Interest Group Politics in the European Union: Migrant Inclusion Organizations and Political Behavior Across Levels of Governance

Abstract

This project explores why similar organizations located in similar countries in the European Union (EU) working on behalf of similar interests will undertake very different strategies to achieve their policy goals. I focus on organizations working toward a migrant inclusion policy agenda across twenty EU countries, and compare their political activities across levels of governance. I develop an integrative model based on group interconnectedness to explain activity. In particular, I examine how an organization's ties with a range of other actors shape activity levels and activity choice, as compared to more traditional social movement explanations. A broad range of activities are examined, including lobbying, protest, judicial action, media use, and collaborative efforts with others. The findings support the proposition that the nature and strength of an organization's connections strongly influences its political activity across each level of governance. At the national level, increasingly strong connections to other like-minded actors serve to increase and moderate activity. Moreover, groups that maintain strong connections with actors beyond the state are more likely to expand their activities across levels of governance, including the EU level. In addition, I find evidence of a "solidarity effect" among networks of NGOs across levels of governance that increases the likelihood of collaborative activity. Interesting findings also emerge with respect to the other predictors. For example, I find evidence that the more radical groups, while not excluded from EU political processes, tend to resort to "back door" strategies in which they target less visible institutions. Moreover, these groups tend to be excluded from collaborations at the national level, forcing them to look beyond their nation-states for collaborative partners. Overall, the findings lend strong support to the interconnectivity model developed in this dissertation, suggesting that the nature of group ties help to not only explain the choice of activity but also the target. This study is based on original data collected through the Survey of European Pro-Migrant and Refugee Organizations. In general, the sample of groups included is broadly representative of the population, lending confidence to the conclusions drawn from this study.