set up under the Lobbying Act, the two parliamentary chambers keep their own registers of lobbyists accessing their premises. The main critique of the regulations in Poland discusses primarily the sole focus on professional lobbyists and therefore the exclusion of associations, foundations and other NGOs.2 In Slovenia, lobbying and the activity of interest groups is regulated by the Prevention of Corruption Act of 2010. The law requires officials (particularly members of parliament and government) to report contacts with professional lobbyists and interest groups (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019). As Novak and Fink-Hafner argue, lobbying in Slovenia’s National Assembly is a convenient venue for seeking access to policy-makers, particularly for those interest groups that have difficulties accessing the executive (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019; see also in Chapter 3). Moreover, each of these countries has a growing number of third sector organizations, trade unions associated internationally and business and employers’ organizations (Ekiert and Kubik 2017; Jacobsson and Saxonberg 2013). Furthermore, all of them have been influenced by the process of Europeanization that supports changes in national 2 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_B RI(2016)595848.

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interest groups political culture in the direction of a more pro-active approach to influencing national policy processes (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; Fink-Hafner 2014; see also in Chapter 3). Thirdly, the EU pre-accession talks institutionalized the procedure of legislative lobbing, which in theory should encourage interest groups to have systemized relations with parties who have MPs in national parliaments (Grabbe 2001; Cekik 2017). Finally, all three countries underwent democratic and economic transition at the beginning of the 1990s, then joined the European Union in 2004. However, each country varies not only in population and size, but in institutional choices in the transition to capitalism and democracy, the strength of civil society and the characteristics of social partnerships (Howard 2003; Bohle and Greskovits 2012; Fink-Hafner 2011).3

4.3

Conceptualizing the Relationship Between Parties and Groups

There are various definitions and interpretations of what an interest group is (for this discussion see Beyers et al. 2008). In this chapter, we follow the definition of interest group provided by Thomas (2001: 7): ‘An interest group is an association of individuals or organizations, usually formally organized, that attempts to influence public policy’.4 On the other hand, a political party is ‘any political group that presents at elections, and is capable of placing through elections, candidates for public office’ (Sartori 1976: 64). The fundamental question for our analysis is why do interest groups and political parties interact? To answer this, we should firstly focus on the organizational evolution of political parties. The nature of their relationships with interest groups was certainly different during the dominance of the mass party model, when parties often relied on grassroots support

3 For example, the V-Dem data (https://www.v-dem.net) shows that in ‘the core civil society index’, which measures on a 0–1 scale the autonomy of civil society and how citizens freely and actively pursue their political and civic goals, however conceived, Lithuania scores 0.80, Poland 0.72 and Slovenia 0.92. 4 The quote comes originally from Thomas, C. S., & Hrebenar, R. (1999). Interest Groups in the States. In V. Gray, R. L. Hanson, & H. Iacob (Eds.), Politics in the American States: A Comparative Analysis. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

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from their collateral organizations (Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013). With the emergence of the catch-all model, political parties attempted to appeal to broader audiences. In consequence, parties took a more independent position on interest groups, trying to free themselves from those constraining relationships (Katz and Mair 1995; Allern and Bale 2012). In the 1990s, Katz and Mair (1995) argued in their seminal article that we have been facing the cartelization of party politics. Cartel parties have become detached from their traditional constituencies even more as their dependence on state subsidies have grown substantially. Such parties penetrate and operate within the state, are highly professionalized and weakly anchored in society (Mair 1997; van Biezen et al. 2012; van Biezen and Poguntke 2014; Fraussen and Halpin 2018). As recent studies show, interest groups still contact political parties, but it happens in a less structured and institutionalized manner (Allern and Bale 2012; Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013; Otjes and Rasmussen 2017). Otjes and Rasmussen (2017) distinguish two key factors determining the collaboration between groups and parties: ideology and power. The former concerns aligning with parties that have similar policy goals (Hall and Wayman 1990). By doing so, both political parties and interest groups have incentives to pursue such relationships because of a shared common goal. Groups need legislative friends, and political parties need informational and financial resources (Giger and Klüver 2016). Interest groups often have specialized knowledge on policy issues political parties may lack. Furthermore, the smaller ideological distance between groups and parties saves their credibility and makes it easier for them to explain the relationship to their supporters and constituents than would be the case with, for example, a collaboration between a left-leaning organization and a conservative political party. Secondly, the argument around power is defined by an exchange perspective, where interest groups should contact the most influential political parties. Groups and parties use their institutional position to exchange goods and make relationships mutually beneficial (Allern et al. 2007). A political party might be interested not only in money, but also in the specific know-how a group could provide or in them supporting and legitimizing certain policies. On the other hand, groups need powerful parties to advance their goals (Christiansen 2012; Otjes and Rasmussen 2017). When the costs of maintaining such close ties become too high, either both or one of the actors should back out (Allern et al. 2007; Christiansen 2012).

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Who Contacts Whom and Why?

The resource-based model assumes that both sides have something to offer to one another (Beyers and Kerremans 2007; Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013; Allern 2010), whether that is information, financial contributions, staff or expertise. As Allern and Bale (2012: 106) argue, ‘through interest groups, parties may still mobilize their constituencies, seek regular financial support, and get access to valuable political information’. Trade unions for decades provided a disciplined electorate for left-wing parties, which in return offered the unions access to political power or pledges of labour-friendly political reforms (Ebbinghaus 1995; Allern et al. 2007). The same pattern could be observed for conservative parties and business/employers’ associations or agrarian parties and peasants’ organizations (Thomas 2001; Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013). Moreover, there is evidence that interest groups try to lobby Parliamentarians, who could be influential in supporting desired policy goals (Hojnacki and Kimball 1998; Marshall 2010). One of the main differences between interest groups are their budgets (Baumgartner et al. 2009). We expect that wealthy groups will target a large number of political parties, irrespective of the ideological positioning of these parties. The larger financial means might allow groups to expand their inside and outside lobbing strategies. Groups could hire more lobbyists who contact policy-makers on the behalf of the organization. In the case of indirect lobbying, the financial flexibility can help with organizing PR campaigns or grassroots lobbing that might pressure politicians and their political parties. Furthermore, it allows them to hire experts or invest in research to provide better analysis, which can be used to lobby politicians. Thirdly, in the face of elections, interest groups can contribute to political parties’ campaigns, in anticipation of access, a voice and policy influence. Which leads us to the fourth point where having a big spending budget could—subjectively—increase a groups’ legitimacy among policy-makers as they might be seen as too big to leave out of the policy process. It is important also to differentiate here between different forms of membership. Social Movement Organizations (SMO), Non-Profit Organizations (NPO) or trade unions usually have individuals as members, however, business associations or producers’ organizations often represent private businesses, corporations and other entities. Therefore, to omit skewing the effects on contact with political parties, we will treat different

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types of membership separately as an independent variable. In any case, we expect a positive effect of the group size on the number of interactions with political parties. Groups with a larger staff have more resources to build up different kinds of activities and may also be regarded as more attractive cooperation partners Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia joined the European Union together in 2004. Since then, various EU funds—distributed by national agencies and provincial governments—have been a valuable part of NGOs and SMOs’ budgets (see for example: Sanchez Salgado 2014). On average EU funds make up to 50% of organizations’ budgets (Przewłocka et al. 2013).5 Scholars familiar with the population ecology model often point out the role of financial resources as the main condition for a groups’ survival. We argue that state-funding and redistribution of funds is even more crucial in the young democracies of CEE (Pospieszna 2018). Not being fully embedded into civil society means groups are often lacking a membership base, therefore groups striving for survival might become closely connected to the state and evolve from being protest-oriented to a more consensual style of functioning (Fraussen 2014). This argument is supported by broader comparative research into postCommunist EU democracies, where CSOs were not only shown as weakly rooted in civil society, but also their leaders admitted that in the process of implementing new services or policies, they preferred to gain the support of politicians and public administrators than their constituents (Makowski 2009). We expect that groups which are resource-dependent on state and EU funding would be motivated to keep active linkages with political parties. By offering financial resources and legal recognition to interest organizations, public authorities enhance the latter’s chances of survival and shape their development through formal and informal pressures. Business organizations often enjoy privileged access to policy-makers (Tresch and Fischer 2014). Such groups tend also to have more resources in terms of financial means, members and personal acquaintances with politicians. It is also assumed that business associations are more inclined to contact right-wing parties and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSO) rely more on contacts with left-wing parties (Wonka 2017). Dür and de Bièvre (2007) emphasize nonetheless the structural power business groups have by being 5 For comparative analysis of Commission funding (see Mahoney and Beckstrand 2011; also see Císaˇr and Vráblíková 2013).

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representatives of concentrated interests. Business groups are equipped with technical knowledge. Political parties are in need of such knowledge to draw up legislative proposals (Dür and Mateo 2012). We expect that this gives leverage and incentive for business groups to pursue policymakers in pursuit of more favourable policy outcomes. In contrast, NGOs and CVOs, representing diffuse interests, are not privileged in that matter and focus more on outside lobbying. Traditionally in neo-corporatist systems major interest groups—particularly trade unions, employers’ and business associations—are granted special access to the policy-making process (Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013). In contrast, in countries with pluralist systems there is no fixed pattern of relationship between interest groups and the government. Low levels of coordination might potentially weaken the position of trade unions, however, as such, groups could have more opportunities to choose the right venue to lobby for their cause instead of imposed tripartite commissions (Witko 2009). Slovenia is the only post-Communist country in the EU that meets the criteria of neo-corporatism (Bohle and Greskovits 2007). Union density is relatively high, collective agreements reach almost 100% of the working population, collective bargaining is centralized, and most importantly, the Economic and Social Council institutionalized social dialogue and provided the venue to influence public policies (Crowley and Stanojevi´c 2011; Guardiancich 2012). Hence, we expect less contact with political parties and more with government in neo-corporatist Slovenia (Johannsen and Krašovec 2017), while in pluralist countries (Lithuania and to a lesser extent Poland) the direction should be the opposite (for details see Chapter 3).

4.5 Access Points: Lobbing Government vs Lobbing Parties There are different access points for interest groups to choose from. The decision on which often depends on the issue of interest, the capabilities of the group itself and by recognition of the ‘accessible’ point. As the chapter’s focus is on political parties and legislative lobbing, we discuss only briefly the impact of lobbying the executive. In the survey, in which we collected data for this book (see Chapter 1 for details), the interviewees were asked about seeking access to political institutions, among them the government and ministries (QID33). ‘Seeking access’ of course does

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70 60 50 %

40 Lithuania

30

Poland 20

Slovenia

10 0 Ministers

Civil Servants in PM's office

Civil Servants in Ministries

Civil Servants working on EU affairs

Fig. 4.1 Seeking access to different governmental institutions

not mean ‘having access’, the variable is used as a proxy (Beyers et al., 2016). Figure 4.1 shows the distribution of responses. As can be seen, there are substantial differences between all three countries. Lithuania‘s government and ministries appear to be heavily lobbied by interest groups. Lithuania is striking in every category—more than 60% of the groups were seeking to contact the prime minister or one of the ministries. Around 40% reported an attempt to contact civil servants in the prime minister’s office or in one of the other ministries. One of the striking differences between countries is the very low level of activity reported by Polish interest groups. Only 30% tried to contact one of the ministries. Interestingly, the differences somewhat even out when we compare seeking contact with civil servants in ministries. The inactivity of Polish interest groups is explained by the restrictive nature of the avenues they have to influence public policies. Those are primarily monitored by a small circle of leading party leaders. It is a well-known fact and many interest groups and lobbyists have publicly complained about it.6 Now we move to our main focus, namely the relationship between interest groups and political parties. Our dependent variable is contact with political parties, measured by the following question (QID32): 6 See for example: Rzeczpospolita (22 February 2018), ‘W Sejmie juz˙ nie ma lobbystów’ (translation: There are no more lobbyists in Parliament). Available at https://www. rp.pl/Polityka/302219907-W-Sejmie-juz-nie-ma-lobbystow.html. Last accessed 5 October 2019.

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During the last 12 months, how often has your group actively sought access to members, MPs or officials affiliated with the following parties in the parliament? The interviewees were presented with a list of major parties that have representatives in the European and national parliaments. The answer options were: 0 = we did not seek access, 1 = at least once a year, 2 = at least once every three months, 3 = at least once a month, and 4 = at least once a week. The potential drawback is that this implies a very low threshold, namely one contact a year is sufficient to be included in the category of organizations that established contact with these parties. The variable was dummy-coded to indicate ‘contact’ and ‘no contact’. Groups that did not answer the question were discarded from the analysis. To measure the groups’ budget, we asked (QID08): What was the annual operating budget of your organization in 2016 in Euros? The respondents were able to choose from eight categories, however, after recoding, it was scaled down to three categories (low—medium—high budget).7 The membership size was measured by the question (QID04): Listed below are different types of members. Please indicate for each type of member how many people/organizations support your organization. The respondents could choose the number of members from several categories (1–10, 11–100, etc.) and between different types of membership: individual, corporate, civil society organizations and governmental. The governmental membership was omitted as we are interested mainly in organizational types that originate from society. We did not compute categories into one variable, as it is possible an interest organization offered membership to several groups, for example individuals and as well corporate members. The extent of subsidies and European funds was measured by the question (QID09): Organizations get financial support from different sources. Please indicate the percentage of your organization’s 2016 budget that came from the various sources listed below. Respondents were asked to estimate the percentage influence (of 100% total) of each source: membership subscriptions, donations from individuals, contributions from corporate sponsors, funding from national governments and funding from European Union programmes. The two last categories were 7 To keep it comparable with other countries in the project, the currency was EUR even though in Poland it is Polish Zloty. To keep the numbers balanced, we recoded the variable into three categories: (1) 500,001 EUR.

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used in the analysis. They were not recoded into one variable, as it would skew the effect of one or the other. Additionally, we used the log-transformed age of the groups as a control variable. It was measured by asking the respondents about the year the organization was established. Secondly, we controlled for group types, using the INTERARENA typology scheme (Baroni et al. 2014) and that is: (1) business groups, (2) professionals, (3) trade unions, (4) identity groups, (5) cause groups, (6) leisure groups, (7) institutions and political authorities and (8) other. To test our hypotheses multiple logistic regression was used, as our dependant variable is binary and there are more predictor variables.

4.6

Analysis

Firstly, the set of descriptive statistics is presented. Figure 4.2 shows that Lithuanian and Polish interest groups do indeed contact MPs more often than their counterparts in Slovenia. Almost 70% of Slovenian interest groups do not contact political parties, either from the government coalition or the opposition. What is also interesting is that the electoral outcome of political parties does not always predict which one would be the groups’ favourite. It could have been argued that the most popular and the biggest parties should be contacted more often. However, for example in the case of Poland, Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska), which lost the last parliamentary elections is contacted almost as much as the ruling Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´sc´ ). This might show that there are other factors that groups see as valuable, possibly concerning multilevel politics—either on the European or regional level. Table 4.1 shows the results of multiple logistic regression models, including coefficients and standard errors. In Model 1, we employ only the core variables for our analysis—membership and budgetary capabilities. What seems to be clear is that interest groups’ financial resources do play an important role, being statistically significant. In the second model (Model 2) business groups were added. In the next model (Model 3), another variable of interest was included in the model, namely subsidies from the government and EU. In Model 4, we control for the organizational type of interest groups. Finally, in the last model (Model 5), country dummies were added and the log-transformed groups’ age. Due to difficulties associated with interpreting effects in logistic regressions,

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Percent of groups declaring contact with polical pares SLOVENIA SV SLS SDS ZL Nsi DeSuS SD SMC POLAND TR* SLD* Kukiz N PSL PO PiS LITHUANIA DK LLRA PTT LVZS LRLS DP TSLKD LSDP 0

10

20

30

40

50

Percent of groups declaring contact with polical pares

Fig. 4.2 Contacts with political parties

we calculated the average marginal effects (AME), which are presented in Fig. 4.3.

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Table 4.1 Impact of interest groups contacting political parties Dependent variable: Contact with political parties

Individual members—Low (Ref. category—Medium) Individual members—High Corporate members—Low (Ref. category—Medium) Corporate members—High Budget—Medium (Ref. category—Low) Budget—High Business groups Subsidies Cause groups Identity groups Trade unions Professionals Group age (log) Lithuania (Ref. category Poland)

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

0.731***

0.682**

0.405

0.490

0.362

(0.260) 0.600***

(0.272) 0.617***

(0.355) 0.391

(0.365) 0.399

(0.387) 0.306

(0.215) 0.397**

(0.217) 0.412**

(0.255) 0.462*

(0.265) 0.510**

(0.280) 0.344

(0.202)

(0.204)

(0.242)

(0.247)

(0.277)

0.286

0.231

0.259

0.318

0.320

(0.257) 0.736***

(0.271) 0.733***

(0.321) 0.807***

(0.326) 0.760***

(0.348) 0.913***

(0.211) 1.054*** (0.293)

(0.211) 1.063*** (0.293) 0.170 (0.268)

(0.252) 1.077*** (0.339) 0.093 (0.321) 0.007** (0.003)

(0.265) 1.074*** (0.354) 0.296 (0.366) 0.008** (0.003) 0.190 (0.365) 0.240 (0.341) 1.840*** (0.617) 0.213 (0.310)

(0.282) 1.219*** (0.387) 0.170 (0.375) 0.008** (0.003) 0.341 (0.394) 0.220 (0.351) 1.855*** (0.622) 0.121 (0.318) 0.005 (0.379) 1.015***

(continued)

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Table 4.1 (continued) Dependent variable: Contact with political parties (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

−1.758*** (0.279) 456 −269.794 0,13 565.589

(0.394) 0.442 (0.377) −2.237*** (0.640) 452 −262.886 0,14 557.772

Slovenia Constant Observations Log likelihood Adjusted R2 AIC

−1.287*** (0.156) 621 −383.939 0,09 781.878

−1.310*** (0.161) 621 −383.739 0,09 783.478

−1.485*** (0.193) 456 −274.576 0,12 567.152

Note * p < 0.1; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.01

4.7

What Explains Party---Group Interactions?

As was observed above, groups and political parties in CEE countries contact each other significantly less often than those in Western Europe. Comparing to the Netherlands (47% of groups reported contact), Belgium (32%) and the European Union as a whole (61%), in Lithuania only 22% of groups contact political parties, 22% in Poland and only 14% in Slovenia.8 The richer the group, the more likely it is that it will seek contact with policy-makers. With a bigger budget, the chance of contacting a political party increases by 0.26. The variable is robust in every model employed. Keeping in mind that access does not necessarily mean influence, it supports the current findings that financially privileged organizations might want to advocate more intensively. In two available studies (Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013; Beyers and Heylen 2017) where the impact of financial resources was being tested in West European countries, the same pattern could be observed. Interestingly, the salience of budget does not correlate with the importance of business associations often perceived as having privileged access (Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013; Duer and Matteo 2012; Bunea 2013). As the different models show, the overall levels of significance of the included variables were not affected as additional variables were added. Hence, financial resources are a useful predictor of group-party interactions in the three studied countries.

8 Country reports could be found at http://www.cigsurvey.eu/.

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Fig. 4.3 Average marginal effects for contacting political parties

Secondly, the impact of membership size in predicting the contact with political parties is visible. However, it varies as more variables are included in the model. This is quite surprising as it is contradictory to the results of other studies. For example, the study of Rasmussen and Lindeboom (2013) has shown in the examples of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark that having a large base of supporters would result in a more significant and robust impact. The lack of a relation between these two variables is important from the perspective of interest groups as transmission belts between the public and policy-makers. So far, we cannot find any convincing evidence supporting that claim.

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Thirdly, we find no evidence that subsidies affect the relationship between interest groups and political parties in any meaningful way. The impact here is really small, particularly if we look at the average marginal effects. We can again refer to the above-mentioned study of Rasmussen and Lindeboom (2013), who also did not find support for any impact of subsidies in West European democracies. Thus, in this perspective we see similarities between Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia and the UK, the Netherlands and Denmark. The impact of resource-rich business groups could not be observed. This is contrary to the common wisdom in the literature (see for example: Bunea 2013; Wonka et al. 2010; Fisker 2015), where, for example, business groups representing big companies from strategic parts of the economy are better positioned to have access to policy-makers. It should be mentioned that controlling for other types of organizations—cause groups, identity groups, professionals and trade unions—did not weaken the model. Surprisingly, though, trade unions appear to be significant predictors of establishing contact with political parties. Much has been written about the diminishing importance of labour movements in CEE during the 1990s and early 2000s (Kaminski ´ and Rozbicka 2016; Ost and Crowley 2001; Ost 2009; Meardi 2007; Mrozowicki et al. 2010; Crowley and Stanojevi´c 2011). This is not necessarily mutually exclusive with robustness of contacts presented above. Weak and fragmented labour organizations might mean that they are more dependent on political parties. As a result, parties can easily establish dominance over them as Katz and Mair argued (2012). The group’s age also does not predict their relationships with political parties. Even though we could predict that the older ones could have established strong relationships with political parties over the years, it does not seem to be the case here. It might be due to the fact that civil society in CEE countries is still portrayed as young and not fully institutionalized. Secondly, it might support the population ecology hypothesis that groups come and go and there is not a high enough survival rate of older organizations to play a significant role here. Furthermore, the analysis show that contrary to some studies (Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013) on West European countries we do not see much difference in terms of the relationship with political parties between pluralist and corporatist systems, although the descriptive observations show less contacts with political parties in corporatist Slovenia and an increase in frequent meetings with government authorities.

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4.8

Conclusions

As scholars agree that the times of close cooperation and overlapping structures between interest groups and political parties in Western Europe are long gone, there has been little attention paid to validate the situation in young democracies from post-Communist Europe. The goal of this chapter was to fill this gap and be a point of departure for further research and discussion on the relationship between political parties and interest groups in the CEE countries. Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia have many things in common. The post-Communist transition to democracy still has an impact on civil society and party systems as well as different approaches to the market economy. Furthermore, all three countries have been undergoing the process of Europeanization, beginning from meeting the criteria for EU accession and introducing the Euro currency (except Poland) and then maintaining implementation of EU laws and norms. Political parties and interest groups themselves as well underwent such processes by being active in the European Parliament and in adopting EU legislation (Ladrech 2009). The biggest contribution of this paper lies in its confirmation that financial power plays the most important role in predicting contact with political parties. Financially more stable groups contact politicians and can possibly influence policy-making processes in their favour. It definitely weakens the hypothesis that interest groups could become transmission belts between civil society and political parties. The money bias does not correlate with the influence of business groups, it might therefore suggest that financial dominance is distributed across several areas. As a result, many important societal interests might not be transmitted to politicians. This is particularly challenging as the concept of civil society is still fresh in CEE countries and, ideally, policy-makers should be interested in building such channels of communication. Finally, this brings us to the—very much discussed lately—threat of the hollowing out and backsliding of democracy in the CEE countries (for the historical development of this argument see Mair 2006; Krastev 2007; Dawson and Hanley 2016). According to Greskovits (2015: 29), hollowing out means citizens exit the democratic arena and political parties discard their bonds with their constituents and alliances with civil society organizations. On the other hand, democratic backsliding means the state-led erosion and weakening of the institutions that sustain democracy (Bermeo 2016). The elite and money-incentivized nature of access to policy-makers seen here rather than more widespread and welcoming institutional arrangements might certainly be a syndrome

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worth paying attention to. Furthermore, over the years organizations in the CEE countries have often been incentivized to formalize their activities, for example, to become public benefit organizations, become eligible for local or state-level consultations or for state or international funding (Jacobsson and Karolczuk 2017). As we see here, this does not necessarily directly translate into contact with political parties. The second contribution of this chapter is in showing that no organizational form (except for trade unions) determines contact with political parties. Interest groups might be indeed living in a parallel world, where they focus on providing services for their constituents, while highly professionalized political parties become detached from society (Boräng et al. 2017). It is often expected that organizations will provide external knowledge and independent expertise to be used in education, cultural heritage protection, environmental issues, human rights, rare illnesses, etc. Working with political parties is seen as a betrayal of ideals, particularly after the time of Communism, when civil society was under the control of the party.

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CHAPTER 5

The Organizational Development of Nongovernmental Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe

There is no doubt that associational life is a cornerstone of wellfunctioning civil society. Civil society, however, is itself hard to define as there have been many definitions discussed by scholars over the years (Cohen and Arato 1994; Habermas 2003; Kohler-Koch and Quittkat 2013; Guasti 2016). The most popular definition reads that ‘civil society is a term that delineates the area between the private sphere of interest and the state’ (Guasti 2016: 2). On the other hand, Kohler-Koch and Quittkat have investigated different conceptions of civil society and have highlighted its representative aspect, in which the emphasis is on ‘giving voice and on delivering services by Civil Society Organizations’ (KohlerKoch and Quittkat: 15). In this definition organizations that represent civil society include multiple different kinds of associations in terms of membership and purpose. This brings us to the definition of a ‘nongovernmental organization’ (NGO). According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an NGO is ‘an organization that tries to achieve social or political aims but is not controlled by a government’.1 On the other hand, Britannica highlights the representative aspect—‘a voluntary group of individuals or organizations, usually not affiliated with any government that is formed to provide services or 1 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ngo; last accessed: 2 February 2020.

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to advocate a public policy. (…) The issues addressed by NGOs run the gamut of human concerns and the scope of their activities may be local, national, or international’.2 Thus, it can be agreed that the term NGO is commonly used to describe the institutional form of civil society and it is assumed here that ‘third sector’, ‘civic sector’, ‘civil society sector’, ‘non-profit sector’, etc. all denote NGOs. For that reason, this chapter focuses on the participative and deliberative aspects of NGOs and all forms of advocacy (business interests, trade unions, and professional interest groups) are excluded from the analysis (Kohler-Koch and Quittkat 2009). As such, our sample includes: (1) identity groups (groups that recruit within specific constituencies, for example, women’s associations, religious groups, patient groups, etc.), (2) cause groups (not work or identity related, a good example are environmental organizations) and (3) leisure groups (sport, arts, music, literature associations). The features of civic life—grassroots movements, cause groups or local networks—allows citizens to pursue shared objectives in an institutional way (Putnam 1995). Lipset, while he argued that democracy correlates with modernization, also highlighted the role of intermediary organizations that aid democratic consolidation and pose the necessary counterbalance to the power of the state (Lipset 1959). Hence, the argument goes, active civic associations and the development of nongovernmental organizations, along with regular channels of communication between citizens and interests and their governments, are crucial for the emergence of liberal democracy (Putnam 1993; Elster et al. 1998; Diamond and Morlino 2005; Letki and Evans 2005).

5.1

Post-Communist Transformation

The early literature on democratization in post-Communist Europe defined civil society as a vibrant force energized by the popular support for the 1989 revolutions (Cohen and Arato 1992). However, civil societies have had a different role than in Western Democracies as they have been established in a different context. The countries analyzed in this book have had limited opportunities to develop long-lasting traditions of civil society due to the overwhelming influence and dominance of the 2 https://www.britannica.com/topic/nongovernmental-organization; last accessed: 2 February 2020.

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Soviet Union and communist ideology (Howard 2003; Bernhard 1996; Ost 1993). In this context, the emergence of anti-Communist opposition was a reaction to the totalitarian regime where there was no place for basic freedoms and the difference between the state and civil society was blurred. The promised goal of opposition was to restore that difference and fight the state that controls every aspect of life and forbids basic freedoms. Below, we briefly summarize the developments of civil society before 1989. Lithuania was a democratic republic between 1918 and 1926 and, later, for a short period in the late 1940s, and was then occupied by and incorporated into the USSR until 1989. However, the first civil society organizations were organized in the late 1980s as the old regime tried to deal with rising civil pressure and discontent. With Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika many pre-war and new organizations were able to reemerge. In 1988 Sajudis was created—a mass social movement covering all regions of Lithuania with about 200,000 members and almost 1000 local chapters was created (Žiliukaite˙ 2018). Despite initially being an establishment movement, Sajudis successfully integrated all kind of different reformist and oppositional social forces from the ecological movement to the Catholic Church (Maˇciukaite-Žvinien ˙ e˙ 2008), enabling many social and political reforms. It also laid the groundwork for the further development of a true third sector with many nongovernmental organizations in a democratic and independent Lithuania. The Polish tradition of civil society and civil society organizations goes back to the 1970s when the Workers’ Defense Committee was founded. The main goal of the organization was to aid prisoners and their families after the June 1976 protests. In 1977 the Movement for Defense of Human and Civil Rights was established. It was a right-wing and an antiCommunist organization that tried to encourage respect for the treaties of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, the organization that had the biggest impact was Solidarity. Founded in 1980 under the leadership of Lech Wał˛esa, Solidarity was a leading force in bringing about the collapse of Communism in almost all countries of Central-Eastern Europe (Ost 2010). Initially a trade union, Solidarity quickly became a broad social movement, including the Catholic Church, the anti-Communist left, students, as well as people from many other professions who organized thousands of local chapters. They also

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created an underground press, including regional and local publications, nationwide bulletins and journals aimed at targeted audiences—Catholics, members of the security forces, the military, even communist functionaries. Solidarity participated in Roundtable Talks which led to the semi-free elections of 1989. In Slovenia as well many grassroots organizations emerged in the 1980s, focused on every aspect of civic life—from gay rights to environmentalist causes. It is then safe to say Slovenia was following a similar pattern to other countries in the region (Haˇcek et al. 2017). In 1987 and 1988, a series of clashes between the emerging civil society and the Communist regime culminated with the Slovene Spring. As a result, a variety of new civil society organizations were formed, focusing solely on human rights and political pluralism. Under pressure, the Slovenian government legalized political pluralism and allowed the nongovernmental sector to rise.

5.2

Mushrooming of NGOs

As stated above, after democracy was reestablished and Communism was abolished, civil groups underwent a rapid transformation into political movements (for instance, Solidarity in Poland, Sajudis in Lithuania) or to nongovernmental organizations, usually associations and foundations. Many US charities and grantmaking organizations played a crucial role by providing funds for new organizations or helping professionalize the existing ones (for example the Open Society Institute, German Marshall Fund or Polish-American Freedom Foundation). Moreover, the European Union‘s programme “PHARE” contributed nearly $200 million to support civil society, including NGOs (Wedel 2015). However, the biggest change came at the beginning of the twentyfirst century as many CEE countries, including Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia, started pre-accession talks with the European Union (see also Chapter 8). The EU—itself undergoing a heavy crisis of democratic deficit—put strong pressure on candidate countries to involve citizens and civil society organizations in the policy-making processes (Makowski 2015; Pérez-Solórzano 2015). This was included in the Treaty of Nice (articles 138 and 139 and 257). In addition, two declarations were devoted specifically to the issues of the third sector. These were as follows: Declaration No. 23 concerning cooperation with charitable organizations annexed to the Maastricht Treaty and Declaration No. 38 concerning

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volunteer work annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty (Pacze´sniak 2009). Moreover, a further two declarations were added. In this matter the EU developed an initiative called Civil Society Dialogue ‘to generate a dialogue with Europe’s citizens and to ensure broad support for the enlargement process both within the EU member states and the candidate countries’ (DG Enlargement 2002). This called for candidate governments to ‘support the further development of a lively and vibrant civil society in the candidate countries, which is key to the consolidation of human rights and democracy, in line with the political criteria for accession’ (European Commission 2005). The participation of NGOs was particularly desired in areas where EU policies and EU structural funds would play a dominant role as the enlargement entered into force in 2004. The general feeling was that the Western model of the non-profit sector would be implemented in the region with a stable cash flow from state subsidies, private donations or their own revenues (Potluka et al. 2017). Figure 5.1 shows the growth of the NGO sector since 1989. Naturally, Poland is demographically a far bigger country than Lithuania and Slovenia which can be clearly observed in Fig. 5.1. The difference wanes when each country’s population is added to the equation. However, three distinctive periods emerge here: (1) ‘enthusiastic’ growth after the collapse of Communism between 1989 and 1999, (2) a substantial increase between 1999 and 2009 and (3) a stabilization phase in all three countries. 5000 Organizaons per one cizen

4500 4000 3500 3000

Lithuania

2500

Poland

2000

Slovenia

1500 1000 500 0 1989

1999

2009

2019

Fig. 5.1 The number of NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia since 1989, controlling for demographics

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The massive expansion of Polish NGOs seen here begs for further analysis, however. Firstly, the Statistical Office of Poland considers, for example, Voluntary Fire Brigades as NGOs. In the whole country there are more than 16,000 of them. Secondly, trade unions and their branches are included as well. This means that in one workplace such as a hospital might be several trade unions—one each for every department. Secondly, it is argued that around 40% of these organizations are inactive or virtually nonexistent.3 Third, we observe that usually the new organizations are being registered as foundations. These are simpler to register as if individuals decide to form a new association, it is obligatory to have a board consisting of 15 members. Finally, as was reported recently, the number of ‘old organizations’— those which have been active for least several years—is growing. This means that the growth of new organizations is steady, and they fulfill societal needs. Furthermore, Poland is a very regionalized country due to its past and the influence of different countries and cultures. Therefore, there are many grants and programmes which are region-specific and that are led by local NGOs. Understandably, the situation is different in demographically and geographically smaller countries.

5.3

Analysis

In this part, we will be using data from the Comparative Interest Group Survey (Beyers et al. 2016), as previously discussed in earlier chapters. As stated above, certain varieties of advocacy groups (such as trade unions, business groups, professional associations, think-tanks, lobby groups, etc.) were excluded from the analysis as the main focus is on groups with distinct ‘civic’ and grassroots characteristics. Table 5.1 presents the exact Table 5.1 Types of organizations analyzed Lithuania Poland Slovenia

Identity groups (%)

Cause groups (%)

Leisure groups (%)

9.18 7.02 11.35

7.02 24.68 6.48

11.35 5.40 17.66

3 https://fakty.ngo.pl/raporty/kondycja-organizacji-pozarzadowych-2018; last accessed: 2 February 2020.

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number of NGOs’ in the three countries and their types. One of the first questions interviewees were asked concerned the age of their organizations. The answers shed some light on the structure of NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia after the collapse of Communism. Figure 5.2 shows the timeline of NGOs’ life cycle, where each dot represents a new organization. What is interesting here is that there are some organizations that were founded in the nineteenth century and in the first decades of the 20th, meaning that they have survived almost 50 years of authoritarian regimes. Moreover, dozens of institutions also emerged during the time of Communist rule. This is remarkable in that it shows that regimes behind the iron curtain were not airtight when allowing new organizations to prosper. These were however probably under the supervision of the state. As expected, the majority of organizations emerged just after the transition to democracy, as the red line suggests. This is the effect of the funding from the American foundations discussed above and, later, the European Union. The population of NGOs has grown steadily, while the first glimpses of saturation can be observed since 2010. Figure 5.2

Fig. 5.2 The year each organization was founded

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suggests this as well as we see—more or less—the same number of organizations per citizen. To measure the groups’ budget, interviewees were asked (QID08): What was the annual operating budget of your organization in 2016 in Euros? The respondents were able to choose from eight categories, however, after recoding, this was scaled down to five categories. Figure 5.3 presents the results. Prima facie we can see big differences between the countries. Lithuania appears to have the biggest number of NGOs’ with a very moderate budget. 60% of them report annual resources under the 10,000 Euros threshold, while in Slovenia it is 45%. This should not be surprising— small countries probably would have more small organizations. Accordingly, NGOs’ in Poland are likely to be richer than their counterparts in Lithuania and Slovenia—more than 40% of those groups have an annual budget bigger than 100,000 Euros. To further investigate the development of NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia, Fig. 5.4 presents the main sources of organizations’ income. Respondents were asked the question (QID09): Organizations get financial support from different sources. Please indicate the percentage of your organization’s 2015 budget that came from the various sources listed below. 70 60

Percentage

50 40 Lithuania

30

Poland 20

Slovenia

10 0 1M

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60 50

Perventages

40 30

Lithuania Poland

20

Slovenia

10 0 Membership Donaons Charies and Funding from Funding from naonal the European subscripons corporate Union sponsors governments

Other

Fig. 5.4 The source of NGOs’ budget

Even though the numbers provided might not be an exact account of organizations’ budget, these estimations give us a rather counter-intuitive picture. We might expect to see an overwhelming domination of subsidies from national governments and the European Union, however, analyzing the aggregate data paints quite a different picture. Membership subscriptions and donations compose almost 50% of NGOs’ income, being the most important source by far, followed by money from governmental programmes. This trend is visible in every country, however Lithuanian NGOs are the most dependent on European money, as well as on membership fees. On the other hand, Slovenian NGOs are the least dependent on European funding, while at the same time they report more cash flow from governmental sources. However, the relatively small importance of European funding is startling as it is commonly perceived that EU accession and EU funds play an important role in the civil society sector, particularly for nonprofit organizations (Císar and Navrátil 2015). Potluka and his colleagues (2017) argue though that the implementation of EU structural funds has not been that easy for NGOs. While external donors cut off funding when these CEE countries joined the EU, it took some time to lay the ground for alternatives. The main problem was the imperative to co-finance projects.

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Other obstacles included advance payments of subsidies, an unpredictable cash flow caused by delayed payments and the bureaucratic processes associated with the preparation and implementation of projects (Potluka et al. 2017). Moreover, EU structural funds usually finance ‘softskills’ projects that have limited durability. It means that organizations receive money to develop a programme and once the project is done so is the money, which is problematic in terms of long-term planning and hiring policies. Ekiert and Kubik also argue that Western aid for civil society in CEE may have created ‘serious fragmentation, political divisions and intense struggle for resources’ (Ekiert and Kubik 2000). To explore this statement, respondents were asked about the competition for members, donations and subsidies. Bearing in mind the subjectivity of responses, 25% of NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia admit they struggle with like-minded organizations for various resources, while 28 of them see the level of competition as ‘moderate’. One of the other explanations why the level of EU funds indicated is smaller than expected may be that many of these funds go through national institutions and this may have confused some interviewees. One needs to remember that organizations were surveyed between 2016 and 2018, more than 12 years after the EU enlargement. It is possible that over time NGOs have rooted themselves in their social bases so that EU funds are no longer crucial or some of the organizations may no longer be eligible to apply for funding. It also correlates with the findings in Chapter 4, where subsidies from EU and governmental institutions were not statistically significant in predicting contact with political parties. Unfortunately, we do not have data from previous years, thus, we cannot investigate changes in this matter. Another important characteristic of NGOs is the membership composition as fees from members provide a steady cash flow. It is particularly interesting as membership subscription consist of—more or less—40% of the average budget in the countries of interest. Secondly, membership size could become an important negotiation point when organizations attempt to change public policies. Public pressure behind NGOs’ positions could be essential in forcing policy-makers to change certain laws (Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013). Taking into account the differences in population between Poland and the two other countries, we cannot draw any definitive conclusions, however, some tendencies are visible. Lithuanian NGOs are more likely

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50 45 40

Percent

35 30 25

Lithuania

20

Poland

15

Slovenia

10 5 0 No members Up to 10

11-100

101-1,000

1,001 50,000

>50,000

Membership size

Fig. 5.5 Membership size of NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia

to have no membership as slightly over 10% of groups report. At the same time, organizations in Slovenia are less likely to have no members. In all three countries organizations usually report moderate numbers—between 11–100 and 101–1000 members. Understandably, Poland appears to have the biggest number of organizations that consist of 50,000 members or more (Fig. 5.5).

5.4

Case Studies

This part of the chapter provides additional information about civil society in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia that could not be gathered by quantitative survey measurements. To expand our understanding of how a nongovernmental organization works, the authors of the book conducted three semi-structured interviews with the Chairs of flagship environmental organizations from every country. Although in a semi-structured interview the interviewer has a list of predetermined questions, the interviewee has the possibility to express issues they feel are important and that might have been omitted (Longhurst 2010). Secondly, a semi-structured interview allows respondents the chance to be the experts and to inform the research (Leech 2002). Organizations from the environmental sector

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were chosen due to their universal character and the fact that many of them have had a long history of functioning in Central and Eastern Europe and are therefore easy to compare with one another. Seven open-ended questions were used. The first two were designed to determine the role of Communism and the functioning of the NGOs in an authoritarian environment. The intention behind the third and fourth question was to elicit how each organization assesses the transformation period and competition with other environmental groups. The aim of the next two questions (fifth and sixth) was to identify the role of financial support coming from the European Union as well as the importance of membership in international associations. Finally, we asked about the strategy these groups deploy when they try to achieve their goals as it was crucial to understanding channels of influence. The rationale behind these questions was to understand the process of organizations’ development as well as the institutional framework encompassing it, something that could not be achieved through the quantitative survey. The key requirement here was to find organizations that predate the establishment of democracy in order that they could walk us through their story. We have focused on the following organizations across the studied countries. The Lithuanian Greens Movement (LGM) was formally established in 1988, however, its roots go back to 1987 when the first few Lithuanian ecological clubs and ecological-humanistic organizations started to organize together as public organizations with a broader scope. They were also unofficially recognized as related to Lithuanian statehood. Klub Gaja was founded by social entrepreneur Jacek Brozek, ˙ in 1988 in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. It is one of the oldest, leading civil society organization dealing with environmental protection and animal rights in Poland, and perhaps, in the whole CEE region. The organization was successful in changing several laws in Poland, particularly, the Animal Protection Bill of 1997. Društvo za opazovanje in prouˇcevanje ptic Slovenije (DOPPS) is one of the oldest and most traditional environmental nongovernmental organizations in Slovenia. DOPPS main activity is monitoring and analyzing human impact on bird populations and the environment. It was established in 1979 in Ljubljana (Geister 2019) after the change in the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1974. The change legalized the protection of human rights and freedoms (including the right for free political grouping), which could be interpreted as the right to form social movements and enabled a false political pluralism (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019).

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1. If your organization was founded before 1989, how did it deal with the Communist regime? Did it fully oppose the regime, or did it make some concessions towards the state? What can be said about the period during which the organization was established – were there elements supporting its establishment or opposing it?

In all three countries the organizations were founded before the collapse of Communism, however, only in Lithuania was the organization part of a bigger movement—the Reform Movement of Lithuania (S˛aj¯udis). Prior to its formal establishment, the movement continued to organize protests, actions and various events under the flag of ecological issues, but with a hidden goal to spread the idea of independence from the Soviet Union. Although in that era it was seen as an integral part of the Saj¯udis, the organization later proclaimed itself to be an independent social movement without any aim to obtain political power. The movement also published its journal ‘The Green Lithuania’ in which, among other things, the authors campaigned for the penalization of the distortion and/or concealment of ecological information from the public, and demanded that the government should be required to report periodically to the public on indicators of quality of life and crime. Meanwhile in Poland, Klub Gaja was solely focused on environmental issues, but nonetheless took a stand against the state and was seen as being a part of the political opposition. As the founder Jacek Brozek ˙ said when interviewed, ‘in 1988 there was still the Polish People’s Republic, so I was not allowed to form a nongovernmental organization, only an informal club, where people could meet’. Firstly, we met at a community club in Bielsko Biała. It was supposed to be about yoga and spiritual training, so the state would leave us alone. (…) At the meetings apart from ecology we discussed politics, Solidarity…So when we heard that the local authorities wanted to cut down the trees in the city centre, we immediately decided to do something. After that I became an , I was being observed by the Communist Security Service” (telephone interview, 22 January 2020, Kaminski ´ 2020). Similarly, in Slovenia, DOPPS focused on bird-watching activities. However, observing animals with binoculars was perceived in the eyes of the public as weird and for security reasons as suspicious, especially when members of the organization were present near factories or other secured objects. Furthermore, it needs to be said that the former social system explicitly advocated only for the protection of the environment, but not

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plants and animals. However, despite these restraints DOPPS were able to conduct their regular activities. When the organization wanted to carry out a bird population census in Maˇckov teritorij in 1983 that was closed to the public they got permission to do so after a long procedure. This procedure consisted of (1) writing a request to the authorities, (2) being investigated by the authorities and (3) the responsible official at the ministry interviewed the president of the NGO. 2. How did the organization pursue its goals before 1989? Was it hard to survive in (un)civil society?

As mentioned above, the authoritarian regimes in the CEE countries did not allow their citizens to freely associate. However, the degree of restrictions differed, as did the level of anti-Communist opposition across the region. In Lithuania the society was very ‘civil’ in the 1980s as it was the time of rising opposition to the Soviet regime. A lot of people joined the movement’s actions and events and showed full and broad support. It must be noted that it was probably less about environmental issues than about a free Lithuania. However, environmental concerns were also raised. During its first years the movement had official lists of consultants/volunteers and had offices in many Lithuanian towns and cities, with schools also participating. Klub Gaja functioned in authoritarian Poland for only a few months, without broad support and located in rural Southern Poland. In particular, its founder underlined that: ‘The truth is brutal, but had we not sold some of our private belongings—belonging we should have passed to our children—we would not have survived the initial years. 1994 was the year we started to receive foreign help. The foundation that helped us the most was the Marshall Foundation. I was personally supported by the Ashoka Innovators for the Public’ (telephone interview, 22 January 2020, Kaminski ´ 2020). During the Communist era, DOPPS was also not a mass movement, getting support mostly from fellow professionals. The first founders of the DOPPS where members of the oldest environmental NGO in Slovenia Prirodoslovno društvo Slovenije (Dare Šere), members of fishing and beekeeping organizations (Božidar Magajna) and Iztok Geister (ornithologists). They also had the support of the Museum of Natural History of Slovenia (Geister 2019), which in particular supported the organization by providing it with rooms for meetings (Tekavˇciˇc 2005). 76 members

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constituted the first assembly and elected the president and other officers of the organization (including, the first president Janez Gregori, and the publication of their first journal, Acrocephalus, in 1980). 3. How did the organization manage the transformation (regime change from the Communist regime to democracy and the Europeanization process in the early 2000s) phase? Did the adjustment go smoothly? What obstacles did they encounter?

The transition period resulted in a shift of focus for the public. People became more interested and concerned with economic and security issues rather than environmental and ecological issues. The initial success of the movement in Lithuania was based as much on the idea of independent Lithuania as on the idea of taking care of the environment. After the collapse of Communism, similarly, in the new reality the population were preoccupied more with economic well-being than environmental issues. A lot of members and supporters of the movement found new possibilities in the state apparatus and in business and started gradually moving away from it. This caused a leadership crisis in the organization. At the same time, the protesting voice of the movement became less attractive to the public, so it started to move its focus more to monitoring activities. As the chairman of the Polish Klub Gaja argued, it depended who was in power back then. In the 1990s lots of civil society organizations emerged, but many of them died as well. It cannot be said that political parties were openly against these organizations. They had many allies in different parties, even among the post-Communist groups. However, when the right-wing government took power at the end of the 1990s support for the group slightly decreased making its activities more problematic. The largest obstacle at that time was the lack of proper funding. On the other hand, what maintained the organization’s presence in the national arena was the media environment and its rapid development at that time. 4. What was the competition among environmental groups back then and now? How does the group manage to fight for scarce resources, or, for example, does it encounter preferential treatment due to the fact that it is an environmental group?

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As the LGM argued, before the collapse of Communism there was no competition between organizations, as everyone was united around the same goal—an independent Lithuanian state and accountable Soviet officials. Today, the competition among environmental groups exists, but even more so against other groups. The state funding is insufficient, and people do not want to participate in the activities of organized interests, decreasing income from membership fees and donations. According to Klub Gaja officials, there is definitely competition between environmental groups in Poland, but it is healthy. For example, when it comes to various grant schemes the most experienced organizations are more likely to get funding than others and this is beneficial for the whole population of interest groups. Other institutions, for example, local governments, know the largest grant receivers and they recognize them as reliable organizations. The existing competition is understood in a capitalist way and it materializes mostly in a rivalry for publicity: who gets an interview or is invited to the TV studio. In Slovenia, the financial structure of the NGOs is today very varied. They are funded by different projects, European grants, and by national and municipal budgets. The latter is mostly when they are hired to do a study, evaluation, observation, or act as think-tanks, or policy analysis and evidence centres. They also get funds from donations, membership fees and income tax (Juhar and Paviˇc 2020). In comparison, the Slovenian interest groups benefit from the least competition and the system seems to be able to sustain the existing population of interest groups. 5. Are the state and EU subsidies crucial? Has the EU accession changed a lot of the organization’s life? Does the group declare their funding and sources of income on their websites?

Due to limited membership numbers and the issue of attracting members subsidies are crucial for LGM and other environmental organizations in Lithuania. The movement did not and does not receive direct funding from the EU, but membership in European associations has been beneficial in terms of training. LGM received financial support to carry out education programmes from international organizations. Also, the EU makes environmental concerns more prominent in the state apparatus as well as in society. For Klub Gaja in Poland, EU funding is definitely important. Applying for EU money balances local sources, which are often dependent on who

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is in power. The chairman of the organization highlighted that the most challenging time for groups of a similar profile was the “limbo” time—a period between the moment when the cash from American donors ran out, but CEE countries were yet not eligible to apply for EU funds. However, as evidenced in other sections in this book, the EU funding is no longer a primary source of income for civil society organizations. For the Slovenian organization DOPPS European funds are important for funding the implementation of projects that are co-financed by national funds and individual contributions (Juhar and Paviˇc 2020). Today, DOPPS represents an important interest group and political actor in the broad field of the environment, recognized also by other interest groups (Tkalec and Šošter 2020). Some of their other main activities are education, awareness raising and recruiting young people (Denac 2019). As early as 1992, they established an ornithological youth section (Vrh Vrezec 2009). In the early 2000s they began with efforts to restore, increase and conserve the habitats of endangered animal and plant species in the Nature Reserves by applying for European projects (Vrh Vrezec 2009). 6. Is the organization a member of any international associations? If so, in how many and at what level?

Membership in international level organizations seems to be characteristic to the NGOs in all three studied countries. LGM is a member of the Foundation of Environmental Education and the Coalition Green Baltic. Polish Klub Gaja is subscribed to the United Nations Environment Program Dams and Development, BIG JUMP and OCEAN 2012 of the European Union‘s Common Fisheries Policy, Ashoka Innovators for the Public, the European River Network, Compassion in World Farming, and Nadace Partnerstvi. The Slovenian organization DOPPS is part of the most relevant international organization for them, BirdLife. That corroborates in particular the results discussed in Chapter 8 of this volume, where we evidence that interest organizations (in general, not only nongovernmental organizations), while not always directly active in European policy-making, become part of the process indirectly through their membership of umbrella organizations.

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7. When the organization pursues its goals, does it lobby (and whom?) through the political system or more through public relations campaigns and social media engagement or both?

The interviewees clearly indicated that environmental NGOs use a wide array of lobbying methodologies. While lobbying through joint press releases with other organizations is predominant, they also use official consultations with the government and other state actors. There are also unique cases where groups deploy a legal track, as in the case of LGM which filed lawsuits against state institutions regarding their environmental concerns. Due to limited resources there is however a trend to concentrate actions. Klub Gaja evidences it particularly well. The interviewee from there clearly underlined that ‘none of (the organization’s) successes would have happened, had politicians not felt the pressure from citizens. Without pressure they will not change their opinion’. The concentrated efforts of the organization to create awareness about a particular initiative lead to their successful campaign on the Animal Protection Bill of 1997 (Ustawa o ochronie praw zwierz˛at 19974 ). The organization collected more than 600.000 signatures and pressured politicians to take action. Similarly, in Slovenia, DOPPS’ activities include lobbying activities such as protests, demonstrations, meetings with the executive and legislative authority and the courts. One of their successes was organizing a protest against the construction of a wind farm at Volovja Reber. This began a legal case which took more than 10 years and was one of the first cases in the Slovenian courts of law in the field of nature protection legislation after joining the European Union (DOPPS 2014). Up until today only two windmills stand in Slovenia, and none at Volovja Reber. On this type of occasion, the public saw the environmental organizations as an obstacle to the further development of Slovenia, thus their support was on occasions challenged.

5.5

Discussion and Conclusions

This chapter has summarized the development of nongovernmental organizations in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. We provided historical data 4 Ustawa z dnia 21 sierpnia 1997 r. o ochronie zwierz˛at, Dz.U. 1997 nr 111 poz. 724, last accessed: 2 March 2020.

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on the NGO sector and civil society in the above-mentioned countries while also offering descriptive statistics on funding and membership from the CIGs project. We concluded the chapter by providing a more in-depth case study of selected environmental organizations from each country. The conclusion drawn largely meets our expectations. With some notable exemptions, most NGOs were formed after the transition to democracy, taking full advantage of the right to associate. We also see differences in financial capabilities—in smaller Lithuania and Slovenia there are more groups with moderate budgets and membership size, compared to Poland. What is surprising though is the low level of EU funds, and subsidies in general, in organizations’ budgets in all three countries. This means that NGOs rely mostly on their membership base and various forms of donations. On the one hand it makes them more independent from government decisions and, much discussed lately in CEE, state capture. On the other hand, demobilized memberships and apathetic civil society could bring very negative consequences for NGOs’ well-being hinting at a quite uncertain future for these organizations. Case studies provided a deeper understanding of real life in NGOs in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. Even though these organizations had all emerged before 1989, they really took off after the collapse of Communism, taking advantage of the low saturation of like-minded organizations. This advantage is often seen today as such groups are more professionalized, credible and have a bigger audience than younger ones. Each of them are members of international associations, which is seen as a necessary step to influence policy-making on the European level, put pressure on national decision-makers, gain know-how and build professional networks. While the case of the Lithuanian Green Movement is the least optimistic as the group lost its momentum after the transition, the Polish and Slovenian NGOs can be held up as perfect examples of successful institutionalization in a developing civil society.

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CHAPTER 6

The Significance of Trade Unions in the CEE Countries: Beyond Corporatism and Pluralism?

6.1

Trade Unions and Political Parties: Western Europe vs CEE Countries

For a long time, trade unions have been recognized as crucial forces for democracy (Kubicek 2002; Bartolini and Mair 1990; Mair 1997). They also played a central role in cleavage formation across Western postindustrial democracies (Lipset and Rokkan 1967), particularly due to their unique relationship with left-wing parties and the electorate. Scholars (see for example: Lipset 1999) provided evidence that trade unions are the most important form of class organization; the proportion of the working class who belong to trade unions is a measure of class formation; and, people who belong to trade unions are more likely to vote for parties representing their class. The core of unions’ activity is linking citizens’ preferences to the decisions of elites; albeit to a different degree, varying a bit from system to system, whether corporatist in character or not. As Bornschier (2009) pointed out the stability of party systems in the traditional models of Western democracies derives from the social groups divided by a cleavage supporting the same parties, generation after generation. It is all about linking ‘frozen’ social divisions, through voting patterns, to party systems, which then freezes accordingly. This formed part of the famous ‘freezing hypothesis’ of Lipset and Rokkan (1967). Could trade unions have played a similar role in the post-Communist political systems? The collapse of Communism has enabled processes of © The Author(s) 2021 P. Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation, Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4_6

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democratization and marketization in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). One of many focal points has been political parties and their relations with other actors, which potentially could have led to the institutionalization of the party system and the building of a healthy civil society. In this context, trade unions could have been an important agent in bridging the gap between swathes of the electorate and political parties. Nonetheless, there have been many major obstacles to achieving that. As Mair (1997: 178–180) put it: post-Communist Europe represents what is really the first case of European democratization occurring in the effective absence of a real civil society. The CEE new party systems did not result from a long-term process of democratization and politicization but were rather created in the aftermath of that process. Consequently, the party systems which emerged after democratization (the post-Communist experience) represent a quite different dynamic to those which emerged during democratization (the West European experience). As Mair (1997: 181) argued, new democracies have had scarce resources to produce any kind of party system stability or to curb electoral volatility, particularly during the first years of transition. Therefore, they were less likely to be underpinned by a strong cleavage structure, and in this sense, they were less likely to be easily stabilized and frozen. First, in the consolidated democracies, many political parties emerged from social movements, often as opposition to the political establishment. Some political parties have even officially formed from interest organizations. At the end of the nineteenth century, strong links were noticeable between social democratic parties and trade unions, between agrarian parties and farmers’ unions, and between religious organizations and Christian-democratic parties, and during the twentieth century—between conservative parties and business associations. To go further, many social democratic parties in Western Europe have their origins in trade unions as interest organizations. For example, established in 1900 the British Labour Party had the name of the Labour Representation Committee until 1906 and formed an instrument of political representation for the Trade Union Congress. A similar story characterizes the Irish Labour Party, which was formally established in 1912, but by 1930 was merely a political wing of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. If political parties are active both in civil society and in the political sphere, then interest groups, including trade unions, are primarily organizations that form within and out of society. On the other hand, parties and interest groups may overlap. For example, parties can emerge

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from interest organizations and their most visible structures. Parties and interest groups can pursue the same political goals and even create interdependencies as the Labour party and trade unions did in the UK. Parties are the target of the influence of interest organizations, although together they provide information on voters’ attitudes and sometimes financial and organizational resources. In post-Communist democracies, the formation of parties took place in the absence or at the very beginning of civil society, in stark contrast to Western Europe. The relative political emptiness left by the fall of the Communist regime made fragmented political systems the norm for the political life of most new democracies (Rose and Munro 2003: 36). There are several common features that summarize and describe the party scene of new democracies (Krupaviˇcius and Lukošaitis 2004: 300). First of all, there are a large number of political parties; secondly, there is intense inter-party competition, with up to several dozen political parties taking part in parliamentary elections, which is further fuelled by proportional electoral rules that means they can win at least one or two seats in parliament. Third, the absence of dominant parties in the political system and their constant change in power. Fourthly, the ideological inconsistency of the parties, where conservative parties use slogans of social equality and social democrats may campaign for more employer-friendly policies than liberals, in order to mobilize voters. Fifth, the multidimensionality of party and party system fragmentation, i.e. lack of at least minimal political consensus and the partitioning of parties at the axes of personalities and political ideas, national and European traditions, old and new political order, free and social market, urban and rural, ethnic minorities and national culture (Rose and Munro 2003: 51). Therefore, the party systems in the post-Communist countries which emerged after democratization represent a quite different dynamic to those that emerged during the process of democratization—the old and consolidated democracies in Western Europe. As Mair argued, new democracies have had scarce resources to produce any kind of party system stability or to curb electoral volatility, particularly during the first years of transition. Therefore, they were less likely to be underpinned by a strong cleavage structure, and in this sense, they were less likely to be easily stabilized and frozen (Mair 1997: 181). Institutionalization of the party system is a particularly important variable in the new democracies. Mainwaring and Torcal (2006) argue that the lack of an institutionalized party system in the country results in high voter volatility and poor voter identification with

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a particular political party. Voter volatility is usually associated with weak links between society and political parties, a lack of voting based on ideological divisions, and an increase in votes for individual politicians than for political parties. Therefore, with a poorly institutionalized party system, political parties do not have well-developed relationships with external organizations, including trade unions. At the same time, while historically trade unions are considered to be one of the oldest type of interest organizations, in a post-Communist setting reorganized or newly established trade unions found it hard to identify and define their goals and their activity was mostly dependent on the activity of political parties. Therefore, in most post-Communist countries, the workings of trade unions were characterized by pluralism, conflict, decentralization and fragmentation (Schlozman 2001: 7703).

6.2

Transition, Shock Therapy, Political Turmoil

The conditions under which the first trade unions in the post-Communist Central and Eastern European countries were established are twofold. On one hand, the collapse of the Soviet regime and the need for rapid economic and political transition into a market economy and democracy has had an effect on every part of the system, including trade unions. On the other hand, they were formed during a period of societal change which saw rapid technological change, globalization, individualization and personalization of societies themselves, fading historical relations between political parties and trade unions. These complex conditions during the time of initial post-Communist unionizing has had a significant effect on the later development and significance of trade unions in post-Communist societies. Since the 1980s it has been argued that the links between interest groups and political parties have waned. The decline is well-documented (Franklin et al. 2005; Dalton 1985) and concerns either political parties or interest groups. One can identify two major reason for that, namely economic modernization and changes in organizational party models. As Franklin (2010) argues, social cleavages appear to have explained around 30% of the variance in party choice during the 1960s, but in many of those same counties this had declined to around 10% by the mid-1980s. As recent analyzes show, in the last two decades it has been less than 10% (Franklin 2009: 430). As a consequence, it has been argued, socioeconomic cleavages are no longer a stable predictor of voting

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patterns. There have been many explanations of this phenomenon. One of the most plausible and obvious ones is that social groups—in which the old structure of conflict used to be anchored—changed. On the one hand, due to economic modernization the size of the working class has been significantly reduced, thus the significance and membership of trade unions dramatically declined (van Biezen and Poguntke 2014; van Biezen et al. 2012). As Enyedi (2008) has argued, the post-industrial society is not any more organized around large-scale units (e.g. factories) and does not allow social groups to discipline their members. Indeed, we observe now a growth of a (less unionized) service sector and much more selfemployment. Thus, the new middle class is a heterogeneous group that is not ‘rooted’ into a community nor does it have inherited political loyalties. On the other hand, the change also came from the top. Due to the technological revolution and the growth of mass media, politicians and their parties have found completely new ways to communicate with voters beyond those they have been traditionally associated with. It means also that the political parties themselves abandoned their model from the twentieth century, namely being a mass organization. As the data collected by van Biezen et al. (2012) shows, political parties across Europe have seen a decrease in membership at a level never experienced before. As the authors conclude, we may observe either the end of mass political parties or their formerly close allies, churches and trade unions, which are losing their broad-based connection to wider society. This also means that the world of collective organizations may no longer be capable of offering a refuge to parties (van Biezen et al. 2012: 55). It does not mean parties have ceased to exist. Katz and Mair (1995) coined the popularized, and yet widely contested, term ‘cartel parties’ as they observed that political parties moved from traditional ways of functioning—which meant relying on its members, affiliated interest groups and targeted social groups—to exploiting state resources. It goes along with other processes that erode traditional cleavages and ‘party democracy’. Carter and Poguntke (2010), while examining the impact of European integration on national politics, found out that even party elites become detached from national party structures when it comes to negotiating at the EU level. While the traditional mass parties were characterized by large membership numbers and a reliance on a selected set of collateral organizations, recent research shows a steady decline of membership rates and a pluralization of contacts between interest organizations and parties (Van Biezen

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and Poguntke 2014). Some authors have related this transformation to increased party competition, the individualization of society and increased dependency of parties on state resources—instead of reliance on resources drawn from the membership (Katz and Mair 1995; Poguntke 2006; Weekers and Maddens 2009; Van Biezen and Poguntke 2014). In short, the representative function of parties is nowadays less crucial compared to their governing role. Yet, although contemporary parties are gatekeepers of political power and governmental resources, the fragmentation of government (the proliferation of independent agencies, devolution and European integration) as well as strong electoral competition has two important consequences. So, the change has been multidimensional—it concerns both society and political parties. In the case of Central and Eastern European countries, it is widely agreed in the literature (see for example Kopecký 1995; Enyedi 2005) that CEE political parties never had the chance to and thus never formed traditional ‘mass party’ organizations with its characteristic elements, but rather jumped straight to the ‘catch-all’ and then ‘cartel’ models of party organization, meaning that parties in the post-Communist states started leaning towards the state and at the same time moving away from the civil society. While the post-Communist countries of CEE went through the same period of modernization of their societies, they did that at a much faster pace and in very different economic and political conditions compared to the Western European countries. State-domination was the most characteristic attribute of the Soviet economy. During the Soviet era, the economy was based on vertical administrative agreements between ministries and the industrial sector, completely abolishing the supply and demand mechanism (Castells 2007). For several decades individual economic initiatives in CEE countries were suppressed or directed topdown by authoritarian politics and the command economy mechanism. All forms of economic activity were controlled and owned by the state and the Communist party and legal private business was nonexistent. The first decade after the collapse of the Communist regime in Central and Eastern Europe is characterized as the transitional period to a market economy and liberal democracy. The transformation took place on two different levels—institutional and cultural. The institutional transformation was marked by efforts to (re)create states with all the necessary elements of a consolidated democracy: the rule of law, political party system, state apparatus, civil society and a functioning market. The making of a market

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economy in the post-Soviet countries was usually described by analysts and scholars as ‘wild’ capitalism, the term used to define a close nexus between political elites and newly created big business owners. The logic of the formation of business entities and corporate management in CEE was based on a unique post-Communist transformation with the aim to establish and develop private business, at the same time liquidating the inefficient monopoly of the state. Privatization in a changing economy is not simply a transfer of state-owned property to private individuals; it is the creation of private property as an institution. What made it even more unique is that multiple sources of changes—political, economic and social—were introduced at the same time (Kriauciunas and Kale 2006: 663). Privatization in the post-Communist countries was the fundamental dividing line between a socialist and a capitalist society with the private sector going from nearly nonexistent to producing almost two-thirds of GDP (Aslund 2007: 143). As a result of this, a new class of employers started to grow, while the size of the working class started to diminish, adjusting the demand for unionizing, increasing the new class of employers.

6.3 Setting the Stage for Industrial Relations After 1989 Albeit under different circumstances compared to advanced democracies with strong traditions of party-trade union relationships, the first post-Communist trade unions were also created in relation to newly emerging political parties. The studied countries—Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia—do not have a uniform experience in terms of the first attempts to unionize in independent democratic states, however, the descriptive analysis presented below points to the fact that in the initial stages of formation, trade unions in these countries somewhat maintained a tandem-like relationships with newly established political parties. 6.3.1

Foundation of the First Post-Communist Trade Unions in Poland, Slovenia and Lithuania

The Polish ‘Solidarity’ movement founded in 1980 without any doubt played a significant role in defending workers’ interests during the Communists’ rule and deserves the largest attention in this chapter; it

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also was politically active during the transition to democracy. Solidarity Citizens’ Committee won all 161 seats available to it in the Sejm (lower chamber of Polish parliament), and 99 out of 100 seats in the upper house during the first semi-free elections (i.e. only part of the available parliamentary seats were freely contested). Solidarity’s long-term leader Lech Wał˛esa was elected president in 1990. What is potentially misleading is that the Solidarity—trade union gave birth to the Solidarity—political party, which has since been a breeding ground for most Centre-right and right-wing politicians in Poland. There has never been a clear-cut division between the political party and the trade union. On the other hand, the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ) was an integral part of the post-Communist Democratic Left Alliance Party (SLD). This does not equal being a reliable proxy between society and political parties (Kohl 2008: 1–2). The main source of power of the Polish trade unions in the early transposition process was the fact that their relationship with political parties resembled the political entanglement of the first years of democracy. Right-wing politicians were deeply associated with Solidarity—the major anti-Communist political force, whose roots had been a trade union movement from the 1980s. The peak of its popularity came at the time of the first free presidential elections. As a consequence, Lech Wał˛esa, the Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, won the campaign. The power of the movement was further built upon its symbolic and historical associations. This wave of support was built upon the movement’s image as the victor of the fight against communism and its collapse. At the same time, post-Communists from SLD opted for OPZZ that emerged from the reformed official trade union structure of the Communist period. Secondly, at the beginning of the transformation, more than 50% of Poles worked in state-owned companies; in almost all of them there was a trade union branch, either Solidarity or OPZZ. It was thought to be an incentive for political parties to build or maintain close relationships with trade unions. Contrary to Poland’s ‘Solidarity’, the Lithuanian union movement did not become the major opposition power to the Communist regime. However, as in the case of Poland, trade union activity was quite politicized. For example, in 1989, at the constituent assembly of the Lithuanian Workers Union (LDS) a great number of demands were of a political nature. In general, Lithuanian trade union activity in the early 90s was weakened due to disagreements over the takeover of soviet trade union’s

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assets which resulted in mergers and divisions of trade unions. By the end of 2001, Lithuania had 130 registered trade unions. However, similarly to other post-Communist countries, the union movement in Lithuania was very fragmented, poorly coordinated and lacking in joint representation. At that time, of all the newly established trade unions, just four of them stood out in terms of their resources and influence: the Lithuanian Trade Union Centre (LPSC), the Lithuanian Trade Union Alliance (LPSS), the Lithuanian Workers Union (LDS) and the Lithuanian Work Federation (LDF) (Lukošaitis 2004: 192). The latter might now be considered as one of the key players in setting the stage for industrial relations in Lithuania. In terms of size, LPSC was the largest trade union at that time having around 100,000 members, most of which were employees in the public sector. LPSC had a large resource base as it took over the assets, organizational structures and employees of trade unions that operated during the soviet regime. With efforts from both sides, LPSC established strong cooperative ties with the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP), and one of the LSDP leaders was elected the chairman of the trade union. LSDP had also foreseen the possibility for LPSC members to be enlisted in the Party’s electoral lists. One of the reasons for this stronger integration was that LSDP had an aim to take LPSC out of the control of the Lithuanian Democratic Workers Party’s, a direct descendant of the Lithuanian Communist Party. Another trade union with strong connections to the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party was LPSS. This political patronage resulted in 1996 in representatives of LPSS being included in the Party’s electoral list. While LPSC and LPSS were left-wing in the traditional sense and maintained close connections with the major leftist party of Lithuania, LDS— another large trade union representing around 70 thousand members— was on the opposite side of the political ideology continuum. LDS was founded in 1989 under the flag of ‘S˛aj¯udis’, a political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In other words—a Lithuanian version of the Polish’Solidarity’. Despite the popularity of ‘S˛aj¯udis’ and its later transformation into the major right-wing Lithuanian party, LDS refused their patronage during the early years after independence. LDF, on the other hand, considered itself as a reestablished organization as it continued the tradition of a Christian-oriented organization that operated in the inter-war Lithuania around 1940. Due to its Christian roots it had connections

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with other similar trade unions in Western Europe and strong ties with the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party. While Poland and Lithuania share a somewhat similar experience, Slovenia’s example is an outlier case not only in comparison to the other two countries but also in the context of the entire family of post-Communist states. With its neo-corporatist system, Slovenia has a long established and vibrant associational life dating back to the nineteenth century (Stanojevi´c 2010). Slovenian trade unions have remained ˇ relatively influential interest organizations (Kanjuo-Mrˇcela and CernigojSadar 2014) despite falling union coverage from 100% prior to 1990 to 63.5% in 1994 and then 42% in 1998 (Stanojevi´c 2003), however, their influence is not the same as it once was (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019). During the Socialist era, there was just one trade union in Slovenia of which all employees were members. With the demise of socialism, this trade union faced competition from a plurality of newly established trade unions. Nevertheless, it remained the largest trade union in Slovenia and was able to continue using its existing organizational network and assets. Based on various sources, Rugelj (2016: 58) reports that in 1991 the reformed trade union had 430,000 members. The new KNSS—Independence, Confederation of New Trade Unions of Slovenia (KNSS) became the second-largest trade union in the mid-1990s with membership of about 10% of all trade union members (Kanjuo Mrˇcela 2006: 5). The newly created trade union has also contributed to the foundation of the major opposition party to the old regime—the Slovenian Democratic Party. However, due to the high levels of unemployment in the early 1990s, trade union membership as a percentage of the workforce decreased from 58.6 to 48.8%. By the time Slovenia formally became a member of the EU trade union membership was at a level of around 40%. By 2005, the trade unions had lost about 6% of their membership (Stanojevi´c and Klariˇc 2013: 5). According to Novak and Fink-Hafner (2019) during the first years of independence former socialist trade unions maintained close connections with the Slovenian Social Democratic Party, the former ant-Communist party of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the reformed League of Communists with an interlinked cadre of leaders. However, in later years the need for political independence, unity and coordination in order to achieve common goals in dealing with the government has led trade unions to move away from the patronage of political parties.

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Due to the loss of ties with stable left-wing parties, which guaranteed their partial support, trade unions became weaker over the years. The majority of parties, despite their political orientation, regrouped to represent business interests (Magda 2017: 4). 6.3.2

Economic Shock and Public Discontent

Alongside the changing political sphere, the economic reality was also changing. During the first post-Communist years the situation did not appear to be what was hoped for and this resulted in public disappointment and rising discontent among workers. In Poland’s case, for example, the economic reforms largely contributed to trade unions’ activity and serious social discontent. The number of strikes in the first half of the 1990s grew from 250 in 1990 (with 115,700 participants) to 7443 strikes in 1993 (with 382,200 participants; Gardawski et al. 2012). Lithuanian society was more moderate in that regard with 56 strikes in 2000 with 3000 participants and 34 strikes in 2001 with just 1700 participants. Moreover, the strikes mostly involved public sectors employees and were mostly related to delayed wages (MSSL 2001: 51; 2002: 57). In the opinion of some observers, the low number of strikes in Lithuania was a consequence of the fact that the private sector was not willing to recognize trade unions as proper representatives of employment rights (MSSL 2001; Dovydenien ˙ e˙ 2001). According to Woolfson and Beck (2003), the reason for both the low density of Lithuanian labour unions and the subsequently low number of strikes is not the question of passive public attitudes and the hostility against such organizations which was formed during the Soviet era, but rather that people do not see trade unions as relevant especially since their role in protecting labour rights is severely limited by national legislation (e.g. the New Labour Code adopted in 2002 did not grant many rights to trade unions). In the case of Slovenia, although trade unions have tended to favour neo-corporatist arrangements, they have also made use of parliamentary venues to influence policy-making, particularly when they have felt that their interests have not been sufficiently taken into account via the social partnership. Consequently, mass protests, demonstrations and strikes have remained trade union strategies to influence both government and employers—the most notable having been organized in 1991, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, and the years since (Rugelj 2016: 62–63).

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6.3.3

The Changing Political Paradigm and Challenges to Trade Unions

The transition period in CEE countries has had a profound effect on trade unions. Their function as mass organizations and the clearly defined mandate given to them by the state was no longer present. The market economy, competition, privatization and mass lay-offs marked the first phase of restructuring, in which the unions lost their previous position and power. The process of transition to a market economy became even more complicated with the parallel transition into democratic states with representative government institutions, multi-party systems and civil rights and freedoms. The biggest challenge for trade unions has been the radical change in political reality—the transition from compulsory to voluntary union membership. Previously, trade unions played an advisory role in wage bargaining, organizing employees’ leisure activities and distributing material goods. While the state was the sole employer of the workers, the trade unions were basically there to perform a function of state legitimization. Transitioning into the market economy trade unions faced new challenges they had not experienced before, one of which was dealing with the management of privatized companies that had the ultimate goal of maximizing profit. The lack of a real collective bargaining and direct-action experience has made it difficult for unions to effectively represent workers’ interests. With the loss of guardianship from the state, unions had to choose new operational strategies and rediscover their existing power resources (Kohl 2008). The decline in trade union membership in the CEE countries in the 1990s was much sharper than in Western Europe. These changes reflected the transition from a system where membership was compulsory to a neoliberal market economy model adopted by most of the CEE countries. At the time, the capital deregulation paradigm of industrial relations prevailed, with the main view that less state intervention in the labour market was beneficial to economic growth and increased competitiveness. International financial institutions called for more flexible labour relations by reducing workplace protection, limiting trade union influence and liberalizing labour codes (Croucher and Rizov 2012: 632). Social issues were entrusted to an individual initiative driven by market mechanisms, which reduced solidarity among the public (Upchurch et al. 2015: 2). This model became detrimental to trade unions and to their bargaining

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power. The expansion of private ownership and freedom of establishment was accompanied by a decline in the bargaining power of employees. The representative structures of industrial relations were underdeveloped, and the bargaining power of market participants was not equivalent. The unions failed to do their due diligence at the workplace level, to ensure uniform standards of workplace safety, remuneration and pay. This has contributed to the problems of losing their members and attracting new members (Kohl 2008). The decline of trade unions went hand in hand with the privatization of public sector services and the development of private sector services. The development of flexible employment relationships in the private sector adversely affected union membership, as such forms of employment were relatively new and had no historically established tradition of union membership. Collective agreements also rarely included workers in this employment relationship model. Some of the former posts were transferred to self-employment or civil law contracts, which limited the ability of such workers to join trade unions (Magda 2017: 2). The state remained a key player in the functioning of labour relations and remuneration systems. In the process of market liberalization and deregulation, social partners have been given greater freedom to form bilateral relations. Nevertheless, the state was a key player in trilateral cooperation, with broad powers to regulate economic and social policies. The level of collective bargaining was low due to weakly functioning or almost nonexistent sectoral collective agreements, which would cover all employees in the sector. Collective agreements were concluded at company level and hardly ever extended beyond the company, and the possibility of direct action by the trade unions was scarce due to the extremely strict legal constraints on strikes (Magda 2017: 4). Even with European integration, which should have led to adjustments to the industrial relations system, including elements such as trade unions, coordinated wage negotiations, worker consultation and information in the workplace, and the establishment of tripartite cooperation councils, still membership levels in trade unions continued to drop and their influence continued to decrease (Kahancová 2015). The prevalence of sectoral collective agreements was low and, as a result, agreements reached at the level of the individual company were rarely extended to workers throughout the sector. During the transition from one system to another, new trade unions had to be created, but they mostly spread in

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the public sector. The private sector was dominated by small and mediumsized enterprises, whose employees found it difficult to merge and develop common interest representation. This was influenced by the low level of trust between people, which made cooperation difficult. As a result, the membership of workers’ organizations was half that of Western Europe. This reflects the weakness of these organizations, the low level of coverage and the lack of trust in social dialogue. Collective bargaining usually takes place in the public sector and state-owned enterprises. The prevalence and intensity of strikes is low. Most often they take place in state institutions, where unions are able to exert pressure on the state as the owner and founder of these institutions. In the private sector, strikes are rare, and unions try to avoid open conflict (Magda 2017: 3).

6.4 Distrust Towards Trade Unions and Their Diminishing Political Base For the last few decades, trade unions across the European Union (EU) have been facing hard times. While in the Western countries their status as pillars of a ‘social model’ has been undermined by globalization and neoliberalism, in Central and Eastern Europe they have never really acquired this status. Today industrial changes, changing forms of employment and increasing labour market insecurity and unemployment issues in some countries as well as globalization and Europeanization limit union capacity to influence employment policies and working conditions within their national country boundaries—all these and many more can be considered as major mechanisms responsible for the decline of trade unions. Trade union membership is considered one of the criteria for measuring interest dissemination in society and the success of the union movement. The size of the interest group (its number of members) is inevitably important in the case of trade unions: the more important their role is in a particular political system, the more direct their involvement in political processes vis-à-vis political parties and party governments. The cause of declining workers’ participation in trade unions mostly lies in the modernization of societies which is usually seen as a precondition of change in social structures (Inglehart and Baker 2000). In general, the transition from traditional to modern society with higher levels of urbanization, secularization, education and higher income gives way to individualism which has been increasing in the Western world

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throughout the twentieth century (Grossmann and Varnum 2015: 312). Many political scientists and sociologists (Bennett, Giddens, and others) argue that, in general, the individualization of societies in the Western world has been increasing in the last century. According to Inglehart’s theory of human development (Inglehart and Welzel 2005), Western countries have witnessed a rapid change in value orientation over the past decades, with a growing degree of individualization. In many industrialized Western European countries increased economic security post-World War II, people’s educational attainment, and the safeguarding of democratic conditions which also increased after the Second World War in many industrialized western European countries have led to a shift in values from ‘materialistic’ values (emphasizing primarily economic and physical security) to ‘post-materialist’ values such as self-expression, self-esteem, and the desire to be useful to society. The thesis of an increasingly prevalent individualization in the Western world is also confirmed by the experience of post-Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, where collectivism was much more characteristic of the countries of CEE during the pre-democratic regime. Collectivism was profound even during the period of the restoration of independence since identification with their own nations was important. However, during the period of independence, the collective consciousness was rapidly changing, and today Central and Eastern European countries have all the characteristics of Western European societies: globalization, individualization and personalization of societies, among other factors (Bennet 2012: 28). As shown in Fig. 6.1, trade unions in all three countries experienced a great loss in union density, in the period of two decades it has reduced by half. In Lithuania unionizing was not popular from the beginning, still the numbers today are shocking. In 2018 only 7.7% of employed Lithuanians were members of a trade union.1 Unions did not become a safe haven even in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008, although potentially they could have been an attractive choice in terms of job security in times of uncertainty. In fact, the opposite happened, while unemployment rates skyrocketed, union membership continued to decline over the next years. It is not, however, a characteristic feature of just the countries of our focus, or even the entire post-Communist bloc. A as evidenced 1 Latest data for Lithuania: membership density in 2018 was 7.1%. No recent data for Slovenia and Poland.

1999

14.6

29.1

42.1

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20.9

Fig. 6.1 Trade union density by country (Data OECD. Stat., accessed in November, 2019 [https://stats.oecd.org/ Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TUD])

Data: OECD. Stat., accessed in November, 2019 1

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by the most recent OECD ranking of trade union membership, collective bargaining has suffered an international decline, dropping from 30% of average coverage of workers in 1985 to 16% in 2018. In the studied countries, perhaps, this may also be partially explained by a decline in the number of employees covered by collective bargaining agreements. While collective agreements were virtually compulsory yet quite meaningless in the Communist period, one hope was that these agreements might be filled with real meaning in a market economy. Yet by 2002 the percentage of employees covered by such agreements had declined to 15% in Lithuania and 25% in Poland in 2000 and continued to drop in both countries reaching 7.1% in Lithuania and 17.2% in Poland by 2015. While providing broad bargaining power, Slovenian trade unions have also lost half of their former membership base (OECD). Declining membership rates pose serious threats to trade union’s survival. Especially as most of them rely on membership fees and greatly lack support from government. In Lithuania, for example, in 2016 trade union budgets were mostly composed of membership fees. They constituted 72.7% of all trade unions’ budgets that year, while government subsidies only accounted for 0.3%. To compare, the share of state subsidies in business and employer associations’ budgets was 2.2%, while membership fees composed just 5.7% (The Lithuanian Department of Statistics 2017). Another pressing issue for trade unions in CEE as well as in the rest of Europe, is relatively low public confidence. The reason behind this public distrust lies in the legacy of the Communist era. During the Communist period the official trade unions in the Eastern bloc served as workplace watchdogs with the aim of raising production levels and keeping discipline as well as functioning as ‘transmission belts’ of Communist ideology (Ashwin 1998: 137). During the first years of independence many of these trade unions in Central Eastern Europe were de-nationalized which raised the question of their legitimacy in the eyes of the public due to their strong connection with the state and the Communist Party in the Communist era. However, some authors noted (see for ex. Ost 2009; Kallaste and Woolfson 2009) that it is not just the years of communism but also the post-Communist period that fostered a negative image of these trade unions. During the years of economic transition, union leaders either defied or failed to adequately resist the aspirations of the political elite to bring about radical economic change based on fundamental freemarket economic shock programmes. The costs of transformation were

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passed on to the most vulnerable groups in society, the unskilled labour force, which traditionally had been represented by the unions. Therefore, the failure to protect workers’ interests during the transition period has contributed even more to the negative image of trade unions. Based on Eurobarometer data, the most visible decrease of public distrust in trade unions was in 2010, right in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008 (Fig. 6.2). At that time trust in Slovenian trade unions dropped by as much as 25% and was as low as 32%. A less dramatic change was seen in Poland where trade unions lost around 12 percentage points of confidence and the trust rate dropped to 25%. Lithuanian trade unions, however, seems to be growing their trust numbers slowly with no decline after the economic crisis. Taking all countries together, the situation with pubic trust in trade unions appears to get better with growth from 2010 to 2018. The least trusted remain Slovenian trade unions with only 42% of society tending to rather trust trade unions, while Lithuania and Poland can now boast of having confidence levels of around 50% of the population. Despite these differences among the observed countries, the trend of the past several years shows a gradual increase of levels of trust in trade unions. So perhaps we might speak of changing public attitudes towards trade unions with their communismrelated image gradually fading away. While the actual reasons behind it need further investigation, it has already been suggested in the literature (Frege and Tóth 1999) that public attitudes towards trade unions in the post-Communist countries might not only be limited to the legacies of the past, but also related to the rational assessment of unions’ current institutional performance.

6.5

Discussion and Conclusions

In this chapter, we explored why trade unions in the post-Communist states of Central Eastern European in general, and Poland, Slovenia and Lithuania in particular, have failed to become significant actors in representing employee rights. We point to the fact that due to their historical and political conditions trade unions in these countries have never had stable and strong relationships with political parties and did not become long-term intermediaries between society and political parties. Despite some initial tandem-like relations with parties in the early years of independence their links became even less stable with time, which is also evidenced in the rest of Europe.

2004

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Fig. 6.2 Trust in trade unions over the years by country (Source Eurobarometer)

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Apart from the fact that they never developed a relationship with their historical allies in the political realm, trade unions have also failed to develop a strong representative role for the labour force in the early years of independence which also contributed to a fast-paced decline in membership rates. Rapid transformations in the political, economic and social spheres together with an ever-increasing modernization of society means that trade unions have not only retained their Soviet legacy in the eyes of the public but also did not keep up with the pace of change. However, as recent data shows, trade unions in Poland, Slovenia and Lithuania are gradually regaining public trust which gives hope for a changing trade union role in industrial relations as well as allowing us to consider and further inquire about possible shifts in the efficiency of labour representation by these organizations. Consequently, we have to look into the replacement of traditional labour force representation in the democratic policy process.

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CHAPTER 7

Seeking Access to Policy Stakeholders: Business ‘Lobbying’ vs Others

7.1

Venue Shopping in the CEE Political Systems

CEE interest groups have been active in liberal democracies for almost three decades, their number is constantly increasing, the variety of interests represented is increasing and their development and the quality of lobbying practices is influenced not only by the changing national political and institutional environment, but also by EU membership (see also Chapter 8). So, what can we say about interest group lobbying activity in CEE countries today? Since systematic research on CEE interest groups interaction with policy-makers is still absent from the interest group research agenda, we draw on current knowledge of other European interest group lobbying strategies and try to test if the same holds true in post-socialist settings. Competing for access to the process of public policy-making, interest groups can use multiple institutional venues including direct contact with decision-makers, the public and the media. Taken together these strategies are often divided between direct and indirect, or, in other words, inside and outside lobbying strategies (Jordan and Halpin 2003; Grant 2004; Binderkrantz 2005; Fraussen et al. 2015; Dür and Mateo 2016; Hanegraaff et al. 2016). Inside lobbying include various pressure channels in the state apparatus seeking direct access to decision-makers at the political or administrative level and are generally not clearly visible in the public domain. Many interest groups choose to influence public © The Author(s) 2021 P. Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation, Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4_7

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policy silently via direct contact with decision-makers. In addition to inside lobbying strategies, interest groups may try to draw the attention of policy-makers in indirect ways, for example, through media campaigns to inform the general public. To this end, interest groups use a variety of media tools to draw the public’s attention to a particular issue and put pressure on decision-makers in a non-institutional environment. Outside lobbying helps to influence public policy indirectly by forming public opinion and mobilizing the members or society at large (Kollman 1998; Mahoney 2008) and signals to policy-makers about the importance of certain policy issues. In this way, inside lobbying privatizes conflict and reduce its scope, while outside lobbying socializes conflict by involving relevant stakeholders (Schattschneider 1960; Kollman 1998). Governments and civil servants working in ministries are the first and most important channel of influence, as government usually has a legislative initiative (Eising and Spohr 2017: 314). Thus, the significance of a bureaucratic apparatus is determined by its role in policy-making and policy implementation. Many routine, technical and ‘less important’ solutions that are relevant to interest groups are adopted by civil servants (Matthews 1989: 217, in Hague and Harrop 2004: 169). Parliaments also play an important role in shaping the political agenda as well as in decision-making, since the adoption or amendment of laws requires parliamentary approval (Eising and Spohr 2017: 314). In European democracies, most of which operate according to a corporatist model or have corporate elements, parliaments are rather more reactive than proactive and, therefore, parliament members are seen as opinion-shapers rather than decision-makers (Hague and Harrop 2004: 170). When a certain law reaches the parliament, agreements and compromises have already been reached, so only minor changes are made in the further process of public policy (Binderkrantz 2014). As Eising and Spohr (2017) note, the importance of parliament (and its bodies) to interest groups depends on its power, which is partly determined by its relationship with the executive. This relationship depends on both the national model of interest mediation, the majority both in the government and in the parliament, and on the institutional context (see for example Chapter 3). As in the Western Democracies—although parliaments have influence in shaping public policies and governments are accountable to parliaments—in Central Eastern European countries the largest part of legislation is mostly shaped outside parliaments by the executive. Therefore, in CEE countries governments and ministries are as well major targets for national interest groups. Going

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even further and focusing on a sub-group of CEE counties, in the Baltic states, parliaments are categorized as weak and reactive institutions due to their poorer resources, lower levels of socialization and experience (Magone 2011: 203), as well as the high turnover of members of parliaments (Krupaviˇcius 1999). Moreover, as argued by Waller ‘in changing political systems, parliamentary structures tend to have only weak links to organised interests in society’ (Waller 1994: 24). Interest group’s nexus with political parties can as well offer a partial explanation to their relationship with directly elected representatives. Political parties can rely on interest groups that represent issues of public concern and public policy, passing on specific pragmatic demands to political parties which are then aggregated by parties and integrated into a common programme to mobilize support, while parliaments and the bureaucracy implement these requirements through public policies and laws (Berger 1981: 9). Thus, the interaction between interest groups and political parties can play an important role in the way in which the public is represented in practice (Otjes and Rasmussen 2015: 96). Historically, most political parties came from social movements that opposed the political elite, and some parties even formally established by interest groups (Duverger 1954) with which the parties maintained strong, formalized or even institutionalized ties. However, the latest studies on party-interest group relationships observed that traditionally strong relations between parties and interest organizations have recently become much weaker (Allern and Bale 2012; see also Chapter 4). The lack of strong ties between parties and interest groups in most CEE countries is also due to the fact that in the post-Communist democracies political parties were formed in the absence of a vibrant civil society, sharply in contrast with Western Europe. The relative political vacuum left by the collapse of the Communist regimes created the preconditions for fragmented political systems to become the norm in the majority of new democracies (Rose and Munro 2003: 36). Addressing outside strategies, there are two ways in which interest groups can influence the public policy process through indirect channels. First, they can use a more traditional approach by using media campaigns. Publicity is an important source of power for all political actors, including interest groups. Although domination in the media cannot be equated with political power, still it provides an opportunity to raise problematic issues and shape the political agenda and influence decision-makers (Binderkrantz and Christiansen 2011: 3). For example,

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Lithuania as well as the other two Baltic countries enjoy high public trust in the media which has made media organizations for certain groups a tempting target to influence the political agenda (Auers 2015). Second, interest groups can also use less conventional methods such as protests, strikes or boycotts. Although these unconventional lobbying strategies are most commonly used by social movements, some public interest groups and trade unions often seek publicity in this way (Caramani 2014: 247). Typically, such indirect strategies are used by policy ‘outsiders’ that do not enjoy access to decision-makers; however, it is not just a back-up solution or a weapon of the weak (Binderkrantz 2005: 698). Media campaigns and protests or strikes can help reach larger audiences as opposed to direct contacts with decision-makers that often remain unnoticed. Therefore, this strategy can help interest groups to demonstrate to potential members and sponsors that they are actively representing their interests.

7.2

Strategies of Inside Lobbying

Although the dichotomy between inside and outside lobbying is used most widely to describe the continuum of different strategies used by interest groups, both inside and outside lobbying also consist of an array of possible channels that interest groups can use or access to influence public policy through different political actors and institutional venues. To analyze interest groups’ venue shopping further, we use the typology of four strategies (Binderkrantz 2005) that interest groups can use to influence public policy: executive strategy, parliamentary strategy, media strategy and mobilization strategy. The first two strategies—executive and parliamentary—refer to inside lobbying venues and include direct contact with policy-makers at the executive and parliamentary level, and the use of institutional opportunity structures to influence public policy (namely, participation in open consultations and serving on advisory commissions and boards). Media and mobilization strategies, in turn, include a range of outside lobbying techniques, respectively via publicity or through mobilizing members and supporters. To get a general preview of preferences in lobbying strategies, we asked interest organizations how they divide their time between direct strategies, such as contacts with politicians and civil servants and indirect strategies, such as media coordinating, letter writing, e-mailing or social media campaigns, rallies and demonstrations, when influencing policy. Figure 7.1 presents the mean values of the share of time dedicated to

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80.0

40.0

57.7

50.6

60.0 34.1

38.7

49.9

44

37.1 27.9

20.0 0.0 Mean total

Mean Lithuania Direct strategies

Mean Poland

Mean Slovenia

Indirect strategies

Fig. 7.1 Time allocated between direct and indirect strategies, mean value

direct and indirect strategies. The data shows that in all three countries the surveyed organizations on average spend more time applying indirect strategies in influencing public policy with Lithuanian organizations showing the largest difference of almost 20%. Table 7.1 provides a snapshot view of the different lobbying strategies used by interest groups in the studied CEE countries. The general observation is that interest groups in the studied countries use a wide spectrum of different ways to influence public policy, ranging from direct contact with policy-makers to media campaigns to less conventional ways of influence like strikes and demonstrations. The data shows that the larger part of lobbying strategies—both inside and outside—are applied by around half of all organizations surveyed. Of the four most frequently used strategies, two are direct and two indirect. More specifically, in terms of inside lobbying venues the studied interest groups are more likely to use direct contact at the executive level: 34% of them report having sought access to ministers and their cabinets at least once over the last 12 months. Almost 70% said they have sought access to national civil servants working in departmental ministries. Direct contact with these political actors is also most frequent among the different venues at the executive level. In terms of outside lobbying strategies, interest groups use a wide range of media campaign activities. 64.6% of organizations report having contacted journalists to increase media attention at least once over the past 12 months, while 67.6% said they have published statements and position papers on their websites. Differences between the frequencies of using executive, parliamentary and media strategies are not significant. However, when comparing strategies at the executive and parliamentary level, the latter are less applicable;

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Table 7.1 Strategies applied by interest groups, percentages

Executive strategy Ministers (including their assistants/cabinets /political appointees) National civil servants working in the Prime Minister’s Office National civil servants working in departmental ministries Responded to open consultations by the government Served on advisory commissions or boards Parliamentary strategy Elected members from the majority or governing parties of parliament Elected members from minority or opposition parties of parliament Media strategy Organize press conferences or distribute press releases Publish research reports and brochures Active involvement in media debates such as giving interviews, editorials, opinion letters

Once every 12 months

Once every 3 months

Once a month + Once a week

We did not do this

26.9

23.4

13.9

35.9

19.4

14.3

3.6

62.7

25.3

22.5

19.1

33.1

27.1

18.6

6.3

48

25.8

10.1

1.8

41.1

20.4

17.9

7.2

54.5

20.4

15

6.4

58.2

25.1

18

6.4

50.4

29.5

13.5

3.9

53.1

25

19.8

13.8

41.5

(continued)

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Table 7.1 (continued)

Place advertisements in newspapers and magazines Contact journalists to increase media attention Publish statements and position papers on your own website Mobilization strategy Encourage members and supporters to lobby policymakers, participate in a letter-writing campaign or to sign petitions directed at public officials Stage protests involving members and supporters (strikes, consumer boycotts, public demonstrations) Organize a conference of experts and other stakeholders Established coalitions with like-minded organizations

Once every 12 months

Once every 3 months

Once a month + Once a week

We did not do this

15.1

10.3

2.3

72.3

30.2

22.7

11.7

35.4

20.2

20.7

19.2

32.4

22.2

13

4.8

60.1

8.8

8

1.4

81.9

31.9

17.5

4

46.6

29.2

19.6

8.9

42.3

*Numbers in the table are in percentages. Non-response/don’t know answers are not presented

that is, contact with ministers and civil servants working in the ministries is more frequent than direct contact with members of parliament. Of all the four strategies, the relatively least applied is the mobilization strategy. In this case, CEE interest groups mostly use more conventional methods of supporter mobilization: organizing conferences of experts and other stakeholders and establishing coalitions with like-minded organizations. Although the general snapshot of lobbying strategies used by the studied interest groups reveals that their strategic repertoire mostly relies

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on conventional ways of influencing public policy, it is interesting to note that some organizations reported having used unconventional methods. Around 18% of groups surveyed claimed to have staged protests at least once during the last 12 months. This shows that while the vast majority of Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian interest groups choose conventional methods to mobilize supporters, a large number of organizations use confrontational methods as well. Table 7.2 presents the mean values of the frequency of contacts with policy-makers at the executive and parliamentary venues in all studied countries combined and by group type. As shown by the data, business groups in most cases are well above the average, while groups representing other interests fall behind in the frequency of their contact with policy-makers. Speaking of the diversification between the two strategies—executive and parliamentary—both types of groups exhibit stronger relationships, in terms of frequency of contact, with the government and the ministries as opposed to the relationship with parliament members. We can also observe some variation in the frequency of inside lobbying among the studied countries (see Table 7.3). For example, Polish interest groups seem to have less frequent direct contact with decision-makers Table 7.2 Inside lobbying venues used by business and non-business groups, mean values (scale 1–5)

Executive strategy Ministers (including their assistants/cabinets/political appointees) National civil servants working in the Prime Minister’s Office National civil servants working in departmental ministries Responded to open consultations by the government Served on advisory commissions or boards Parliamentary strategy Elected members from the majority or governing parties of parliament Elected members from minority or opposition parties of parliament

Overall mean

Business

Non-business

2.19

2.51

2.12

1.59

1.73

1.56

2.33

2.86

2.22

1.84

2.26

1.75

2.05

2.42

1.97

1.79

1.97

1.75

1.71

1.86

1.67

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Table 7.3 Inside lobbying venues for countries, mean values (scale 1–5)

Executive strategy Ministers (including their assistants/cabinets/political appointees) National civil servants working in the Prime Minister’s Office National civil servants working in departmental ministries Responded to open consultations by the government Served on advisory commissions or boards Parliamentary strategy Elected members from the majority or governing parties of parliament Elected members from minority or opposition parties of parliament

Lithuania

Poland

Slovenia

Overall mean

2.14

2.07

2.31

2.19

1.69

1.52

1.55

1.59

2.49

2.23

2.25

2.33

1.80

2.06

1.75

1.84

2.27

2.09

1.83

2.05

1.93

1.83

1.65

1.79

1.75

1.82

1.61

1.71

at the executive level compared to Lithuanian and Slovenian interest groups, whereas they are ahead of Lithuania and Slovenia in terms of their frequency in responding to open consultations by the government. Serving on advisory commissions and boards is much less prevalent among Slovenian interest groups, especially compared to Lithuania. While there are no major differences in terms of a frequency gap between executive and parliamentary level venues in the studied countries, Slovenian interest groups seem to have the least interest in using parliament members to influence public policy. This can be explained by the different interest intermediation systems. As Poland and Lithuania are pluralist countries, naturally, we can expect more intense relationship between their parliaments and interest groups. In neo-corporatist Slovenia, on the other hand, one can expect interest groups to be in contact more with the government and its bodies than with the parliament.

7.3

Explaining Access Goods

What explains the access of interest groups to decision-makers? Many classical and modern studies of interest groups see their behaviour as an exchange between these groups and the various actors in the environment

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in which they operate. For example, exchange theory is used primarily to explain how and why interest groups are formed (see Salisbury 1969). In the analysis of policy networks, various forms of interest representation are understood as a kind of interorganizational exchange (Heaney and Strickland 2016; Leifeld and Schneider 2012; Knoke et al. 1996; Coleman 1990). Finally, the exchange paradigm is a central feature of neo-corporatism, one of the most influential theories explaining the relationship between interest groups and the state (Schmitter and Streeck 1999; Molina and Rhodes 2002). The repertoire and effectiveness of lobbying activities in recent years is often conceptualized as interest group’s ability to provide political actors and institutions with different kinds of resources (knowledge, expertise, etc.) in exchange for access to the public policy process (e.g. Dür 2008; Braun 2012; Klüver 2013; Binderkrantz et al. 2014). As the authorities have leverage to regulate the institutional environment, they can play an active role in shaping the interaction between themselves and interest groups and decide who can influence them (Michalowitz 2007: 75). Many recent studies show that access to policy institutions and actors—and potential influence—is enjoyed by those interest groups that can generate the political, technical and expert information required by public authorities (see for example: Bouwen 2004; Chalmers 2011, 2013; Dür et al. 2015). Public authorities that often lack the time, human and financial resources to gather the necessary information for effective public policy formulation and implementation give interest groups direct access and the opportunity to influence public policy processes in return for that information. Thus, this demand-related perspective highlights the importance of the competence of interest groups to provide decision-makers with specialized information. The existing research on Western Democracies suggests that business groups usually are those that possess more specialized information which has a high demand among decision-makers and, therefore, have much better access to political institutions. Meanwhile, public interest groups are generally better off with other types of resources, such as volunteers, who are important players in the effective implementation of outside lobbying (Bouwen 2004; Dür and Mateo 2012). Thus, the information managed by business interest groups is considered to be a currency in exchange for which they receive direct access to public policy-makers and, potentially, favourable political decisions. The choice of strategies can be

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seen through a cost-benefit approach, assuming that the resources available to different types of interest groups determine that inside lobbying strategies are relatively cheaper for economic interest groups and, in contrast, outside lobbying strategies are more accessible to public interest groups (Dür and Mateo 2013). The type of interest group is also associated with the financial and human resources the group possess. Traditionally, groups representing public interests are considered to have fewer resources and therefore more often use outside lobbying strategies. Often, outsider strategies are described as an extreme measure or a ‘weapon of the weak’ used by groups with fewer competences and resources (della Porta and Diani 1999: 168–169; Gais and Walker Jr. 1991: 105; Kollman 1998: 107–108; Beyers 2004; Eising 2007; Kriesi et al. 2007). And, to the contrary, inside lobbying strategies are seen as superior to outside strategies and are used by powerful and resource-rich interest groups. 7.3.1

Data and Methodology

So which factors influence interest group’s choices of inside lobbying strategies? We aim to answer this question from the following determinants based on the literature and data available: possession of information, the type of interest group (business vs other), financial resources (size of a last year’s budget) and the country variations (three CEE countries: Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia). Our dependent variable is the number of different inside lobbying venues that interest groups can use to influence public policy in a direct way, measured by the following two questions: During the last 12 months, how often has your organization actively sought access to the following national level institutions and agencies in order to influence public policies? (Beyers et al. 2016). The survey participants were presented with a list of venues, of which for the purpose of this chapter we selected the following: (1) Ministers (including their assistants/cabinets/political appointees); (2) Elected members from the majority or governing parties of parliament; (3) Elected members from minority or opposition parties of parliament; (4) National civil servants working in the Prime Minister’s Office; (5) National civil servants working in departmental ministries such as agriculture, environment, transport, health, etc. The second question was as follows: During the last 12 months, how often has your organization been involved in any of the following activities? Again, the surveyed

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organizations were given a list of activities, of which our present analysis includes: (1) Responded to open consultations by the government; (2) Served on advisory commissions or boards. The answer options for both questions were: 1 = ‘we did not seek access/we did not do this’; 2 = ‘at least once a year’, 3 = ‘at least once every three months’, 4 = ‘at least once a month’, 5 = ‘at least once a week’. Possession of information was measured by the following question: Political institutions and actors seek different types of information from organizations like yours. Thinking about the information your organization supplies to these institutions, please rate how important the following types of information are for policy-makers. The question included five different types of information (technical or scientific information; legal information; economic information; an assessment of the societal impact; an assessment of political support) and the answer options were: 1 = ‘not applicable’; 2 = ‘not at all important’, 3 = ‘not very important’, 4 = ‘somewhat important’, 5 = ‘very important’. The way it is formulated, this question allows us to kill two birds with one stone. First, we check what kind of information an interest group possesses, if any, and, second, we can see the relevance of this information for policy stakeholders. We measure interest group’s resources by the group’s budget, which in this case also serves as a proxy for the size of its human resources, as staff size was not possible to be included in our analysis due to its high correlation with budget (r = 0.798). To determine the size of budgets we asked organizations what the annual operating budget of their organization was in 2016 in Euros. The respondents were presented with eight budget categories, which for the present analysis was scaled down to three categories: small, medium and large. For country variations, we again use the data of the three CEE countries that participated in the survey, namely Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. The countries were included in the analysis as separate dummy variables using Lithuania as a reference category. 7.3.2

Results

Table 7.4 presents the results of linear logistic regression. The size of the budget seems to be the best predictor of access to different insider venues. The more resource endowed an interest group is, the more likely it will be to have more frequent access to the executive and parliamentary actors. In most cases, group type is a good predictor of venue choice. Business

Ministers (including their assistants/cabinets /polical appointees) 0.286* ref 773 0.234 27.262

*p = 0.000; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.05

Slovenia Lithuania N Adjusted R F

Poland −0.713**

0.315**

Group type (business)

Country

0.414*

Budget

Economic 0.053 Assessment of societal impact 0.119** Assessment of polical support 0.088***

Type of informaon Technical/scienfic 0.005 Legal 0.061

Execuve strategies

−0.077 ref 773 0.185 20.517

−0.262***

0.057

−0.132 Ref 774 0.211 23.949

−0.513**

0.537*

0.419*

0.137**

0.116* 0.326*

0.055 0.125**

−0.044

0.045 0.041

0.043

−0.038

Naonal civil servants working in the Prime Minister’s Office 0.042

Naonal civil servants working in departmental ministries

Factors

Responded to open consultaons by the government −0.012 ref 775 0.225 25.974

0.089

0.263**

0.334*

0.075***

0.057 0.042

0.035

0.040

−0.036

Served on advisory commissions or boards −0.345* ref 775 0.216 24.753

0.131

0.318**

0.355*

0.062

0.095*** 0.108**

−0.012

Parliamentary strategies

−0.196** ref 774 0.228 26.360

0.002

0.059

0.248*

0.195*

0.009 0.081***

0.071***

−0.071***

Elected members from the majority or governing pares of parliament

Linear regression analysis—factors of inside lobbying in different venues

−0.080 Ref 773 0.225 25.861

0.012

0.094

0.231*

0.252*

−0.001 0.061

0.028

−0.066***

Elected members from minority or opposion pares of parliament

Table 7.4

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groups are more likely to have more frequent contact with the ministers and their cabinets and civil servants working in national ministries as opposed to non-business groups. The same is true for business groups’ participation in open consultations and serving on advisory commissions and boards. As for contacts with elected representatives both in the majority and opposition, group type has no effect which, also considering the data presented in earlier pages, goes to show that both business and non-business groups tend to equally bypass national parliaments when trying to influence public policy. The types of information that give better access to insider venues gives some interesting insights. As our data shows, it is not the technical, legal or scientific information that gives easier access to bureaucrats and governments, but the assessment of societal impact and political support. The same holds true for contact with parliamentary actors. However, it must be noted that in most cases the information factor, although statistically relevant, has rather weak explanatory power. We as well find some variation between the countries. For example, Polish interest groups are less likely to use direct communication at the executive level compared to their Slovenian and Lithuanian counterparts. Meanwhile Slovenian interest groups are more likely to have more frequent contact with the ministers and less likely to serve on advisory commissions and boards and have direct contact with representatives of the governing parties. Our analysis allows us to make a few general observations. First, after three decades of operating in democratic settings, interest groups in the studied countries—Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia—may no longer be regarded as public policy freshmen. Whether it is the effect of Europeanization and socialization or the natural process of change, today the array of lobbying activities of these groups provide a similar picture to those in advanced democracies. The descriptive analysis shows that interest groups use a wide spectrum of different lobbying strategies using different venues. While our data limits us from evaluating the sophistication and successfulness of these strategies, still the results demonstrate that interest groups in the studied countries are active participants in the public policy process. In line with Chapter 4, this chapter also provides evidence that interest groups move away not only from political parties but also from parliamentary bodies focusing most of their attention on the executive. While attempts to influence public policies via the parliament are not completely absent, our results show a trend of interest groups leaning towards the

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national ministries. While our results have limitations for more in-depth analysis of the content and results of interest group interaction with policy-makers at different levels, nevertheless it provides more evidence to support the argument of fading institutional relations between parties (Katz and Mair 1995; Allern and Bale 2012; Rasmussen and Lindeboom 2013) and, hence, between parliaments and interest groups across Europe. Also, contrary to most studies on informational lobbying in the European context (see for ex. Bouwen 2004; Eising 2009; Klüver 2013), our analysis finds no support for the idea that technical information is the currency giving access to the executive, or, for that matter, to parliamentary bodies. While further investigation is needed to understand the reasons behind this, we can hypothesize that either interest groups in the studied countries are not considered by the policy-makers as a relevant or necessary source of this type of information, or, given the fact that assessment of societal impact and political support proved to be more relevant factors for access (albeit statistically weak), the drivers of exchange relationships between organized interests and policy-makers are not the expertise that the groups may offer but in their ability to act as links to the public. Finally, our results support the already wide-spread and tested assumption that money is the mother’s milk of politics. While some research finds evidence that less money can also grant access to political venues, still the trend that money matters remains strong. What does it mean for interest groups in the studied countries? In the post-Communist setting, where personal contact and informal relationships still triumphs over institutionalized interest representation, heavily underfunded groups might continue to face hard times when trying to make their voices heard.

7.4

Discussion and Conclusions

The aim of this chapter was to analyze the differences in strategies for inside lobbying (i.e. direct interactions with policy-makers or participation in policy consultations) between business and non-business organizations in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia in a comparative perspective and to explore whether we can observe the same patterns of inside lobbying in terms of strategy choice and access goods between interest groups in Western Democracies and CEE countries. While the topic became prominent among interest groups scholars during the last few decades,

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most of the studies so far focus on interest groups operating in advanced democracies, while CEE countries received far less attention. Moreover, a prevailing conviction in the literature is that CEE countries, due to their similar historical experiences and underdeveloped interest group systems, will not exhibit great differences within their cohort and similar patterns should be expected when studying interest organizations in post-Communist countries. On one hand, the analysis presented in this chapter confirms that this is the case and that the general pattern of strategy choice is similar not only among the studied CEE countries, but it also resembles that of their Western counterparts. For example, it is evident from the descriptive analysis that both business groups and non-business groups tend to rely more on direct contact with governments and ministries rather than approaching members of parliament. On the other hand, the latter is more evident in neo-corporatist Slovenia than pluralist Poland and Lithuania. Therefore, the simplest conclusion in this case might be that it is not solely the effect of the historical legacy but rather a result of the design of interest representation systems within those countries. Turning to the results of the regression analysis, the conclusion is that information is the currency to buy influence in both the Western and Eastern parts of Europe. All types of information tested in the analysis helps to get access to both the executive and parliamentary venues. However, it should be noted that the information effect in most cases is weak and is trumped by the size of budget across all venues. While business groups seem to have more frequent contact with the executive level, both business and non-business actors seem to have similar patterns in contacting parliament members, more or less keeping contact with directly elected representatives to a minimum. We can also observe some country variation with Polish interest groups being less likely to have more contact with the executive in comparison to Slovenia and Lithuania. It is important to note that the analysis presented in this chapter has its limitations when speaking about the outcomes of lobbying and the input of interest groups in shaping national policies. While this chapter provides a general picture of venue shopping patterns in the studied countries, access to political and administrative actors at different levels cannot necessarily be linked to the effectiveness and success of these strategies. How successful and effective the application of different strategies of interest groups are is a question for interest group influence research.

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Therefore, having in mind that interest group workings in CEE countries still remains an understudied field in interest group research, future research could focus on groups’ influence-oriented studies which could help to identify not only the venue choice of interest groups in these countries but also concrete policy outcomes. At the same time, it would be interesting to compare whether and how the interest groups from CEE countries and their Western European counterparts differ in their effectiveness in influencing public policy. Also, given the lack of institutionalization in civil society in general and interest groups in particular in post-Communist settings, in the future it might be useful to compare whether and how the interest groups in an organizational sense and other lobbyists, such as individual companies, think tanks or law firms, differ in their effectiveness in influencing public policy and to identify possible power asymmetries.

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CHAPTER 8

Interest Organizations in CEE Countries and the European Policy Process

Interest groups representation in CEE countries during the last few decades has been marked by the EU accession process and the processes of Europeanization (Cekik 2015; Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2002; see also Chapter 2) as well as the transition to liberal democracy. Some argue that the effect of Europeanization on CEE countries is even larger than the effect of the change from Socialism to Capitalism that took place in the beginning of the 1990s (Maloney et al. 2018). The Europeanization processes had a substantial effect on the CEE countries that joined the European Union recently. They needed to adopt substantial acquis, as well as, pass (readjust) their sovereignty in a number of public policies that are under the competences of the EU. Yet, the effects of the Europeanization process have been mostly studied in West European countries where it has been gaining momentum (Pritoni 2017). Despite the importance of—and huge research interest in—the effects of the Europeanization processes on member states and its actors, an overview of the literature does not offer us one single, unified definition of the process of Europeanization. But it can be understood as the impact of EU governance on member states’ actors, institutions and the whole environment. Radaelli (2000: 3–4), in probably the most widely accepted definition, defines Europeanization as: A process of construction, diffusion, and institutionalisation of rules, procedure, paradigms, styles, ways of doing and shared beliefs and norms, formal © The Author(s) 2021 P. Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation, Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4_8

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and informal, defined and consolidated first in the decision-making process of the EU and then incorporated in the logic discourses, identities, political structure and policies at the domestic level.

The process of Europeanization has, alongside its influence on state actors and decision-making processes, also influenced non-state actors such as interest groups. Similarly as stated in Radaelli’s definition of Europeanization, interest groups have been affected in various ways by EU governance: with rules and the legal environment, changes in policymaking, political lobbying and policy outcomes, funding dependencies, organizational structure, participatory opportunities and with social interactions and individual networking (Johansson and Jacobsson 2016). After all, the engagement of interest groups at the supranational level presents interest groups with new challenges, especially for their political culture (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2002). In general we can understand the concept of the Europeanization of interest groups as their increased role in the processes of EU policy-making at the national level, their becoming active in the European dimension instead of or in addition to the national one (Warleigh 2001: 620) and as the reaction to the Europeanization process with the aim of maintaining their policy influence (Pritoni 2017). The Europeanization process can be even understood as a process that occurs beyond EU activity (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2002). Although, EU level policy-making offers new opportunities for interest groups to advocate for their interests, not all interest groups get engaged in EU policy-making. Interest group’s resources, by which we mean staff, financial resources and embeddedness in the domestic environment (expressed in their commitment to members and domestic funders), can explain which national interest groups are more likely to lobby EU policymakers (Beyers and Kerremans 2007). However, this does not mean that only those interest groups engaged in EU level policy-making have been influenced by the Europeanization process (Novak and Lajh 2018). The process of Europeanization can also have an effect on styles, ways of doing things, beliefs and discourses in the domestic environment (Radealli 2003: 30). It is more the acknowledgment of the impact of Europe and the taking into account of this impact by interest groups themselves (Beyers and Kerremans 2007: 461). The Europeanization of interest groups cannot thus be simply understood as interest group’s engagement in EU policies at the EU level. In this chapter, we understand Europeanization

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in a broader sense as any influence of European integration on interest groups, not only as EU level policy-making. However, here we need to acknowledge that it is hard to measure what changes are solely due to the effect of Europeanization. After all, the process of Europeanization predominantly takes place simultaneously with other processes. This is even more the case for interest groups from CEE countries that were affected by the Europeanization process already during their democratic transition. It is thus hard to distinguish between domestic and European factors. Europeanization can be at the same time a process and an outcome (being Europeanised; Beyers and Kerremans 2007: 461). Europe in this sense can belong to all domestic groups (Ladrech 2005). The effects of the Europeanization process on interest groups can be noticed in various areas: the pluralisation of interest group systems, the receipt of EU funds, access to EU decision-makers and membership in EU umbrella organizations (see various publications on the Europeanization of interest groups: Sanchez-Salgado 2014; Johansson and Jacobsson 2016; Pritoni 2017; Fink-Hafner et al. 2015; Klüver 2010; Maloney et al. 2018; Novak and Lajh 2018; Sanchez-Salgadov and Demidov 2018). Our analysis will focus on a comparison of different factors that demonstrate a clear impact of European integration. We also recognize that the Europeanization process could have an impact on the domestic behaviour of interest groups and their political culture which may also be due to the simultaneous effects of other hard to measure processes, e.g. democratic transition and the globalization process. This chapter thus follows the following structure. Firstly, we look into the effects of Europeanization on the establishment of new interest groups and then continue with a discussion of EU funds in CEE countries and how dependent interest groups are on them. There follows a comparison of the relationships between interest groups and national actors compared to supranational decisionmakers. Finally, we sum up the characteristics of interest groups from CEE countries in the EU policy-making process, we also look into the role of national interest groups in EU umbrella organizations.

8.1 The Effects of EU Accession on Population Ecology---Diversity, Structure and Numbers While interest groups from older, Western EU member states were gradually affected by the Europeanization process and the expansion of policies that are within the competences of the EU, newer EU member states

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needed to adopt the EU acquis in a short period of time and join the EU’s well-developed international cooperation ecosystem. The majority of the countries in the CEE region have already entered the European Union: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia entered in 2004, Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. The remainder either have the status of candidate countries (Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia), or the status of potential candidates (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo). After all, the Europeanization process does not only effect member states, it also has an effect on candidate and potential candidate countries since the process starts before membership. In candidate countries from the Western Balkan region interest groups are already being influenced by the Europeanization process. Interest groups are in various ways included in national EU accession processes. They participate in conferences and forums organized by political institutions and are consulted on the areas of their activity and expertise. The level of involvement is quite considerable with between 40 and 50% of interest groups participating in these consultations. A majority also participated in the preparation of responses to questionnaires prepared by European Commission, in pre-accession EU funding programmes and in working groups for negotiations with the EU (Cekik 2015). The effects of the Europeanization process on interest groups are substantial also due to the characteristics of the relationship between the EU and interest groups. The European Union and its institutions consider interest groups to be important actors that can increase the legitimacy of political decisions, decrease democratic deficits, enhance European integration, foster European identity and bring the EU closer to its citizens (Maloney et al. 2018). The experiences and expertise of interest groups are important for the Commission as they face staff shortages and officials simply do not know everything about the policy to write an effective, workable and implementable legislative proposal (Koeppl 2001). The Commission in particular lacks the ‘professional and technical know-how stemming from everyday interaction with sectors of society – a kind of hands-on knowledge’ (Gornitzka and Svedrup 2015: 153). Consequently, the EU encourages the inclusion of interest groups in policy-making, supports measures to strengthen the population of interest groups in EU member states which is also defined in the Lisbon Treaty (European Commission 2012) and the EU White Paper

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on Governance (European Commission 2001). After all, better involvement of interest groups in policy-making should lead to more efficient and more democratic government (Kohler-Koch 2010: 104). Europeanization in general had a positive effect on interest groups from CEE countries prior to their accession as EU member states, resulting in an increase of population size, a more proactive approach from interest groups towards influencing policy processes (Fink-Hafner et al. 2015; see also Chapter 2) and by emphasizing the professionalization of interest groups (Maloney et al. 2018; Sanchez-Salgado 2014). This was most evident in more sustainable organizations that had a greater possibility to survive in the competitive interest groups environment and acquire more resources to engage in policy-making activities. At the same time the population of interest groups increased. With the democratic transition and political and socio-economic changes a more pluralist system of interest groups developed. Furthermore, during the pre-accession period CEE interest groups were already becoming actively involved in EU affairs at both the national and supranational level (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2004). Our empirical data shows that the population of interest groups in CEE countries increased especially after independence or the change of political system at the beginning of the 1990s, during the EU accession stage, during the second half of the 1990s and after official EU membership (see Table 8.1), which confirms a Europeanization effect on the pluralisation of the interest group systems in the CEE region. In Slovenia, where the interest groups system was limited during Socialist times, but still present (Novak and Fink-Hafner 2019), a substantial share of interest groups where established prior to the 1980s which is different to the situation in Lithuania and Poland where only a small share of interest groups were established before the 1980s. But in all three of our case studies, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia, it is characteristic Table 8.1 Period of establishment of interest groups from CEE countries

Lithuania Poland Slovenia

Up to 1980 (%)

1981–1990 (%)

1991–1997 (%)

1998–2003 (%)

From 2004 on (%)

7.5 7 21

6.4 12 8.9

25.4 23.75 26.4

18.5 26.6 15

42.3 30.7 28.7

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that their interest groups systems began to develop after independence when almost a quarter of the total number of interest groups were established. The interest group systems continued to develop further during the period of EU accession preparation, during which the majority of interest groups were established and even more intensely after accession to EU membership. In Poland and Slovenia close to 30% of interest groups were established during the Europeanization process while in Lithuania the figure was more than 40%. This shows us that the Europeanization process firstly had an effect on the population of interest groups in CEE countries contributing to a more pluralist system.

8.2

EU Funding

The European Union provides interest groups with additional resources, funding opportunities, access opportunities and expertise as part of EU projects and programmes available to citizens (Börzel and Buzogány 2010). The effects of EU funding have an important impact on its beneficiaries and form a part of the EU’s participative policy. European funding for interest groups represent part of a broader strategy for decreasing the democratic deficit, increasing political participation and is directed towards the development of interest groups and strengthening their role (Sanchez Salgado 2017: 8; Sanchez Salgado 2014: 337). In this way the EU wants to get public support for legislative proposals, increase the legitimacy of EU institutions, ensure cooperation for EU institutions in the process of public policy-making (Mahoney and Beckstrand 2011: 1339), support the mobilization of interest groups and their lobbying activities, build a European political community, receive technical expertise and information on policy preferences for the preparation of better policies and to provide easier implementation of policies (Heylen and Williems 2018: 3). The effects of EU funding on interest groups are noticeable. Research has shown that EU funds lead to increased financial security for interest groups, the enlargement of interest group’s membership base (Sanchez Salgado 2014; Verschuere and De Corte 2014), improvement to and broadening of lobbying activities (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019: 100), the professionalization of interest groups (Maloney et al. 2018), as well as increased opportunities for direct access to decision-makers and more diverse lobbying strategies (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019).

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EU funds are also intended to balance potentially biased interest representation in EU policy-making by supporting interest groups that have less intrinsic capacity to participate in EU policy-making (Sanchez Salgado 2017: 2). With accession to the EU, the new member states from CEE received new opportunities to acquire EU funds while the available budget from EU sources was increased compared to the pre-accession stage (Maloney et al. 2018). In countries where there is a lack of national funding, especially after austerity measures following the 2008 economic crises - or there is an absence of a culture of citizens donating for the causes of interest groups (Stakeholder meeting 2018), EU funds may be highly valuable for the operation of interest groups. EU funds have influenced interest groups to become more professionalized in order to be able to compete for these resources. Calls for EU projects and programmes are highly competitive, often requiring the application to be written in a foreign language to the applicant, financially stable organizations and a well-written and convincing application. However, EU funds are often short term and conditional on co-financing with other resources. This leads to short-term project-oriented financing which for small interest groups from CEE countries can mean focusing their activities only on such projects and relying on temporary staff (Stakeholder meeting 2018). EU funds are, despite the efforts of the European Commission to direct its funds towards strengthening less developed interest groups systems, not distributed equally. Interest groups organized at the EU level, EU groups that expand European policies in their policy areas and groups that promote European identity, democracy, civic engagement, intercultural exchange, youth education and engagement receive stronger support through EU funds (Sanchez Salgado 2014: 337; Mahoney and Beckstrand 2011: 1358). At the same time interest groups from Central and Eastern Europe are less likely to gain financial support from the EU in comparison to older, Western member states. This is often a consequence of a lack of skills and capacity to prepare a competitive project proposal (Mahoney and Beckstrand 2011: 1358), as well as, lack of experience (Crepaz et al. 2019). On the other hand, research results show that although EU funds are not widely used by interest groups from CEE countries they contribute to the more developed and active interest groups (Novak and Lajh 2019; Maloney et al. 2018). Interest groups from Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia are to different extents financed by EU funds (see Table 8.2). In Poland 40% of interest groups receive funds from EU projects and programmes, compared to

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Table 8.2 Financing of interest groups from EU projects and programmes

Lithuania Poland Slovenia Belgium Netherlands Sweden

Share of interest groups funded by EU funds (%)

Average share of budget from EU funds (%)

Share of interest groups critically dependent on EU funds (%)

36.6 40.1 17.3 11.6 6.85 8.6

34.39 32.46 24.95 14.26 16.93 19.15

5.2 8.2 3.1 0.6 0.6 1.1

around 36% of interest groups from Lithuania but only 17% of Slovenian interest groups. Even though Polish interest groups are more likely to receive EU funds than interest groups from Slovenia, in all three cases EU source represent the least used funding opportunity by interest groups (Novak and Lajh 2019). For interest groups that are beneficiaries of EU funding this resource represents around a third of their yearly budget. This share is a little bit lower in Slovenia where EU funds represent around a quarter of the yearly budget of interest groups that receive EU funds. Only a small share of interest groups from CEE countries is critically dependent on EU funds, 3% of Slovenian, 5% of Lithuanian and 8% of Polish interest groups. When we compare interest groups from CEE countries to interest groups from Western European countries, we notice that EU funds are source of funding only for a small share of interest groups from Western Europe. 11.6% of interest groups form Belgium, 8.6% of interest groups from Sweden and 6.9% of interest groups from the Netherlands are financed partially from EU funds. This represent on average between 14 and 19% of their yearly budgets. Only a handful of interest groups (at most 2%) are dependent on EU funds. The result shows us that when it comes to financing from the EU, Slovenian interest groups are closer to their West European contemporaries than to interest groups from other CEE countries. EU funds are therefore more important to CEE countries, where they represent an important source of funding for the development of interest groups systems. It appears that at the national level funds from the European Commission are directed in the right direction. In the next

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part, we are going to look closer into the activities of interest groups at the national level compared to the EU level.

8.3

Activity at the National vs European Level

EU membership has also changed the activities of national interest groups from EU member states in other ways. If the national interest groups want to effectively represent their members and interests, it is no longer sufficient for them to be active only at the national level (Kohler-Koch 1997). This is particularly the case for interest groups that are active in policies within the EU’s competences (Beyers and Kerremans 2007: 463, 465). EU institutions and policies present new and additional opportunities for national interest groups to influence policy results (Beyers and Kerremans 2007). The majority of new legislation is in fact made at the EU level. Interest groups are therefore encouraged to take on a ‘dual strategy’ (Eising 2004), becoming active at both the national and EU level and to influence not just domestic actors and institutions, but also their EU equivalents (Binderkrantz and Rasmussen 2015; Beyers and Kerremans 2007, 2012; Hosli et al. 2004). Although more than 70% of interest groups from CEE countries do not spend any resources at the EU level (see Table 8.3), this does not mean that interest groups have no interest in EU policies. Between 30 and 50%of interest groups from CEE countries consider EU policies to be ‘most important’ or ‘important’ for their organization. The share of interest groups that evaluate EU policies as at least important for Table 8.3 Interest for EU policies

Lithuania Poland Slovenia Belgium Netherlands

Share of interest groups that do not spend any resources on EU level (%)

Share of interest groups that spent at least 25% of resources on EU level (%)

Share of interest groups that find EU policies as not important at all (%)

Share of interest groups that find EU policies as most important or important (%)

71.1 78.3 73 52.9 25.1

1.8 1.3 1.1 1.7 6.4

20.8 18 26.1 16.8 22.4

28.9 49.2 39.9 32.7 30.2

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them differs among CEE countries. EU policies are most important for Polish interest groups where almost 50% rank EU policies as important. However, among Polish interest groups we can find the highest share of groups that do not spend any resources at the EU level, almost 80%. On the other hand, the share of interest groups that find EU policies as important is smallest in Lithuania (30%), yet the share of interest groups that spend at least some resources at the EU level is the highest. The allocation of resources to the EU level and interest in EU policies is not linearly connected. However, the allocation of resources to EU policymaking does not necessarily mean investment of resources at the EU level, it can also mean spending the resources for involvement in the activities of EU level umbrella organizations or for activities targeted at national political institutions such as national governments and national parliament (Dür and Mateo 2013). Data for the Netherlands and Belgium shows a relatively high share of interest groups that spend at least some resources at the EU level. Almost 50% of Belgian groups and 25% of interest groups from the Netherlands invest at the EU level. However, EU policies are not too important for them. Around 30% of interest groups from the Netherlands and Belgium find EU policies important. Similarly, as for the CEE countries, it is characteristic that the importance of EU policies for Western European interest groups is not connected with the allocation of resources at the EU level. 8.3.1

Access to European Decision-Makers

Based on the literature review two hypotheses explain interest group’s engagement with national and European actors. According to the persistency hypothesis, interest groups that have established access to national policy-makers and enough resources to successfully lobby for public polices at the national level are more likely to also access EU level decision-makers and EU level policy-making. In contrast, the compensation hypothesis argues that interest groups that could not get access to national level decision-makers bypassed the national level and directly target the supranational level (Beyers 2002). However, not all national interest groups lobby EU level actors. The level of interest group’s involvement in EU policy-making when trying to pursue their goals is dependent on various factors (Lundberg and Sedelius 2014: 323).

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In the search for expertise, especially on those policies which fall under the competences of the EU, EU institutions are more open to economic interest groups (Saurugger 2008: 1283; Kohler-Koch 2010: 111; Wonka et al. 2010: 6), EU umbrella organizations and interest groups with a Brussels office (Mahoney 2004; Quittkat and Kotzian 2011; Chalmers 2014; Rasmussen and Gross 2015) which are more likely to share knowledge, expertise and technical information. Interest groups from CEE countries when compared to Western countries are less involved in forming EU policies (Wonka et al. 2010: 6; Kohler-Koch 2010: 111; Quittkat 2011; Hafner-Fink et al. 2016). For newer member states from CEE region inclusion in EU policymaking presents additional challenges. Firstly, interest groups have to adapt to new conditions. Many interest groups are not yet aware that the majority of decisions are taken at the EU level. Additionally, they lack knowledge about the EU policy process. Secondly, interest groups from newer member states are further away from Brussels. Travelling to Brussels increases the expenses an interest group has to incur for active inclusion in policy-making. Thirdly, interest groups from newer member states and especially from CEE, are less likely to receive EU financial support through projects and programmes (Mahoney and Beckstrand 2011) that would help them to professionalize, engage more in lobbying activities and increase the level of contact with EU decisionmakers (Novak and Lajh 2018). Finally, importantly, interest groups from CEE are less likely to get access to EU decision-makers (Wonka et al. 2010: 6; Kohler-Koch 2010: 111; Quittkat 2011; Hafner-Fink et al. 2016). EU membership also opened new access points for interest groups that can contact EU level institutions and get involved in EU policy-making. However, even after more than 10 years of membership in the EU the frequency of contact between interest groups and EU level institutions remains low. CEE Interest groups do not have more frequent contact with any of the EU institutions (see Table 8.4). The differences between institutions are only minor. In general, to a very limited extent, interest groups from CEE countries contact most frequently Commissioners and their cabinets. Interest groups from Poland, which are the most active in multilevel venue shopping among the three selected CEE countries, contact most frequently the leadership of party groups in the European Parliament and officials in the DGs of the Commission. Slovenian interest groups - which are the least active in contacting EU institutions - have

Lithuania Poland Slovenia Belgium Netherlands

Table 8.4

1.13 1.19 1.115 1.34 1.28

Commissioners and their cabinets

1.1 1.25 1.077 1.32 1.83

Officials in the DGs of the Commission 1.15 1.1 1.067 1.23 1.68

Member state delegations/Permanent representations in Brussels 1.05 1.14 1.019 1.08 1.16

The Council secretariat

1.1 1.33 1.101 1.23 1.44

Leadership of EP party groups and/or European party federations

1.2 1.18 1.169 1.36 1.75

Other members of the European Parliament

Frequency of contacts with EU institutions, mean value (1—we did not seek access, 5—at least once a week)

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more frequent contact with other members of the European Parliament. Although we have no data on who this might be, we can assume, based on some previous research, that contact is mostly with Slovenian MEPs (Novak and Lajh 2018). Similarly, this is noticeable also for interest groups from Lithuania, which have more frequent contact with other members of the European Parliament and Permanent Representation in Brussels or Member states delegations. This is in line with previous research that shows that national interest groups decide to contact EU institutions only when the issue is of particular importance to them. Additionally, they prefer to contact their own national representatives within the institutions such as members of the European Parliament from their own country or for the Council of the EU they contact national Permanent Representations in Brussels, or national ministries and officials. Another route for inclusion in EU policy-making is participation in the process of preparing national positions towards the European Commission’s legislative proposals, where the relevant lobby targets are national actors involved in the coordination of EU affairs (Novak and Lajh 2018). Contact between interest groups from Western Europe and EU political actors are infrequent, but they are more common in comparison to interest groups from CEE countries. Likewise, interest groups from Western European countries have more frequent contact with other members of the European Parliament as well as with officials in the DGs of the Commission and Member state delegations. 8.3.2

Access to National Decision-Makers

Although national interest groups recognize the importance of EU policymaking and try to influence EU policies their priorities are predominantly focused on the national and local levels (Lundberg and Sedelius 2014: 323). While an important minority of groups represent their interests regularly at the EU level, most groups (including those that represent business interests) remain predominantly active at the national level when it comes to their lobbying activities and efforts to exercise influence (Eising 2008: 16), even in the sectors where the EU has a lot of competences (Beyers et al. 2015). For many interest groups EU policies remain only a minor point of attention, although some national groups have shifted part of their attention to EU matters (Beyers et al. 2015).

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Thus, besides contacts with EU decision-makers, this chapter looks also at the issue of interest groups addressing national governments (ministries, departments) and parliamentarians, parliamentary committees and political parties in regard to lobbying on European matters (their national venue shopping when it comes to lobbying on European policy-making). In particular, for groups which do not have the necessary resources in order to support their presence at the European level, which includes many interest groups from CEE countries, lobbying the national government and parliament seems to be the best alternative. Different factors explain the behaviour of interest groups and their relationship with national actors across countries, these differ according to a number of criteria: country size, duration of EU membership, varieties of welfare state and capitalism, and the state–interest group model (Esping-Andersen 1990; Hall and Soskice 2001; Lijphart 2012). At the European level, interest groups prefer to address the European Commission, due to its role in drafting and legislative monitoring (Greenwood 2011; Tanasescu 2009), as well as its receptiveness to interest group lobbying (Bouwen 2002). By analogy, we should observe a similar pattern at the national level—making the national executives the key venue. National governments have a large say in the policy negotiation stage through their role in the Council of Ministers and the European Council. At the same time, the role of the national parliaments in European policy-making has increased since the Lisbon Treaty gave them prior scrutiny of legislative proposals before the EU institutions. The power of the national parliaments has been extended since they received controlling prerogatives with regard to the fulfilment of the subsidiarity principle. While national parliaments cannot individually block the proposals in some countries, they have an important role in the national coordination of EU affairs (Lajh and Novak 2020), raising their profile in the eyes of lobbyists. For this reason, contacts with national parliaments are also important. The empirical data from the CIG survey (Beyers et al. 2020) does show that interest groups from CEE countries are more likely to access individual ministries as well as national civil servants working in ministries (see Table 8.5). With regards to access to EU institutions (see Table 8.4) CEE interest groups are more likely to contact elected members of parliament, although more frequently in Lithuania and Poland than in Slovenia. Interest groups from Western European countries are also more likely to contact national political institutions than EU ones; when we

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Table 8.5 Frequency of contacts with national political institutions, mean value (1—we did not seek access, 5—at least once a week)

Lithuania Poland Slovenia Belgium Netherlands Sweden

Ministers (including their assistants/cabinets/political appointees)

Elected members from the majority or governing parties of parliament

Elected members from minority or opposition parties of parliament

2.10 2.07 2.22 1.84 1.77 2.11

1.90 1.83 1.49 1.76 2.28 /

1.70 1.82 1.44 1.91 2.27 /

National National civil servants civil working in servants working departmental ministries in the such as Prime Minister’s agriculture, environment, Office transport, health, etc. 1.69 1.52 1.38 1.44 / 1.88

2.47 2.23 2.16 2.37 3.06 2.43

compare the frequency of contact with national actors between interest groups from CEE countries and Western Europe there is no clear divide between them. Interest groups from Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden maintain approximately the same frequency of contact with national political institutions as interest groups from CEE countries. It seems the Europeanization process has a more evident effect on access to EU decision-makers than national ones. However, the increasing effect of the Europeanization process on interest groups and politics in CEE countries also marks the relationship between the state and non-state actors at the national level; in particular, in the meaning of opportunity structures for interest groups to get involved in national policy-making (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2001). The European Union and the CEE countries accession processes had an important role in shaping the institutional framework for the activities of interest groups and the role of political institutions. The role of central government changed in relation to interest groups, while some institutions needed to adapt to take over the coordination of EU affairs (Meyer et al. 2017). In spite of weak relationships between the executive and interest groups, national governments were pressured to offer access to information, consult different interest groups when preparing public policies and act in transparent manner (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019;

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see also Chapter 1 and 2). This pressure mainly came from international organizations such as the EU and less often from international organizations that donated development aid to the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe (Cekik 2015). The pressure was most evident during the accession and negotiation period and it led to more formalized, predictable and accessible policy-making procedures for interest groups (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). During this period policies were more favourable towards interest groups and contributed to their importance (Meyer et al. 2017). Once the country accedes to membership of the EU the expectation to include interest groups in policy-making is still present, but less controlled. Even after full membership of the EU, the practice of consultations remained limited with a lack of efficient implementation in the majority of CEE countries (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2006; see also Chapter 3).

8.4

Membership in European Umbrella Organizations

Although not all interest groups become active at the EU level, they may still be active in EU policy-making. Indirect ways of accessing EU policies are especially important for interest groups that do not have sufficient resources to regularly travel to Brussels and to allocate at least one of their members of staff to lobbying activities. For these interest groups, one way for active involvement in EU policy-making is membership in EU umbrella organizations (Novak and Lajh 2018). These organizations besides national political institutions and the Europeanization process also shape interest groups activities (Cox 2012), in particular, by providing national interest groups with information and knowledge. Some scholars warn that relying on European umbrella organizations is not always the best strategy, as these organizations are often rather weak and, above all, tend to be very slow in taking decisions (Mazey and Richardson 2006: 255–256). Besides transferring responsibility for lobbying activities to European umbrella organizations, national interest groups join them also to share the workload of involvement in EU policy-making, to get information about public policies formed at the EU level and to get ‘know-how’ on how to lobby for optimum policy results (Novak and Lajh 2018). The most active interest groups from EU member states from the CEE region developed networking activities with similar organizations in other

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EU member states and with EU level organizations during the accession stage with the aim to learn from those more experienced organizations (Fink-Hafner 2007; Agh 1999; Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2004). At first, interest groups from candidate countries held the status of affiliated members, becoming full members of EU level organizations upon their home nation’s accession. Material encouragement of national member organizations by EU level organizations played only a minor role in motivating them to join compared to the collective representation of interests and access to policy information, which were the key reasons (Eising 2008: 15). Networking with EU umbrella organizations provided national level interest groups with legitimation, support and recognition by national and supranational decision-makers. It presented them as mature, respectable and ‘European’ groups in the meaning of developed groups (Fink-Hafner 1998; Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2004). At the same time, it also provided them with information, knowledge and experiences that national interest groups mostly lacked, being previously active at national and subnational level. In particular EU umbrella organizations provided national groups with information on events concerning individual EU policy areas, the structures of EU institutions and EU legislative procedures, reports prepared by EU level groups, expert knowledge and information about potential European financial sources (Fink-Hafner 1994: 229; Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2001: 71– 72). In Poland, interest groups collaborated with interest groups from other EU countries with the particular aim of addressing transnational causes (Meyer et al. 2017). The exchange of information between EU level groups and national groups became of higher importance than access to decision-makers and impact on policies (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2001, 2004). In Croatia, interest groups through membership in EU level umbrella organizations participated in various EU policy debates, engaged in the direct lobbying of EU institutions, opened representative offices in Brussels and strengthened their role and impact in national policy-making (Vidaˇcak and Kotarski 2019). Membership in EU level umbrella organizations is important also in candidate countries and, in particular, in small states whose limited resources mean organizations from there cannot afford to finance permanent offices in Brussels. 20% of interest groups from the Western Balkans are members of such networks (Cekik 2015). For national interest groups that successfully direct some of their lobbying activities through EU umbrella organizations, there is no need

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to directly lobby EU institutions. National interest groups predominantly enter EU level lobbying for only three reasons: when a change in EU legislation substantially impacts the national interest group and its members; when the division of tasks between national interest groups and EU level organizations could be better or when the conditions for implementing EU policies at the national level still have to be defined (Eising 2004: 217). If we compare the level of involvement at the EU level and in umbrella organizations, we may notice that Slovenian interest groups are the most Europeanised from the CEE countries in this study. More than 60% of organizations are members of such networks. The share is also high for the other two cases. In Lithuania, 46% of interest groups network with EU level organizations, while in Poland 40% of interest groups are members of EU level organizations (see Table 8.6). When we compare the involvement of national interest groups from CEE countries to those from Western European countries, we notice that there is no clear division between Western and CEE interest groups. The involvement of national interest groups in EU umbrella organizations is also high in Belgium and the Netherlands which are all comparable to Slovenia, despite the fact that interest groups from Belgium and the Netherlands are geographically closer to the headquarters of EU umbrella organizations. On the other hand the level of membership of national interest groups from Lithuania and Poland in EU umbrella organizations is similar to the situation in Sweden. Although in a comparative perspective the share of national Table 8.6 Percentage of members to EU organizations Country

Belgium Netherlands Sweden Lithuania Poland Slovenia

Per cent of interest groups members of EU organizations (%)

Per cent of interest groups with membership in more than 1 EU organizations (%)

Mean of N of membership in EU organizations (only for interest groups that are members)

N

64 56 40 46 39 61

48.4 45.1 61 45.5 48.5 45.4

2.05 2.29 2.31 1.75 2.13 2.46

828 855 641 363 278 248

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interest groups from Sweden who are members of EU umbrella organizations is less, those that are members are members in more organizations (something similar can be noticed also for Slovenian interest groups) and a higher share are members of more than one EU umbrella organizations (interest groups from Belgium and Poland are also close). EU umbrella organizations are very useful for national interest groups when it comes to information about key European or international political activities (a relevant factor for 64.7% of Lithuanian interest groups; 48.5% of Polish interest groups and 56.3% of Slovenian interest groups), expert knowledge and information (relevant for 67.5% of Lithuanian interest groups; 35% of Polish interest groups and 55.6% of Slovenian interest groups), networking with similar organizations outside the national country (relevant for 53.5% of Lithuanian interest groups, 29.2% of Polish interest groups and 65.9% of Slovenian interest groups respectively) and to some extent for advocacy of their interest at European institutions (considered important by 45.4% of Lithuanian interest groups; 31.6% of Polish interest groups and 43.1% of Slovenian interest groups). The empirical results then confirm some of the previous research results. National interest groups from CEE countries network with similar organizations at the EU level where they mostly receive information on political activity, knowledge and expertise. Access to EU decision-makers is also important but not a top priority.

8.5

Discussion and Conclusions

The Europeanization process has had a significant and ongoing impact on the development of interest groups especially in the CEE region. The effects of Europeanization are even more substantial than the effects of the change from a communist to a capitalist political system. When explaining the development of interest groups systems in countries from CEE we thus have to keep in mind the Europeanization process. European integration took place at the same time as an increase in the size of interest groups populations in the CEE countries. At that time the EU was already well developed in terms of policy processes in which interest groups collaborate, institutional structures and its role in international relations. The CEE countries therefore needed to adapt to the new situation of multilevel governance in a brief timeframe. Alongside political institutions, public policies and states actors, non-state actors were

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also affected in various ways. The effects of the Europeanization process could be traced back before the states’ accession to membership, to the mid-1990s when countries from the CEE region first applied to become members of the EU. The impact of European integration on interest group systems is especially noticed in the dependency on EU funding, the relationship with supranational and national decision-makers and groups’ networking with EU umbrella organizations. Firstly, the Europeanization process influenced the development of interest group systems in the CEE countries and concomitantly the change of the political system contributed to the establishment of new interest groups and more pluralist interest groups systems. A majority of interest groups from Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia were established after 2004, when all three countries joined the EU. The effects of Europeanization are especially noticeable in Lithuania and Poland where only a small number of interest groups were established in socialist times. Resources from EU programmes and projects also contributed to the development of interest group systems in CEE. Interest groups could get money from EU funds during the pre-accession stage, but more funds became available once their home states had joined the EU. Although our empirical data from the CIG survey show us that the share of interest groups receiving EU funds is small compared to share of interest groups funded by other resources, EU funds still represent an important source of income, especially for interest groups from CEE countries. Namely, when we compare the situation of CEE organizations with the funding interest groups from Western Europe get from EU projects and programmes, we see these funds represent a source of funding for a comparatively small share of interest groups. Here the exception is again Slovenia, where the share of interest groups with EU funding is closer to the share of interest groups funded from EU projects and programmes in Western Europe. The policies of the European Commission to direct EU funds towards less developed interest groups systems seems to be working. With the further financial stabilization of interest groups in CEE countries, funding from EU projects and programmes will probably become even less important. Interest groups from CEE countries do not allocate these resources to EU level policy-making. Although a high share of interest groups finds EU policies important, only around 20–25% of interest groups invest resources at the EU level. Interest groups from Western European countries on the other hand are more likely to allocate resources at the EU level but consider EU policies to be less important compared to interest

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groups from the CEE countries. It seems that the perceived importance of EU policies is not linear to the resources invested in EU lobbying. Interest groups from Western European countries that allocate more resources at the EU level also have more frequent contact with EU decision-makers. Interest groups from CEE region on the other hand have very limited contact and predominantly turn towards Commissioners and their cabinets. The differences in contact with different EU institutions are however only minor. The differences between interest groups from CEE countries and Western Europe in making contact with national officials are on the other hand negligible. It seems that the effect of the Europeanization process is not particularly evident when it comes to seeking access to national political institutions compared to access to EU political institutions. Nevertheless, we do notice that interest groups from CEE countries more frequently contact ministries and national officials in ministries, both of which form a part of the executive, as in the case of EU policy-making where interest groups turn more towards the Commission. The effects of the Europeanization process are evident also when it comes to networking with EU umbrella organizations. Already during the accession stage, national interest groups started to network externally by becoming first affiliate and then full members of EU umbrella organizations. These connections were very important for national interest groups in particular to get much needed know-how on EU lobbying and the European legislative process. National interest groups from CEE countries were inexperienced and lacking in knowledge about EU policymaking during their first years of EU membership. Although today national interest groups are more aware of the importance of EU policymaking, EU umbrella organizations still represent a source of information and expertise for them. Further we can see they are considered to be a very importance source of information, since almost half of national interest groups are internationally connected. EU umbrella organizations’ advocacy of interest groups opinions to EU decision-makers is not a top priority driving interest groups to seek and maintain membership in them. Our results show clear effects of the Europeanization process on interest groups from CEE countries and on the differences in involvement of interest groups from CEE countries and Western Europe. At the same time, we also demonstrated that the effects of the Europeanization process can be observed via various indicators that do not always point in the same direction. In particular, any particular interest group can be

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more Europeanised on one indicator than another. Observing how Europeanised certain interest groups systems are thus requires us to take into consideration more than just the levels of interest in EU polices, contact with EU officials and EU funding received, which are usually considered to be the indicators of the Europeanization of interest groups. Researchers should look at multiple indicators of Europeanization, wherever possible also including factors beyond the indicators used in this chapter. This should apply to the study of the Europeanization affect not only on interest groups systems from the CEE region, but also for interest groups systems from Western Europe. Additionally, our results also show that it is worth adopting a comparative approach to understand the effects of the Europeanization process. If we only considered the data showing the limited levels of EU funding of interest groups from the countries in CEE, we might assume that EU funds are not a very important source of funding in the region. Only when we compared those results with the shares of funding interest groups from Western Europe get from EU source could we notice that EU funding is in fact more important for interest groups from the CEE region. Regardless of this, the study of the Europeanization of national interest groups continues to remain an important area of research.

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Kohler-Koch, B. (1997). Organized Interests in the EC and the European Parliament. European Integration Online Papers, 1(9). Kohler-Koch, B. (2010). Civil Society and EU Democracy: ‘Astroturf’ Representation? Journal of European Public Policy, 17 (1), 100–116. Ladrech, R. (2005). The Europeanization of Interest Groups and Political Parties. In S. Bulmer & C. Lesquesne (Eds.), The Member States and the European Union (pp. 318–337). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lajh, D., & Novak, M. (2020, forthcoming). Formation of National Positions on EU Legislative Proposals in Slovenia: What Role for Civil Society Organizations? Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences (forthcoming). Lijphart, A. (2012). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty Six Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lundberg, E., & Sedelius, T. (2014). National Linkages and Ambiguous EU Approaches among European Civil Society Organisations. Journal of Contemporary European Research, 10(3), 322–336. Mahoney, C. (2004). The Power of Institutions: State and Interest Group Activity and the European Union. European Union Politics, 5 (4), 441–466. Mahoney, C., & Beckstrand, M. J. (2011). Following the Money: European Union Funding of Civil Society Organizations. Journal of Common Market Studies, 49(6), 1339–1361. Maloney, W., Hafner-Fink, M., & Fink-Hafner, D. (2018). The Impact of the EU Accession Process and EU Funding on the Professionalization of National Interest Groups: The Slovenian Case. Interest Groups and Advocacy. https:// doi.org/10.1057/s41309-018-0032-6. Mazey, S., & Richardson, J. (2006). Interest Groups and EU Policy-Making: Organisational Logic and Venue Shopping. In J. Richardson (Ed.), European Union: Power and Policy-Making (pp. 247–268). London: Routledge. Meyer, M., Moder, C. M., Neumayr, M., Traxler, N., & Vandor, P. (2017). Patterns in Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe: A Synthesis of 16 Country Reports and an Expert Survey. In P. Vandor, N. Traxler, R. Millner, & M. Meyer (Eds.), Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe: Challenges and Opportunities. Vienna: ERSTE Stiftung Studies. Novak, M., & Lajh, D. (2018). The Participation of Slovenian Civil Society Organisations in EU Policymaking: Explaining their Different Routes. Journal of Contemporary European Research, 14(2), 105–122. Novak, M., & Lajh, D. (2019). Show Me the Money: The Importance of EU Funding for the Activities of Interest Groups in Post-Socialist Countries. Revista Românæa de ¸stiin¸te Politice, 19(2), 116–138. Novak, M., & Fink-Hafner, D. (2019). Slovenia: Interest Group Developments in a Postsocialist-Liberal Democracy. Journal of Public Affairs, 19(2). https:// doi.org/10.1002/pa.1867.

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Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, N. (2001). Organised Interest in Central and Eastern Europe. Towards Gradual Europeanisation? L’Harmatten, 2(3), 61–87. Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, N. (2002). The Impact of EU Membership on Interest Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (Civic 1/2002). Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, N. (2004). EU Accession and Interest Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 5(2), 243–272. Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, N. (2006). Post-Communist Interest Politics: A Research Agenda- Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 7 (2), 134– 154. Pritoni, A. (2017, September 6–9). The Europeanisation of Italian Interest Groups. Paper presented at ECPR General Conference, Oslo, Norway. Quittkat, C. (2011). The European Commission’s Online Consultations: A Success Story? Journal of Common Market Studies, 49(3), 653–674. Quittkat, C., & Kotzian, P. (2011). Lobbying via Consultation—Territorial and Functional Interests in the Commission’s Consultation Regime. Journal of European Integration, 33(4), 401–418. Radaelli, C. M. (2000). Whither Europeanisation? Concept Stretching and Substantive Change. European Integration Online Papers (EioP), 4(8). Radealli, C. M. (2003). The Europeanization of Public Policy. In K. Featherstone & C. M. Radaelli (Eds.), The Politics of Europeanization (pp. 26–56). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rasmussen, A., & Gross, V. (2015). Biased Access? Exploring Selection to Advisory Committees. European Political Science Review, 7 (3), 343–372. Sanchez Salgado, R. (2017). Europeanization of Civil Society Organizations in Times of Crisis? Exploring the Evolution Grant-Seeking Strategies in the EU Multi-Level System. European Politics and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 23745118.2017.1286283. Sanchez Salgado, R., & Demidov, A. (2018). Editorial: Beyond the Brussels Bubble? National Civil Society Organisations in the European Union. Journal of Contemporary European Research, 14(2), special issue. Sanchez-Salgado, R. (2014). Rebalancing EU Interest Representations? Associative Democracy and EU Funding of Civil Society Organizations. Journal of Common Market Studies, 52(2), 337–353. Saurugger, S. (2008). Interest Groups and Democracy in the European Union. West European Politics, 31(6), 1274–1291. Stakeholder meeting. (2018, May). Obrazi civilne družbe v Evropski uniji. Ljubljana, Fakulteta za družbene vede, 16. Tanasescu, I. (2009). The European Commission and Interest Groups: Towards a Deliberative Interpretation of Stakeholder Involvement in EU Policy-Making. Brussels: VUBPRESS.

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CHAPTER 9

Conclusions: The Future of Lobbying in the CEE Countries

Crawford and Lijphart (1995) argued that to fully understand the current ‘realities’ of post-Communist countries, the legacy of the countries’ past and essentials of liberalization have to be taken into consideration. They have treated those as causal internal factors explaining the trajectories of regime and system change. They also added that effects of those on the norms and institutions should equally be viewed through the lens of international pressures. As we contend in this book, the most significant internal factor for most Central and East European (CEE) countries was the institutional choices in the transition to democracy, which introduced new interest representation structures and the development of appropriate regulation supporting the active participation and inclusion of interest groups in the policy process (Fink-Hafner 2011). These changes were further enhanced by external factors: the CEE’s countries accession to the EU and external pressures from the EU to implement democratic criteria (for detailed analyzes of the Polish case, see especially: Letki and Evans 2005; Welsh 1994; Letki 2002; for the Slovenian case see Fink-Hafner and Hafner-Fink 2009; Ramet and Fink-Hafner 2006; for the Lithuanian case see Norkus 2012; Smith et al. 2002). Building on a cross-Europe comparative analysis, the book elaborated on those internal and external factors and their influence on interest groups’ population ecology (its density and diversity) and organizational behaviour in the CEE countries. The overarching narrative focused on © The Author(s) 2021 P. Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation, Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4_9

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what specific aspects of the legal, social and political factors have a bearing on how and to what extend interest groups participate in the democratic policy creation process in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. Chapter 1 set out the book and explained in more detail the leading principle behind talking about interest groups and democracy in the post-Communist countries. After a look at the pluralist, corporatist and neo-pluralist approaches, we focused in particular on the role for interest groups in associational, deliberative and participatory democracy. We debated whether or not interest representation is a necessary element of democracy and can the theoretical background help us in grasping it across all political systems. We addressed these questions in the context of young, post-Communist democracies, but we used Western European democracies as a benchmark. While recognizing the increasingly critical tone towards interest groups involvement in policy-making (see for example Fraussen and Halpin 2018) we summarized the ongoing debates in the scholarly literature which consider interest groups as an integral part of democratic systems, with examples. We looked at the perspective of the pluralists who see interest groups as part of the system of checks and balances and as actors responsible for holding the state accountable. We also considered the corporatist approach, where interest groups are seen to increase the democratic capacity of the state and its output legitimacy. Other perspectives simply view them as forums for discussions, deliberation and the inclusion of excluded communities. Whichever of these perspectives is chosen the existence of a vibrant and diverse interest groups community in the system is a crucial element of a democratic state. Chapter 2 explored a valid question as to whether the national systems are capable of sustaining the representation of a variety of public and private interests. Addressing this conundrum required data that maps the essential traits of the population of organized interests and most of the chapter focused on delivering information on the mapping of the groups’ density and diversity. The previously unexplored system-level approach delivered important insights into the nature of the Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian interest group systems, as well as providing a framework to conceptualize advocacy activities or lobbying dynamics in specific policy domains. The number of national interest organizations in Lithuania (~900) and Poland (1500), was contrasted with slightly more magnified numbers in Slovenia. While the numbers for Lithuania and Poland did not come as a surprise, especially when compared to other countries studied in the CIGs Project,

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we argued that the inflated numbers in Slovenia (1200) are linked to its historical past and unique lobbying regulation dating back to the 1970s. Chapter 3 explored the provisions within political systems in the CEE countries and how they were designed to stimulate interest groups engagement in the policy process. We started from the processes that influenced the development of institutional structure as it exists today, we continued with evaluating the existing legal and institutional determinants, looking for the provisions for interest inclusion and consultations within agenda setting and policy-making (providing comparative examples from other countries), as well as the external pressure to institutionalize the process of legislative lobbying. We also addressed the issue of the political environment, expounding an argument that the characteristics of interest group systems also have an effect on their inclusion in a policy-making. In the following few chapters, the book moved to the analysis of organizations’ interactions with specific stakeholders. Chapter 4 analyzed the factors informing relations between interest organizations and political parties in Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. The fundamental question of the chapter was whether these young democracies, using Western democracies as established benchmarks, have been able to develop complex linkages involving parties and interest organizations. The chapter found that interest organizations and political parties in CEE countries live rather separate lives, contrary to the requirements of participatory democracy. However, if organizations express interest in contacting political parties, it is mostly explained by organizations’ financial means (i.e. the larger the funding available for the groups, the more likely they are to contact parties). Chapter 5 explored the organizational development of nongovernmental organizations. The focus was on the rise of NGOs, prompted by the EU accession, and their strong resource dependency. In this chapter in particular we asked about NGOs organizational capacity to be representatives of civil society. Is their level of organization sufficient? What level of resources do they have? Do they have sufficient internal democracy to be drivers for the country’s democracy? To understand the dynamics within the community of civil society organizations, we employed the organizational development theory, supported by the survey data from CIG project, as well as qualitative case studies of individual environmental NGOs. The focus of the chapter was the evolution of civil society organizations’ organizational features, which have been

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strongly affected by evolving resource dependencies with the state, but also with the European Union and organization’s membership base. Then, we looked at the significance of trade unions in post-Communist democracies (Chapter 6). We pointed to the fact that unions did not build stable and long-term relationships with political parties as are observed in Western democracies. Through the combined analysis of the historical and symbolic background of the transition to democratic civil society and free-market economy with the political preferences of the working class, trade union membership rates, and public opinion polls; we argued that the links between trade unions and political parties become even less stable with time. Polish trade unions in particular never had a chance to become long-term intermediaries between society and political parties, making Poland an exception from the traditional models observed in other democracies. Almost the same is true for Lithuania. Despite the presence of a Tripartite Council and the seemingly proactive and visible workings of many Lithuanian trade unions, they are still considered to be relatively weak and conformist. In Slovenia, on the other hand, trade unions despite declining membership remain an important and powerful actor in policy-making due to Slovenia’s neo-corporatist system. Consequently, we suggested that the replacement of traditional labour force representation in the democratic policy process has to be explored. Chapter 7 analyzed the differences in strategies for inside lobbying (i.e. direct interactions with policy-makers or participation in policy consultations) between business and non-business organizations in the studied countries in a comparative perspective. The existing research on Western democracies concludes that interest organizations can pursue their political goals in multiple institutional venues and that business groups rely to a higher degree on inside lobbying, while citizens groups spend more time on outside lobbying (e.g. public campaigns, media interactions). The argument is that this is caused by business groups’ larger resources (staff and budget) and technical knowledge, which is favourably received by policy-makers. This chapter explored if this is the case in the postCommunist environment in CEE countries. The results indicate that lobbying is concentrated on the government and national ministries, where parliamentary actors are bypassed by both types of organizations, interestingly omitting interactions with directly elected representatives. We followed this with a comparative evaluation of interest organizations’ participation in the European policy process. Chapter 8 looked into the unprecedented increase in the number of interest organizations

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during the accession process to the European Union dating from the early 1990s up to 2004. We argued that faced with the competitive pluralistic and multi-level governance of the EU, interest groups in CEE went through a ‘crash course’ in lobbying professionalization. We looked into different forms of engagement in the European policy process, both at the European and national levels, analyzing the existing institutional framework for consultations in the European policy process, the stakeholders approached, the expenditures of organizations, and membership in umbrella organizations. The comparative analysis allowed us to elaborate on the similarities and differences between old and new member states of the European Union.

9.1 Regime Change and the New Realities of Interest Groups’ Systems in the CEE Countries The legacy of the old political system and transition to the democratic regime left a lasting effect on the interest groups system and its development in all three studied countries. The post-Communist transition to democracy still has an impact on interest groups and national systems as well as different approaches to the market economy. This has been evidenced in the book, especially by the mushrooming of interest groups population, the lack of the institutionalized involvement of interest groups in policy-making and interest groups relationships with political parties. The evidence from the three cases corroborates our conclusion on the increase of interest groups’ numbers during the transition process (see in particular: Chapters 2, 5, and 8). The interest groups population experienced rapid growth soon after the change of political system. However, the system remains largely un-professionalized, inexperienced in lobbying strategies and dependent on volunteer work. We have also identified that the heritage of the old, Communist system and the characteristics of an interest groups system that is predominantly young and inexperienced in lobbying inhibits the development of the unbiased inclusion of interest groups in decision-making (Chapter 3). The processes support or obstruct open institutional structures and is quite problematic due to a lack of formalized institutionalization (Chapters 3 and 7) and the lack of implementation of opportunity structures for interest groups involvement.

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There are also negative effects of the transition and they are only now catching up with various arrangements. In particular, working with political parties is seen as a betrayal of ideals, especially after the times of Communism when civil society was under the control of the party, extremely decreasing interactions between various interest groups and national parties (Chapters 4 and 7). With low trust levels in political actors and a negative image of politics, interest groups avoid direct and clear linkages to the individual political parties. The position of political neutrality is important also to maintaining a good public image and support from members. The historical and political conditions in particular influenced the relationships between trade unions and political parties (Chapter 6). Trade unions in the CEE countries never had stable and strong relationships with political parties and did not become long-term intermediaries between society and political parties. Despite some initial tandem-like relations with parties in the early years of independence their links became even less stable with time, which is also evidenced in the rest of Europe. But it is also evident (see for example Chapter 7) that the problematic position of political parties in the three studied countries encourages predominantly direct lobbying, but only that addressed towards the executive, governments and ministries, rather than towards parliamentary actors.

9.2

Continued Effects of the EU Accession?

All three countries have been undergoing the process of Europeanization, beginning from meeting the criteria for EU accession and introducing the Euro currency (except Poland) and then maintaining implementation of EU laws and norms. However, the process of the Europeanization of interest groups in the CEE countries started long before the date of the countries’ accession to the European Union (pre-2004) and expands both vertically and horizontally. While the change to the democratic system has been to a large degree responsible for the increase in the groups’ density, the processes linked with the EU accession increased the diversity of groups active in the national systems (Chapters 2 and 8). The Europeanization process has also been responsible for the development of the institutional structures supporting interest groups (Chapter 3 for the national systemic provisions and Chapter 8 for the European level opportunities). The accession process contributed to the development of consultation mechanisms and

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encouraged more inclusive policy-making. Additionally, the multi-level policy-making structures opened new access points for interest groups that are being exploited to a limited degree. However, as we identified, a lot of developments introduced in the early 2000s lost their meaning directly after the accession and were later followed only to a minimal level (Chapter 3). Moreover, the initial reliance on EU funding around 2004 has decreased and currently groups do not rely on funding from the EU or do so to only a minimal degree compared to other sources (Chapters 5 and 8). Looking at the different forms of Europeanization, we have indicated in Chapter 4 that national actors gradually started partaking in the European policy-making process around the accession date. However, that trend has stopped. The importance of European policy-making is not linear to the resources invested in EU lobbying. Interest groups from the CEE countries have a very limited level of contact with EU level actors (Chapter 8). Instead, they exploit other routes to EU policymaking mostly by engaging with European umbrella organizations but also through national decision-makers and EU officials from their home country.

9.3 Lobbying in the CEE Countries in the Next Decade? The population ecologies in our studied countries vary from their counterparts in Western democracies. We identified cause groups as more numerous in Poland and professional’s organizations in Slovenia and Lithuania. However, resource wise they are similar to their peers elsewhere. There is a potential reason for concern about the small numbers of active labour unions across the three countries. However, as suggested in Chapter 2, their power should not be measured by their numbers, but rather by available resources, which puts them on an equal footing with other groups. The institutional structure that should support interest groups is currently fairly favourable in Slovenia, but is challenging in Lithuania and problematic in Poland, especially with an increasingly right-wing government (Chapter 3). To add to that, the current heavy reliance of non-governmental organizations on their membership base and various donations, while making them independent from the government in

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power, means that demobilized members and an apathetic civil society could bring negative consequences for the NGOs’ well-being (Chapter 5). In the future, we can expect that the effect of the heritage of the old systems will slowly die out. With the changing effects of these processes, the characteristics of the interest groups system will change. At the same time the effects of the processes of globalization and Europeanisation will probably intensify. The opportunities for national interest groups from CEE countries to participate in the policy-making process will become, in this way, more and more dependent on the politics of national governments and parties in power as well as the politics of the EU. We conclude with a word of warning on the future of ‘lobbying’ in the current political and social environment in the CEE countries and their effects on the quality of democracy in those countries. The evidence provided in the book indicates that there will not be much progress in establishing a working relationship between policy-makers and interest groups until there is better understanding among political elites, but also within society, of the role organized interest representation plays in modern democracies, which leads to a better quality of adopted law. An additional barrier is the rather negative image of lobbying among the public and the assumption that lobbying is connected with corruption and unfair practices. In CEE countries where corruption incidents have particularly threatened the new and still fragile democracy, these issues will need to be resolved before interest groups can get a more important and prominent role in policy-making. 9.3.1

Future Research

This book provides an assessment of the extent to which interest groups fulfill democratic aspirations and ensure the representation of a variety of economic and social interests. As it is a first attempt at the presentation of the study of Lithuanian, Polish and Slovenian national level interest groups, the book sets the baseline from which future developments related to the mobilization of interests and lobbying activities of particular groups might be assessed. An important limitation of our study, and the CIGs Project itself, is the focus on national level groups. In the context of the size of Poland and its administrative organization, the work we have done here warrants further development at the regional level. Studies on the federal systems of the United States (Gray and Lowery 1996) and some of the Benelux

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countries (Vallarand et al. 2014) provides a sense of how useful it may be to clearly indicate flows of the interest groups population away from the capital. A promising research avenue is how groups organize in multilayered systems, how they align their internal structures to the policy demands of a multi-layer system, and how they deal with competition and cooperation between national and sub-national level groups. Future research could also focus on the influence production process, which could help to explain not only the venue choice by interest groups in the CEE countries, but also concrete policy outcomes. At the same time, it would be interesting to compare whether and how the interest groups from CEE countries and their Western European counterparts differ in their effectiveness in influencing public policy. Also, given the lack of the institutionalization of civil society in general and interest groups in particular in the post-Communist settings, in the future it might be useful to compare whether and how the interest groups in an organizational sense and other lobbyists, such as individual companies, think-tanks or law firms, differ in their effectiveness in influencing public policy and to identify possible power asymmetries. On the same grounds, it would be beneficial to follow changes in the role of trade unions and economic and social committees and how do they affect the historic role of the unions. Furthermore, as we have indicated in this book the interest group system in the CEE countries went through a substantial change during the last 30 years. There is no reason to believe that the process of development of the interest groups system in the post-Communist countries has come to an end. We can reasonably expect further development and possibly that interest groups system in the CEE countries will become more akin to interest groups systems in Western European countries. This is more likely if no other major changes in politics or economic development would occur in the next decades. Thus, it makes sense to further monitor the interest groups development and differences between interest groups systems. Our book was empirically limited to the cases of Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. While we strongly believe that analyzing these three cases enabled us to compare three different regions: the Baltic states, Višegrad countries and the former republics of the ex-Yugoslavia, as well as small and big post-Communist states and in this way contribute to the study of interest groups in Central and Eastern Europe, future research could include also other areas of post-Communist Europe that remain underresearched especially when it comes to the development of interest groups

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systems and its contribution to new democracies. Here we have firstly in mind EU member states, like Romania and Bulgaria, but also EU candidate countries from the Western Balkans: Albania, the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia and potential candidates: Kosovo and Bosna and Herzegovina as well as EU Eastern neighbourhood countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, and the Republic of Moldova. These countries also went through a process of political change and democratic transition and are being influenced by the Europeanisation and globalization processes but are at the same time also under the influence of other world powers and different economic conditions. To sum up our main findings, our results show clear effects of the Europeanisation process on interest groups from CEE countries and the differences between the involvement of interest groups from CEE countries and Western Europe. At the same time, we also managed to show the decreasing effects of some of the Europeanization processes. To have a better spectrum of all those changes, researchers should look at various indicators of Europeanisation; where possible also beyond the indicators used in this book. This should apply to the study of the Europeanisation effect not only on interest groups systems from the CEE region, but also for interest groups systems from Western Europe. Additionally, our results also show that to understand the effects of the Europeanisation process it is worth deploying a comparative approach. We have observed differences between our three studied countries, a broader comparison would be welcomed. Finally, interest groups are often an overlooked actor in policy-making and in academic research, but during the last years with some noticeable research projects on interest groups organization and activities which also includes the CIG survey project (Beyers et al. 2020) the research area has substantially grown. We are confident that academic research results in the field of interest representation are not a purpose in themselves, but also contribute to the use of research knowledge in practice and finally to the improvement of consultation practices with interest groups and their contribution to the development and strengthening of democracy.

Bibliography Beyers, J., Fink-Hafner, D., Maloney, W., Novak, M., & Heylen, F. (2020). The Comparative Interest Group-Survey Project: Project Design, Practical Lessons and Data Sets. Interest Groups & Advocacy. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41 309-020-00082-0.

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Crawford, B., & Lijphart, A. (1995). Explaining Political and Economic Change in Post-Communist Eastern Europe: Old Legacies, New Institutions, Hegemonic Norms, and International Pressures. Comparative Political Studies, 28(2), 171–199. Fink-Hafner, D. (2011). Interest Representation and Post-Communist Parliaments Over Two Decades. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 17 (2), 215–233. Fink-Hafner, D., & Hafner-Fink, M. (2009). The Determinants of the Success of Transitions to Democracy. Europe-Asia Studies, 61(9), 1603–1625. Fraussen, B., & Halpin, D. R. (2018). Political Parties and Interest Organizations at the Crossroads: Perspectives on the Transformation of Political Organizations. Political Studies Review, 16(1), 25–37. Gray, V., & Lowery, D. (1996). The Population Ecology of Interest Representation: Lobbying Communities in the American States. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press. Letki, N. (2002). Lustration and Democratisation in East-Central Europe. Europe-Asia Studies, 54(4), 529–552. Letki, N., & Evans, G. (2005). Endogenizing Social Trust: Democratization in East-Central Europe. British Journal of Political Science, 35(3), 515–529. Norkus, Z. (2012). On Baltic Slovenia and Adriatic Lithuania. A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Patterns in Post-Communist Transformation. Vilnius: Apostrofa/CEU Press. Ramet, S. P., & Fink-Hafner, D. (Eds.). (2006). Democratic transition in Slovenia: Value Transformation, Education, and Media. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Smith, D. J., Pabriks, A., Purs, A. & Lane, T. (2002). The Baltic States. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. London: Routledge. Vallarand, H., Beyers, J., & Dumont, P. (Eds.). (2014). European Integration and Consensus Politics in the Low Countries. London: Routlage. Welsh, H. A. (1994). Political Transition Processes in Central and Eastern Europe. Comparative Politics, 26(4), 379–394.

Index

A access goods, 169, 175 accession process, 214 accession stage, 185, 187, 197, 200, 201 accession to the EU, 45, 209 access points, 60, 62, 66, 70, 73 agenda setting, 76 associanalism, 4 associational vibrancy, 18 associative, deliberative and participatory democracy, 9, 11 associative democracy, 9

B Balcerowicz Plan, 31 business associations, 75 business groups, 99, 102, 107, 108, 168, 170, 174, 176

C Cartel parties, 96 causal internal factors, 209 cause groups, 102, 107 Central-Eastern Europe (CEE), 118, 123, 124, 126, 128, 131, 133 channels of interest representation, 26 Civic Platform, 102 civil society, 27, 30, 92, 93, 95, 98, 101, 107–109, 115–118, 123–126, 128, 129, 131, 133, 138, 139, 142 definition, 115 cleavage, 137–139 collective agreements, 149 collective bargaining, 150 Communism, 92, 93, 98, 99, 108, 117–119, 121, 126, 127, 129, 130, 133 Communist, 138–140, 142–146, 153, 163 Comparative Interest Groups Survey Project (CIGs), 4, 15, 27

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2021 P. Rozbicka et al., Achieving Democracy Through Interest Representation, Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55521-4

221

222

INDEX

conditionality criteria, 62 consultations, 62, 68, 72, 74, 76–78, 80, 81, 85, 86 coordination of EU affairs, 193–195 Copenhagen Criteria, 26 corporatism, 5, 6, 73 corporatist, 5, 137, 146, 147, 162, 169, 176 corporatist approach, 210 Council of the EU, 193

D deliberative democracy, 10 deliberative democratic mechanisms, 10 democracy, 92, 95, 108 democratic and economic reforms, 3 democratic backsliding, 108 democratic challenges, 25 democratic crisis, 18 democratic criteria, 209 democratic deficit, 4, 7 democratic legitimacy, 8 democratic legitimization, 8 democratic policy process, 10 democratic society, 8 democratic systems, 210 democratization, 2, 12, 31, 44, 45, 138, 139 democratization process, 13 density and diversity, 3, 16, 25, 27, 39, 40 diversity of groups, 214 Društvo za opazovanje in prouˇcevanje ptic Slovenije (DOPPS), 126–128, 131, 132

E economic and social committees, 60, 73, 75

Economic and Social Council (ESC), 34 economic interest groups, 191 economic shock therapy, 13 e-democracy, 77 EU accession, 31, 211 EU acquis , 184 EU funds, 183, 186–188, 200, 202, 215 EU institutions, 186, 189, 191, 193, 194, 197, 198, 201 EU policies, 182, 189–191, 193, 196, 198, 200 EU policy process, 191 EUROLOB, 16, 39 European Commission, 184, 187, 188, 193, 194, 200 European Council, 194 European integration, 141, 142, 149 Europeanization, 3, 26, 32, 34, 94, 108, 150, 174, 181–184, 214, 215 European Parliament, 191, 193 European Union (EU), 94, 95, 98, 101, 105, 118, 119, 121, 123, 124, 126, 130–133 EU umbrella organizations, 183, 191, 197–201 exchange theory, 170 executive, 60, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 84, 86, 162, 164, 165, 168, 169, 172, 174–176 external factors, 3 F functioning of advanced democracies, 2 G German Marshall Fund, 118 globalization, 183

INDEX

government, 60, 64, 66–70, 73–78, 81, 83–86, 162, 168, 169, 172, 174, 176 grassroots organizations, 118 groups’ populations, 26 group type, 45 I indirect strategies, 64, 65, 164 industrial relations, 143, 145, 148, 149, 156 influence, 161–165, 169–171, 174, 176 informal relationships, 175 inside lobbying, 161, 162, 164, 165, 171, 175, 212 insider venues, 172 institutional choices in the transition to democracy, 209 Institutionalization, 139 interest group population, 25, 35, 39, 42, 48 interest groups, 16, 35, 36, 91–97, 99, 100, 102, 106–108 definition, 95 interest organizations’ participation in the European policy process, 212 INTEREURO, 1, 16 internal and external factors, 3, 18, 26, 48 internal and external factors and their influence on interest groups’ population ecology, 209 L labour relations, 149 latent groups, 63 Law and Justice Party (PiS), 102 legal and institutional determinants, 211 liberalization, 27, 28

223

Lithuania, 92, 94, 95, 98–100, 105, 107, 108, 117–119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127–130, 132, 133 Lithuanian Green Movement (LGM), 126, 133 lobbying, 94, 97, 99, 161, 164, 165, 167, 168, 170, 171, 174–176 lobbying strategies, 161, 164, 165, 167, 171, 174

M Maastricht Treaty, 118 mapping of the groups’ density and diversity, 210 market economy, 140, 142, 148, 153 media campaigns, 162–165 membership, 97, 98, 101, 102, 106 membership of the European Union, 34 ministries, 67, 70, 77, 84 multilevel, 191

N national funding, 187 national government, 63, 194 national parliaments, 194 neo-corporatism, 34, 170 neo-corporatist, 60, 73–75, 77 neo-corporatist countries, 73, 75 neoliberalism, 31 neo-pluralism, 6, 7, 12 neo-Tocquevillian, 2, 9 new democracies, 138, 139 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 98, 116, 118–124, 126, 130–133 definition, 115 number of national interest organizations, 210

224

INDEX

O Olsonian collective action paradigm, 1 opportunity structures, 195 organizational development of non-governmental organizations, 211 organizational development theory, 211 organized civil society, 5 outside lobbying, 162, 164, 165, 171 outside strategies, 163, 171

P parliament, 60, 63, 67, 69, 70, 72–74, 77, 78, 84, 86, 162, 163, 167–169, 171, 174–176 parliamentary, 162, 164, 165, 168, 169, 172, 174–176 parliamentary system, 69 participatory democracy, 10–12 participatory democratic theory, 10 participatory, representative and associative democracy, 4 party systems, 137–139, 148 performance of new democracies, 18 Permanent Representation, 193 persistency hypothesis, 190 pluralisation, 185 pluralism, 5, 6, 13, 61 pluralist, 5, 60, 73–75, 77, 169, 176, 210 pluralist and corporatist perspective, 4 pluralist approach, 74 pluralist argument, 2 pluralist perspective, 43 Poland, 92, 94, 95, 98, 99, 101, 102, 105, 107, 108, 118–122, 124–128, 130, 132, 133 policy-makers, 164, 165, 170, 175 policy-making, 161, 162 policy networks, 170

political culture, 183 political parties, 62, 67, 70, 73, 76, 84, 91–93, 95–100, 102, 105–109, 137–144, 146, 150, 154, 163 political system, 139, 150 population ecology, 98, 107, 215 post-Communist, 116, 129, 137, 139, 140, 142–147, 151, 153, 154, 163, 175–177 professionalization, 63, 185, 186 public policy, 162–165, 168–171, 174, 177

Q quality of democracy, 4

R regime and system change, 209 regime change, 2, 3 representative democracy, 11 resources, 163, 170–172 role for interest groups in associational, deliberative and participatory democracy, 210

S Sajudis, 117, 118 semi-presidential system, 69 Slovenia, 92, 94, 95, 98, 99, 102, 105, 107, 108, 118, 119, 121, 122, 124–128, 130, 132, 133 social dialogue, 62, 74, 78 Social Movement Organizations (SMO), 97 social partners, 61, 75 Solidarity, 30 the movement, 117, 118, 127 Soviet, 140, 142, 147, 156

INDEX

T trade unions, 64, 72–75, 91, 94, 97, 99, 102, 107, 109, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143–151, 153, 154, 156 transition, 138–140, 144, 148–150, 153 transition process, 13 transition to democracy, 3, 26, 48, 213 transparency, accountability and representative character of interest groups, 6 tripartite arrangements, 61

225

U union membership, 146, 148–151

V venue shopping, 164, 176, 191, 194 Visegrad countries, 67

W Washington Consensus, 26 Western democracies, 137, 162, 170, 175 White Paper on Governance, 185