Replication Data for: Evelien Willems & Jan Beyers (2022). Public support and advocacy success across the legislative process. European Journal of Political Research

This paper examines how public support affects interest groups’ advocacy success across three distinct stages in the legislative process. We hypothesize that public support is vital for advocacy success when coalition agreements are negotiated, has a weaker effect when legislation is introduced in parliament by the governing majority but becomes again stronger when legislation is adopted. We assess these expectations for 55 Belgian policy issues. We combine evidence on legislative outcomes with public opinion data and a mapping of interest groups’ positions in the news. The results indicate that public support is key for advocacy success in the coalition agreement. However, the positive effect of public support weakens when legislation is introduced in parliament—the effect only materializes for initiatives by the opposition—and public support has no significant effect on advocacy success in adopted legislation. Instead, aligning with other groups and political parties becomes more consequential for advocacy success in later legislative stages. Still, on average, interest groups attaining their preferences in adopted legislation enjoy considerable public support. Our results thus underscore the relevance of distinguishing between legislative stages when analyzing interest groups’ advocacy success.

本研究探讨了公众支持如何在立法流程的三个不同阶段影响利益集团的游说成效。我们提出如下假说：在谈判执政联盟协议阶段，公众支持对游说成效至关重要；在执政多数党向议会提交法案阶段，公众支持的影响较弱；而在法案获得通过阶段，公众支持的影响则再度增强。我们针对55项比利时政策议题验证了上述假说。我们将立法结果相关证据、公众舆论数据，以及新闻报道中利益集团的立场映射数据进行了整合。研究结果显示，在联合协议谈判阶段，公众支持是游说成效的关键影响因素。但在议会提交法案阶段，公众支持的正向影响会减弱——且该影响仅在反对党提出的法案中得以显现；而在法案获得通过阶段，公众支持对游说成效并无显著影响。取而代之的是，在后续立法阶段，与其他团体及政党保持立场一致对游说成效的影响愈发重要。不过平均而言，在最终通过的法案中实现自身政策偏好的利益集团，通常能获得可观的公众支持。因此，本研究结果凸显了在分析利益集团游说成效时，区分不同立法阶段的重要性。