The Evolving Landscape of Interest Group Politics: Navigating a Research Area of Increasing Complexity and Unprecedented Importance

It is undeniable that the study of interest groups, lobbying and advocacy is rapidly becoming a central research field in the political sciences and beyond. First, the crisis of representation within traditional political organisations and democratic institutions has given prominence to organised interests both nationally and internationally. Second, new actors, firms and multinational corporations have cemented their role of policy stakeholders, domestically as well as in relation to globally salient policy issues such as climate change and public health. At the same time, new actors are making an entrance with social movements and ordinary citizens discovering lobbying as a form of political participation. Third, lobbying and advocacy by organised interests, once seen as a form of democratic participation, has been increasingly observed in non- (or less) democratic contexts. This has shed new lights on the complexity of lobbying as a form of political participation but also highlight the challenges and constrains organised interests face outside the democratic context. Finally, new media platforms and technologies, in particular, artificial intelligence, is making an abrupt entrance into the world of public affairs with consequences for the profession but also for the democratic process that cannot yet be understood. Within this developing context, this section proposal hopes to identify current knowledge gaps that also mirror the research trajectories and that represent new questions for scholars of interest groups and lobbying. At the same time, we propose solidifying existing knowledge in the discipline in order to better understand new trends. We therefore suggest a combination of old and new themes to the study of interest groups. The section calls for theoretical, empirical and/or normative papers on one or more of the following themes: 1. Policy cycle: timing and lobbying: We invite scholars to submit work that relates to the dimension of temporality and context. The question of when rather than if and how is a key question in lobbying and interest mobilisation that deserves more scholarly attention. 2. Influence production process: lobbying strategies, access and influence: We welcome classical approaches that add nuance and detail to the study of lobbying strategies, access and influence. Work that develops new theoretical frameworks and/or focuses on political and geographical contexts which have received little scholarly attention so far are particularly welcome. 3. Interest groups, civic spaces and new forms of mobilization: We are interested in work that explores new forms of interest mobilisation and/or ‘unusual’ actors, such as citizens, exploring lobbying and advocacy as a form of political participation. 4. Transparency and responsible lobbying - between regulation and self-regulation: We welcome research focusing on statutory and voluntary rules framing the interaction between interest groups and the state. These include (but may not be limited to) lobbying regulations, campaign finance regulations, conflict of interest rules and subsidy regimes but also corporate social responsibility initiatives and frameworks of responsible lobbying. 5. Input, throughput and output legitimacy in interest group participation: We invite scholars to explore the risk of bias and capture in interest representation and reflect upon how this may relate to perceptions of legitimacy, trust and fairness of the political system. 6. Media, technology and opportunities for interest groups in the AI-era: How is the development of new media and technological advancement reflected in the public affairs profession and in interest representation more in general? Importantly, what are the implications of such development for interest representation and the quality of participatory democracy? These are examples of pertinent questions in the AI-era. 7. Representation and integration - background, careers and networks: Despite technological advancement, interest representation remains (for now) a human activity. We wish to know more about the people behind interest representation with a focus on the concepts of representation and elite integration. How do backgrounds, career and networks and other individual factors affect collective interest representation? 8. Links between interest groups and other political organisations: Interest groups have friends and foes. These can be other interest groups, corporate actors, political parties, and other politically active organisations. We are interested in work that studies how the relationship between these actors affects the sum of their political activities. 9. Interest groups in hybrid and authoritarian regimes: Interest representation by organisations, associations and groups transcends the democratic context. We welcome work that theorises and observes interest representation in the context of democratic backsliding and/or autocratic consolidation. 10. Talking interest groups politics and lobbying to students and beyond: As the discipline is expanding, so is the curriculum offered at third level education institutions teaching about interest groups and lobbying. At the same time, the number of workshops, events and professional development initiatives that brings practitioners and academia together on this topic is increasing. We welcome initiatives in this research area that pay attention to best practices and challenges in teaching, learning and engaging with different audiences. 11. Lobbying and advocacy on future challenges: All issues matter but some matter more than others. We welcome work that focuses on interest representation, lobbying and advocacy on so called ‘future challenges’, which are typically characterised, on the one hand, by high saliency and urgency, but on the other hand by higher levels of conflict, complexity, polarisation, and collective action problems. 12. Old and new methodological approaches: Last but not least, we welcome work that focuses on the use of old and new methodological approaches. This can include studies presenting new data sets and infrastructures, developing new methods to analyse data, or critiquing existing methodological approaches. In particular, we observe a ‘come back’ of qualitative research methods after 20 years on expansion of quantitative studies in this area. Work that focuses on tensions and synergies between the two are particularly welcome. We want to stress that we encourage submissions from scholars from varying levels of seniority and from various interdisciplinary approaches. We also understand the importance of a diverse and inclusive pool of participants and particularly welcome submissions from scholars belonging to underrepresented institutions.