EU Research Interest Group And The EU Decision-making

Interest groups broadly exist in western political life, and their participations in politicaldecision-making is an important research question in western political science. In the researchesregarding EU politics and European integration, scholars also focus their emphasis on the role ofinterest groups in EU decision-making. Interest groups not only play a part in the coordination ofpublic interest and the regulation of publicity problems in EU level, but contribute a lot to EU’sself-construction in the context of European integration. The observation on EU interest groups aswell as their activities in EU decision-making will help us to understand the operation of EUpolitics and the development of European integration from a more comprehensive perspective, andprovide us a reference frame for further theoretical discussion and research practice.Based on a review on the evolution of EU interest groups since the end of World War II, thearticle argues that the evolution of EU interest groups goes together with the development ofEuropean integration. The cross-border issues in the context of European Integration havestimulated the growth of EU policy domain, the power transferred from member states tosupernational institutions have helped to creat a new power center at EU level, and the EU’sself-improvements of decision-making mechanism have shaped a more open decision-makingspace. All these factors have promoted the emergence of EU interest groups. These interest groupscontinue to extend their influence on EU decision-making, and have become an important part ofEU political life.Besides the research on the history of EU interes groups, the article, through a mechanismanalysis and some case studies, systematicly explores the EU interest groups’s participation in EUdecision making. The main arguments are as follows: EU is a sui generis system.On the one hand,it plays a role like traditional state, and it is responsible for the routine decision-making in somepublic policy domain, such as the coordination of public interest and the regulation of publicityproblems in EU level. On the other hand, under the background of European integration EU is stillin the process of self-construction, so it has to, from time to time, make some unusual strategicdecisions, such as the shaping of new policy domain, the transfer of power and the innovation ofinstitutions. The double-dimension nature of EU decision-making has diversified the participationpattern of EU interest groups. With regard to the routine decision-making in EU public policy, thecorrespondingdecision-making system is a multi-layer architecture, and the decision-makerswithin the system are interdependentandmutuallyrestrained. The interest groups participate in asuch system in a stable institutionalized manner. The patterns of their participation are mainlypluralism and corporatism. In the case of pluralism, interest groups compete for the influence tothe final decision freely within the decision-making system. In the case of corporatism, certaininterest groups,based on some institutionalized arrangement, gain exclusive access to thedecision-making process, and therefore establish some stable relationship with EU authority,becoming a stable player in the decision-making process. With regard to the unsusal strategicdecisions, the decision-making processes are usually full of uncertainty, a successful decision relies on the combination of strategic foresight, political impetus and institutional innovation. Theinterest groups usually participate this kind of decesions in an elitism pattern. They are used toestablish direct connection with the up level elites of the system, and deeply involve in the corediscussion. With the advantage in organization and resource, they can effectively push forward thewhole decision-making process.The article also evaluates the role of interest groups in EU decision making based on theconcepts “input legitimacy” and “output legitimacy“. The article argues that the interest groups’contribution to EU’s legitimacy highly relies on the pattern of their decision-making participation.In public policy domain, a well organized pluralism participation will increase both “inputlegitimacy” and “output legitimacy“of EU, while a badly organized pluralism participation hasnagetive impact on EU’s “input legitimacy” and “output legitimacy“. In the case of corporatism,interest groups’ participation only provide EU incomplete “input legitimacy” and relative low“output legitimacy“. As for the strategic decision-mking in the context of European integration,interest groups’ elitism participation provide little “input legitimacy” but high level “outputlegitimacy”In the end, the article explores the future development of EU interest groups research. Firstly,further researches should be conducted to evaluate the future of three coexisting democraticmodels in EU public policy domain, i.e. indirect democracy through EU member states,representative democracy through European Parliament and the participatory democracy throughinterest groups. Secondly, more empirical studies on EU interest groups’ future development andon EU’s interest groups regulation activities should be conducted to evaluate the role of interestgroups in EU governance. Third, ainterdiscipline dialogue should be conducted betweencomparative politics studies and European integration studies, so that we could make acomprehensive evaluation on the role of interest groups in EU decision-making from a normativeperspective.