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Scholars of mobilisation and policy influence employ two quite different approaches to mapping interest group systems. Those interested in research questions on mobilisation typically rely on a bottom-up mapping strategy in order to characterise the total size and composition of interest group communities. Researchers with an interest in policy influence usually rely on a top-down strategy in which the mapping of politically active organisations depends on samples of specific policies. But some scholars also use top-down data gathered for other research questions on mobilisation (and vice versa). However, it is currently unclear how valid such large-N data for different types of research questions are. We illustrate our argument by addressing these questions using unique data sets drawn from the INTEREURO project on lobbying in the European Union and the European Union's Transparency Register. Our findings suggest that top-down and bottom-up mapping strategies lead to profoundly different maps of interest group communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of interest organizations (density) varies across policy domains, political issues and economic sectors. This shapes the nature and outcomes of interest representation. In this contribution, we explain the density of interest organizations per economic sector in the European Union on the basis of political and economic institutional factors. Focusing on business interest representation, we show that economic institutions structure the ‘supply’ of interest organizations by affecting the number of potential constituents, the resources available for lobbying and the geographical level of collective action of businesses. In contrast, we do not find consistent evidence that political institutions produce ‘demand’ for interest organizations by making laws, developing public policy or spending money. This is in contrast to the extensive evidence that such factors affect lobbying practices. The European Union interest system is (partially) shaped by economic factors, relatively independent from public policy or institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We know remarkably little about the volatility of vital rates of organizations lobbying the European Union (EU), in large part because of the limited and problematic nature of data on the EU interest community. After discussing these problems, we try to develop a better assessment of the short term - 2003 to 2009 - volatility of birth and death rates of the EU interest community using data from the Consultation, the European Commission and Civil Society (CONECCS) lobby registration system of the European Commission and the door pass system for lobbyists of the European Parliament. We find that the EU interest system is surprisingly volatile even over the short term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]