Labanino, Rafael
0000-0001-5518-0748 Berufsbeschreibung
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The Macro-Political Context and Interest Groups' Access to Policymakers
The article explores how macro-level political factors in conjunction with micro- and meso-level factors affect interest-group access to policymakers. The analysis is conducted based on two original data sets: a population ecology database of Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovenian national-level energy policy, healthcare and higher education organizations, and an online survey of these populations. Combining the two data sets allows us to investigate both polity-, population- and organizational-level factors. As the sampled countries have recently experienced democratic backsliding, we also test the effect of closing deliberative structures. The analysis reveals that the political process influences access: legislative fractionalization affects access positively, while the closure of deliberative structures has a negative effect. Nevertheless, the political contextual factors are mediated through variables at both the population (e.g. the size of latent constituency) and organizational (e.g. expertise provision) levels, as well as the meso-level of interorganizational cooperation.
Gábor Scheiring: The Retreat of Liberal Democracy : Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary
The article reviews Gábor Scheiring's 2020 book "The Retreat of Liberal Democracy: Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary". The book gives an innovative, theory-driven answer to the puzzle of Hungarian democratic breakdown. It places the Hungarian post-communist transition in the framework of dependent capitalism (Cardoso and Faletto, 1979), and in the broader historical perspective of capitalist development (Wolfe, 1977). Admittedly, the book does not seek to account for all possible conditions of the Hungarian democratic breakdown. In sake of parsimonious theory development, it zooms in on the actors and social classes most crucial to the central argument. Although this is a legitimate research strategy, it still leaves the testing of the framework for subsequent studies.The power of Scheiring’s argument rests on how his actor-based narrative is rooted in and connected to the structural constraints of dependent capitalist development. While the argument is based on a single case study, it offers a general warning about the future of democratic capitalism.
Are post-communist interest organizations learning to lobby? : Exploring the “coming-of-age” of Central and Eastern European interest groups
Countless scholars have explored the emergence, stability and transformation of interest intermediation structures in western democracies and beyond [Jahn, “Changing of the Guard”; Schmitter, “Corporatism is Dead!”; Siaroff, “Corporatism in 24 Industrial Democracies”.]. In this article we take a new avenue by exploring the “micro-level” impact of (quasi-)representation monopolies and high or low access on organized interests, namely at the level of groups themselves. Looking at Central and Eastern European organizations, we assess how the inclusion within or exclusion from frequent interactions with the state impacts the internal development of organized interests? Do excluded groups seek to professionalize their operations to increase their chances of eventually accessing policy-makers? Do they expand ties with other groups to increase their joint political clout? Or do they flee the national political arena and focus more on regional- or European-level activities? Based on a survey of Central and Eastern European organized interests, the analysis reveals that political inclusion indeed strongly enhances organizational development and intergroup cooperation. Yet, we also show that even occasional political participation boosts the lobbying capacities of organizations, in particular younger, mainly civic organizations. Altogether, the data shed positive light on the responsiveness of interest organizations operating in a region previously often overlooked in interest group research.
Exploring interest intermediation in Central and Eastern Europe : is higher education different?
Higher education interest groups remain somewhat understudied from a comparative theory-driven perspective. This is surprising because political decisions regarding higher education must increasingly be legitimized to students, taxpayers, the academic community and society. This article aims to advance our understanding of higher education stakeholders in post-communist Europe. In our view, the region deserves more attention, not least because students and academics were very instrumental in bringing down communism and institutionalizing democracy. First, we draw on Klemenčič’s (EJHE 2(1): 2–19, 2012; SHE 39(3):396–411, 2014) distinction between corporatist and pluralist as well as formalized and informal systems of representation in higher education. Looking at survey data from four countries—Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia—we examine to what extent post-communist democracies have established corporatist institutions to facilitate the formal participation of various crucial stakeholder organizations, e.g. students’ unions, academic unions, rectors’ conferences, etc. Then we address whether higher education organizations enjoy privileged access to policy-makers compared to those from other policy areas, while engaging with the argument that higher education is a particular case of “stakeholder democracy” in a region otherwise characterized by weak civic participation and corporatism. To wrap up, we discuss different “mutations of higher education corporatism” in each country.
“Post-truth post-communism?” : Information-oriented lobbying in the context of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe
This article explores how democratic backsliding affects the value of expertise provision for interest groups in influencing policymaking. The analysis is conducted on an original survey of Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovenian energy, healthcare, and higher education interest groups active at the national level. All four countries experienced varying degrees and forms of populism and democratic backsliding in the past decade. Yet effective governance in all three policy fields still requires expert knowledge. We find that de-democratization affects expertise provision negatively, indeed, but not uniformly: the stronger the backsliding, the more a close relationship with governing parties matters for sharing expertise. Yet even in the context of de-democratization, participation in parliamentary hearings/committees is of pivotal importance for expertise provision. Moreover, intergroup cooperation is an important signal for expertise exchange: organizations with EU umbrella membership and active domestic networking activities attribute significantly higher importance to expertise in influencing policy than groups lacking these assets.
Organized interests in post-communist policy-making : a new dataset for comparative research
This article familiarizes readers with the international research project ‘The Missing Link: Exploring Organized Interests in Post-Communist Policy-Making’ (OrgIntCEE). The project team has focused on how populations of organized interests in the region have evolved, how they interact with state institutions as well as the group-specific characteristics driving access to policy-makers. The project also explores how Europeanization has affected post-communist interest groups as well as other factors contributing to their “coming-of-age.” We provide a comprehensive overview of the population ecology and survey datasets, while shedding light on the challenges during the data collection process. After a short overview of the project context and structure, we present some country-specific aggregated data on organizational densities and their political activity. We also reflect on potential uses for the data, before wrapping up the article with a self-critical assessment of what could have been done differently as a roadmap for future research.
'The goal is not necessarily to sit at the table' : Resisting autocratic legalism in Hungarian academia
The article analyses the strategies of Hungarian higher education interest organisations against the encroachments on academic freedom by Viktor Orbán’s governments. We contrast the 2012-2013 and 2017-2019 protest waves and find that innovations in strategy came from new organisations in both periods, whereas established ones were rather passive or opted for the status quo. However, in the second period, new actors consciously declined to pursue wider systemic goals and aimed at building up formal organisations instead of loose, movement-like networks. The focus on keeping a unified front and interest representation on the workplace level did not change the overall outcome. Just like during the first period, the government was able to reach its goals without major concessions. Nevertheless, during the second protest wave the government was unable to divide and pacify its opponents, which stripped it of its legalistic strategy and revealed its authoritarianism.
Multilevel Venue Shopping Amid Democratic Backsliding in New European Union Member States
Recently, various Central and Eastern European countries have experienced a regression of democratic quality, often resulting in the emergence of competitive (semi‐)authoritarian regimes with an illiberal governing ideology. This has often been accompanied by a closing political space for civil society groups. Based on a survey of more than 400 Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and Slovenian interest organizations, we explore, in the context of backsliding, the conditions under which organized interests shift their lobbying activities to alternative, i.e., EU or regional levels. Our statistical analyses indicate that it is rather exclusive policy‐making in general than a lack of individual group access to domestic policy networks that motivate organizations to engage in multilevel lobbying. However, it appears that organizational self‐empowerment and inter‐group cooperation are the “name of the game.” Even under the adverse conditions of democratic backsliding, organizations that are accumulating expertise, professionalizing their operations, and cooperating with other organizations not only can sustain access to (illiberal) national governments but also branch out their operations to the European and regional levels.
Exploring the domestic and international drivers of professionalization of Central and Eastern European interest groups
While there has been a veritable boom in literature on organized interests, their lobbying strategies, relationships with decision-makers, and their impact on policymaking, only a few studies have explored internal organizational developments and, specifically, the professionalization of interest groups. The present study focuses on the national and transnational factors driving the professionalization of interest groups in Central and Eastern Europe, a region previously neglected in much of the interest group literature. Based on a sample of more than 400 surveyed organizations operating in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia in the healthcare, higher education, and energy sectors, we explore three bundles of factors potentially enhancing the professionalization of interest groups – organizational funding sources, national and transnational intergroup cooperation and organizations’ standing in the domestic interest group system. Our statistical analyses show that state subsidies and tight policy coordination with the state are crucial drivers of internal organizational professionalization, suggesting rather patronistic and symbiotic relationships between the state and certain organizations. However, our data also support the notion that interorganizational collaboration, both at the national and international levels, may also be key to organizational professionalization, enabling groups that lack close ties with the state to compensate their disadvantage with intensive domestic and international networking. The study is also among the first to link increasing professionalization with organizational population density.