What’s the issue? : the lobbying and representativeness of political parties on specific policy issues

Romeijn, J. (2020)

Doctoral Thesis

Political parties take positions and make decisions on many policies that directly influence important parts of the lives of their voters. These policies include issues like raising the retirement age, lending money to large companies that face bankruptcy, or deploying soldiers to Afghanistan. But do political parties take into account the policy preferences of the general public and their own voters when making such decisions? And to what extent do interest groups influence political parties’ positions and decisions on these policy issues? This dissertation studies these important questions across a range of wealthy, Northwestern European democracies with strong democratic credentials, covering dozens of political parties, policy issues and even more interest groups and other policy advocates.

• Political parties
• Interest groups
• Representation
• Public opinion
• Lobbying
• Multiple regression with post stratification

• All authors: Romeijn, J.
• Supervisor: Rasmussen, A.
• Co-supervisor: Toshkov, D.D.
• Committee: Allern, E.H; Groeneveld, S.M.; Louwerse, T.P.; Müller, E.R.; Timmermans, A.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Institute of Public Administration, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University
• Date: 2020-06-02
• ISBN (print): 9789463614283
• Sponsorship: This dissertation was written within the GovLis project “When does government listen to the Public: Interest groups and policy responsiveness” (NWO VIDI Grant 452-12-008 and Danish Council for Independent Research Sapere Aude Grant 0602- 02642B, awarded to Anne Rasmussen).