Agendas and Interest Groups in Germany: The mediating role of parties and the media
Empirical Social Research
Final Report Abstract
The project investigated the political agenda-setting effects of organized interests in the context of agenda-setting and taking by the media and political parties. Building on a previous research project (Agendas and Interest Groups – AIG), the aim was to account for agenda effects that are not explained by the traditional notion of intermediary associations as transmission belts between citizens and the state. Hence, the main objective of the project was to analyze the role of political parties and the media in the transmission belt perspective alongside interest groups. A possible agenda bias might not be visible by analyzing the intermediary role of the interest group agenda alone. Thus, we added the party and media agendas to the picture and analyzed their effects on the government agenda as well as modelling their inter interactions with interest groups. An agenda bias would lead to differences in congruence between the government agenda and interest groups as representatives of societal interests. In the analyses completed to date, we have found that, both, interest groups and parties act as transmission belts that feed societal interests into the political system. The strongest predictor of election manifestos is public salience and there is a correlation between the topics the government deals with and issues that are important to parties. We only find partial evidence for biases in the representational transmission belt. Peak associations find it harder to influence election manifestos as opposed to large membership groups. Interest groups that use more inside lobbying also see their issues more often addressed by parties. If and to what extent this also manifests itself in the government agenda is the subject of ongoing research based on the data collected in this project.
Publications
- (2021) Parties as Transmission Belts: How well do parties in Germany represent citizens and influence the government agenda? 14th ECPR General Conference, 30 August – 3 September 2021, online & 13th CAP Conference in Aarhus, 1 – 3 September 2021
Goldberg, F., E. Deiss-Helbig & P. Bernhagen
