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The paper deals with the conflicts associated with the so-called 'Dieselgate' affair. It explains the interaction of civil society, law firms and political actors which reshapes the legal systems in Europe. Once the federal government in Germany had decided that European car owners should not get any kind of financial compensation, a transnational coalition of consumer organizations and law firms successfully initiated a legal mobilization campaign to counteract the political decision. As a consequence, collective litigation rights were strengthened in Germany and at the European level. Theoretically, the paper refers to the literature on adversarial legalism. Whether this judicialized style of conflict resolution is spreading to Europe ('Eurolegalism') has been a hotly debated topic in political science. Our main argument is that the Dieselgate case is a catalyst event to foster the transformation process towards 'Eurolegalism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While strong voices in the academic literature and real-world politics regard interest groups as biased representatives of the public, we know little about the scope and consequences of such biases for democratic governance. We conduct the first cross-national comparison of group and public preferences analyzing a new dataset of 50 issues in five West European countries. Despite the negative image of interest groups in politics, we find that their positions are in line with public opinion more than half the time. Moreover, while firms and business associations enjoy weaker support for their positions among citizens than public interest groups, they still enjoy the backing of a sizable share of the public. Additionally, we find no general pattern that communities with low interest group diversity are less likely to represent public opinion. Our findings have implications for democratic governance and discussions of how to conceptualize and measure biases in interest representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norwegian energy policy is increasingly made by the European Union (EU), but as a European Economic Area (EEA) member only, Norway lacks representation in EU institutions. This article studies how key Norwegian energy companies and organizations deal with this challenge, asking whether Norwegian interest groups lobby directly in Brussels or lobby in Oslo to influence EU legislation. It finds that although Norwegian interest groups lack access to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, they have access to the Commission. Still, they mainly lobby in Oslo, even to influence EU legislation. When lobbying in Brussels, they lobby early in the decision-making process and together with ‘good friends’, mostly European associations. However, these lobbying strategies are insufficient to compensate for lack of representation in EU institutions – which therefore represents a great democratic problem. A case study of the EU 2030 Framework on climate and energy illustrates this democratic challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-making processes in Europe involve complex networks of actors who are trying to influence them at the various levels of the European multi-level governance system. Interest group research often assumes that the ability of an actor to exert influence depends mainly on its financial and personal resourcefulness, on its ability to provide expert knowledge and on its economic and/or political power. Recent conflicts in which 'weak' actors were able to persist have challenged this assumption. We claim that a careful analysis of the actor networks is able to complement the traditional actor-resource-centred perspective, and that paying attention to the structure of collective action networks is necessary to fully grasp the dynamics of decision-making processes in Europe in which the power of networks sometimes outweighs the power of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest groups have responded to European integration with varied and multi-level adjustment strategies. This article examines the Europeanization of national and regional Italian business associations as they respond to the challenge of EMU and deeper economic integration. A panel survey and analysis of available data indicate that European considerations are plainly evident in interest group goals, strategies, activities, and organization, and that interest group attention to European issues has been increasing. The research does not find neatly ordered patterns of interest group activity in Europe, but rather, a complex mix of pressure group strategies, including multi-level lobbying, consistent with multi-level governance models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]