Description of the Project

Sponsored by the Mercator Research Center Ruhr (MERCUR) the project “Arenas of political interest mediation in Germany”, a research association of the Ruhr University Bochum and the University of Duisburg-Essen, analyses the strategies and the influence of interest groups in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Interest groups, such as welfare organisations, environmental associations and migrant groups, are important players in liberal democracies. Political Interest mediation links political decision making to the preferences of citizens, but it may also privilege certain interests over others.

So far, studies on interest groups mostly focus on their role in administration and bureaucracy. However, in addition organisations use parliaments, the media, legal means, and networks to pursue their interests. Consequently, it is particularly relevant to examine whether the same groups or different groups enter the various arenas of interest mediation.

In cooperation with the Danish INTERARENA project, which analyses the influence of interest groups in politics and media (Binderkrantz et al. 2013, 2014; Pedersen, Halpin and Rasmussen 2014), the research association aims to explain the strategies of interest groups in the parliamentary arena, the juridical arena and the media arena as well as in organisational networks.

A combined cross-sectional/longitudinal comparison shall allow us to answer a range of questions not systematically addressed in the existing literature:


  1. Did the usage of the various arenas increase over time?

  2. How do characteristics of organisations, political issues, policy areas and institutions affect the usage of the various arenas?

  3. Does the presence of groups cumulate across arenas?


The analysis will be conducted for the years 1993 to 2014 in four modules on four arenas of interest mediation in Germany - parliament, law, media and organisational networks. By developing a comprehensive data structure about access to these arenas, this project aims at generating empirical knowledge regarding the role of interest groups in the German democracy.