PAIRDEM Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies: Character, Causes and Consequences

Status: Completed

A common view in scholarly literature and public debate is that the relationship between parties and interest groups shapes the nature of democratic governance. Still, party-group relationships have been largely overlooked by political scientists to date and taken for granted across different countries, institutional make-ups, types of party systems, and sectors. The proposed research project will advance the state of the art in this field by seeking to systematically examine the nature, the shaping factors and the consequences for policy-making of party-group relationships in long-established democracies across the world.

Contact

Elin Haugsgjerd Allern Universitetet i Oslo

About the project

The project will provide a truly comparative study of the varieties and impact of party-group relationships on a scale hitherto unparalleled within the social and political sciences. It will break new ground by examining party-group links from both sides rather than using either groups or parties as starting point. Aiming to renew both theory and methods within party/interest group research, we believe this new study will be of great value to the different kinds of scholars concerned with questions about the nature and effects of varying party-group relationships in democratic politics, and may also impact on those who run, belong to and report on the organizations involved.

The relationship between political parties and interest groups is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, and how to study it is open to debate. Accordingly, we will first look for a way to conceptualize party-group relationships that reduces the dimensions along which they can vary so that, after having mapped similarities and differences, we can examine the factors that shape them and their political impact. Empirically, the major goals of the project are to:

Map the character of contemporary party-interest group relationships, mainly as an organizational phenomenon
Identify the shaping factors of party-group relationships in this sense (at the country and party/group level)
Measure patterns of party-group influence and the impact of on public policy

In this way, we also hope to expose the broader role of party-group relationships in democratic governance. For more information on the conceptual issues, research questions and hypotheses of the project, please contact the Principal Investigator, Elin Haugsgjerd Allern.

Research Design

The project will be designed as a genuine comparative study across countries. With an eye on tractability and feasibility, we concentrate on the national/leadership level of politics. The units of analysis for are first, political parties and second, interest groups, but also the relationships as such (the dyads). Countries will be compared in terms of general patterns of party-group relationships. We look at the extra-parliamentary organization, but include parliamentary groups, too, since parties in some countries only have weak central organizations. In this way, we can also compare across ‘faces’ of parties, and touch more directly upon public decision-making as far as general patterns of influence is concerned. The project is divided into three main empirical modules: 1) an extensive study of all long-established democracies, 2) a detailed comparative study of parties and interest groups in 7-8 selected countries and 3) use of other (existing) data sets. The project includes a considerable data collection effort, including mapping of party statutes, a party survey, and an interest group survey, mapping of elite networks and perhaps also interviews with those involved in policy-making.

Project Organization and Funding

The project runs from Autumn 2014 to Winter 2020 and is financed by the national funding scheme "FRIHUMSAM Young Research Talents" (The Research Council of Norway) together with the University of Oslo. A core research group of nine persons (see List of participants) with complementary general expertise and different geographical backgrounds all contribute to the development of the conceptualization, the more detailed research design, to the data analysis and to publications. The team members also serves as advisors for the data collection in various countries/areas, supplemented by a few country supervisors to be affiliated (see List of affiliated researchers). All of the team members bring extensive, but only partly overlapping research networks into the project. The project will be managed at the University of Oslo, by Elin Haugsgjerd Allern. Numerous research assistants are engaged by the project, in different countries. Moreover, a postdoctoral fellow was recruited to work with the project manager in Oslo after the project started.

News

Members of PAIRDEM core group presented multiple papers at the annual conferences of EPSA, ECPR and APSA in June, August and September 2019.
PAIRDEM organized a mini-conference in Oslo, at Hotel Scandic Vulkan, May 22-24, 2019.
Vibeke Wøien Hansen presented a paper from PAIRDEM at the Norwegian Annual Political Science Conference in Trondheim January 7-9 2019.
Elin H. Allern and Vibeke W. Hansen presented a paper from PAIRDEM at the "Comparative Institutions and Regimes" research seminar at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, December 6 2018.
Members of PAIRDEM core group presented multiple papers at the annual conferences of EPSA, ECPR and APSA in June, August and September 2018.
Elin H. Allern presented a paper from PAIRDEM in a workshop on political cleavages at the GIGA Institute in Hamburg, June 7-8 2018.
Elin H. Allern presented the PAIRDEM Project at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo, April 19 2018.
PAIRDEM's 3rd Core Group Workshop was held at the University of Oslo, Holmenkollen Park Hotel, November 1-3 2017.
Elin H. Allern co-organized two panels on parties and interest groups/associations at the ECPR General Conference in Oslo, September 6-9 2017 (together with Nicole Bolleyer, University of Exeter).
The PAIRDEM data sets are under construction, and the first working paper was presented at the ECPR General Conference in Oslo, September 6-9 2017.
Elin H. Allern presented a PAIRDEM paper at POLKOM, Senter for studier av politisk kommunikasjon, at the University of Oslo, August 27 2017.
The book from the pilot study - Left-of-centre Parties and Trade Unions in the 21st Century - was published by Oxford University Press and launced at a one-day seminar at Mile's End Institute, Queen Mary University of London, the spring if 2017.
The Interest group survey launched in seven countries between late 2016 and spring of 2017, to be completed in 2017/early 2018.
Party survey launched in 21 countries during the spring and (late) summer of 2016, after mapping/coding the party statutes in all these countries, to be completed the autumn of 2017.
PAIRDEM's 2nd Core Group Workshop was held at the University of Copenhagen, December 14-15 2015.
PAIRDEM's postdoctoral fellow, Vibeke Wøien Hansen, joined the Core Group 1st of June 2015.
Opening workshop for the PAIRDEM core group in Oslo, February 11-13 2015

Participants

Elin Haugsgjerd Allern University of Oslo
Tim Bale
Heike Klüver
Thomas Poguntke
Anne Rasmussen
Paul Webb
Christopher Witko
David Marshall
Vibeke Wøien Hansen
Simon Otjes
Sabine Saurugger

Røed, Maiken; Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Hansen, Vibeke Wøien (2023). Party–Interest Group Ties and Patterns of Political Influence. Political Studies. ISSN 0032-3217. p. 1–21. doi: 10.1177/00323217231202596. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Organizational ties between political parties and interest groups are common in contemporary democracies, but little is known about the political effects of such ties. This article examines whether the strength of organizational ties between parties and interest groups affects the probability of (1) interest group influence on parties, (2) party influence on interest groups, and (3) mutual party–interest group influence in decision-making. Using novel interest group survey data from six democracies, we are the first to systematically examine the relationship between organizational ties and perceived and attributed influence across multiple policy areas. The findings indicate that one-sided influence is more likely when the actors have stronger ties but that such ties also increase the likelihood of influence going both ways. Close party–interest group relationships hence likely involve give-and-take across policy issues. These findings shed important new light on the role of parties and interest groups as intermediaries in democracies.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd; Hansen, Vibeke Wøien; Rødland, Lise; Maiken, Røed; Klüver, Heike & Gall, Cal Le [Show all 12 contributors for this article] (2022). Introducing the Party-interest group relationships in contemporary democracies datasets. Party Politics. ISSN 1354-0688. 29(2), p. 394–403. doi: 10.1177/13540688221075591. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Few existing datasets on parties and interest groups include data from both sides and a wide variety of interest groups and parties. We contribute to filling this gap by making several interconnected new datasets publicly available. The Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies (PAIRDEM) datasets include cross-national data from three different surveys of (1) central party organizations, (2) legislative party groups, and (3) interest groups. A fourth dataset based on coding of party statutes and party finance data was established together with the Political Party Database. The datasets contain novel indicators on party-group relationships in up to 21 mature democracies. In this research note, we first present the main content of the datasets and the research design. Second, we present descriptive statistics documenting the extent of organizational ties between parties and groups in contemporary democracies. Third, we illustrate more advanced usage through a simple application.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd; Hansen, Vibeke Wøien; Marshall, David; Rasmussen, Anne & Webb, Paul D (2020). Competition and interaction: Party ties to interest groups in a multidimensional policy space. European Journal of Political Research. ISSN 0304-4130. 60(2), p. 275–294. doi: 10.1111/1475-6765.12403. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Political parties and interest groups play a vital role in incorporating societal interests into democratic decision‐making. Therefore, explaining the nature and variation in the relationship between them will advance our understanding of democratic governance. Existing research has primarily drawn attention to how exchange of resources shapes these relationships largely neglecting the role of contextual conditions. Our contribution is to examine whether parties’ structured interactions with different categories of interest groups vary systematically with the pattern of party competition at the level of policy dimensions. First, we argue that higher party fragmentation in a policy space makes organisational ties to interest groups more likely, due to fears of voter loss and splinter groups. Second, we expect higher polarisation between parties on a policy dimension to make ties to relevant groups less likely due to increased electoral costs. We find support for both expectations when analysing new data on 116 party units in 13 mature democracies along nine different policy dimensions. Our findings underline the value of considering the strategic context in which parties and interest groups interact to understand their relationship. The study sheds new light on parties and interest groups as intermediaries in democracy and contributes to a new research agenda connecting interest group research with studies of parties’ policy positions and responsiveness.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd; Otjes, Simon; Poguntke, Thomas; Hansen, Vibeke Wøien; Saurugger, Sabine & Marshall, David (2020). Conceptualizing and measuring party-interest group relationships. Party Politics. ISSN 1354-0688. 27(6), p. 1254–1267. doi: 10.1177/1354068820949393. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Relationships between political parties and interest groups form structures that enable and constrain political action. Yet there is a lack of consensus on what ‘party-group relationships’ means. We propose a conceptualization focusing on ties as means for structured interaction, which is different from sharing or transfer of resources and ideological kinship. Our conceptual discussion suggests that organizational ties form a single yet hierarchical scale of strength: groups that have many formal ties with particular parties would also have weaker ties with these parties, but not vice versa. To validate our conceptual map, we furthermore check whether the distinction between organizational ties, resource sharing/provision and ideological kinship holds empirically. We explore our expectations by means of novel interest group survey data from seven mature democracies. The results of our scaling analysis provide support for our predictions and have multiple implications for future research on the causes and effects of party-group relationships.
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Bale, Tim (2017). The Relationship between Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions. In Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Bale, Tim (Ed.), Left-of-centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198790471. p. 1–25. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198790471.003.0001. Full text in Research Archive
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd; Bale, Tim & Otjes, Simon (2017). Mapping Party-Trade Union Relationships in Contemporary Democracies. In Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Bale, Tim (Ed.), Left-of-centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198790471. p. 26–53. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198790471.003.0002. Full text in Research Archive
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd; Bale, Tim & Otjes, Simon (2017). The Relationship between Left-of-Centre Parties and Trade Unions in Contemporary Democracies. In Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Bale, Tim (Ed.), Left-of-centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198790471. p. 280–309. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198790471.003.0015. Full text in Research Archive
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd; Bale, Tim & Otjes, Simon (2017). Variations in Party-Union Relationships: Explanations and Implications. In Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Bale, Tim (Ed.), Left-of-centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198790471. p. 310–341. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198790471.003.0016. Full text in Research Archive
Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Verge, Tania (2017). Still Connecting with Society? Political Parties' Formal Links with Social Groups in the 21st Century. In Scarrow, Susan E; Webb, Paul D & Poguntke, Thomas (Ed.), Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and Power. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780198758631. Full text in Research Archive

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Allern, Elin Haugsgjerd & Bale, Tim (2017). Left-of-centre Parties and Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198790471. 379 p. Full text in Research Archive

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Funding

Project number: 190048

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Published Apr. 28, 2025 3:12 PM - Last modified Apr. 9, 2026 1:16 PM