Interest representation in tribulation, under pressure and more needed than ever?

Abstract

The environment in which interest groups operate has changed substantially in the past decade. We have witnessed the take-off of deliberative democratic practices focused on the political participation of individual citizens, citizens increasingly question the legitimacy of involving interest groups in political decision-making processes, civil society space is shrinking in many countries, and crises such as the financial woes of the eurozone and the current pandemic have brought about multiple challenges for interest groups. However, the implications of these ongoing societal and political changes for interest groups remain elusive. This panel aims to make these implications more tangible. Papers therefore adopt a broad range of (new) analytical and methodological angles to study how societal and political changes affect interest representation.

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