The Scale of Interest Organization in Democratic Politics: Data and Research Methods(Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy Series)

It is widely assumed that effective democracies host large populations of pressure participants defending their interests and advancing their causes. It is also assumed that as societies develop, the associational world 'explodes'. These twin assumptions prompt simple questions. How many organized interests are there in different societies and how quickly are they growing? Do different types grow at different rates? In this volume, these questions are shown to be much more difficult to answer than they at first. However, a useful sense of scale is provided for the debate and many research practice issues are raised. Significant differences appear cross nationally but some broad trends such as a decline in the number of business groups emerge. Population ecology is used to show that the idea of constant growth was naIve. Contributions from distinguished authors include reports on data from the USA, UK, Denmark and Germany, at different levels of political decision making, from 'below the radar' in local communities to global negations at the World Trade Organization. The volume highlights the need for political science to pay more attention to complex interactions involving a 'cast of thousands' of politically relevant groups.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; D.Halpin & G.Jordan Counting the Voices in the Heavenly Chorus: Pressure Participants in Washington Politics; K.Schlozman Enumerating Populations of Interest Organizations: The Several Theoretical Purposes of Counting; D.Lowery The Changing Contours of British Representation: Pluralism in Practice; G.Jordan & J.Greenan Numbers in a Niche: Lessons from Mapping Gay and Lesbian Groups in the US states; A.J.Nownes Multiple Arenas, Multiple Populations: Counting Organized Interests in Scottish Public Policy; D.Halpin, G.Baxter & I.MacLeod Tracking Interest Group Populations in the US and UK; G.Jordan, F.Baumgartner, J.McCarthy, S.Bevan & J.Greenan The Usual Suspects: Interest Group Dynamics and Representation in Denmark; P.M.Christiansen Mapping the WTO Interest Group System: Exploring Density, Diversity and Stability Over Time; M.Hanegraaff, J.Beyers & C.Braun-Poppelaars Below Which Radar? Mapping the Activities of Unregulated Third Sector Organisations in England; J.Mohan Counting at the Local Level: Where to Stop Counting?; W.A.Maloney & J.W. van Deth Conclusion; G.Jordan & D.Halpin

About the Author :
DARREN HALPIN Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark. He was formerly Professor of Public Policy at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK, where he is now Visiting Professor at the Institute for Management, Governance and Society. GRANT JORDAN Emeritus Professor, Department of Politics and International Relations, Aberdeen University, Scotland, UK. He first wrote about interest groups while working with Jeremy Richardson in the 1970s. They completed Governing Under Pressure in 1979 and Government and Pressure Groups in Britain in 1987. He has completed two major ESRC supported surveys into membership issues with William Maloney, which were reported in The Protest Business (1997) and Democracy and Interest Groups (2007). His other relevant works include Engineers and Professional Self Regulation (1992) and Shell, Greenpeace and Brent Spar (2001).