Lobbying versus litigation: political and legal strategies of interest representation in the European Union

Abstract

Abstract Interest groups' many and varied attempts to influence EU public policy are well documented. Research on EU interest politics has made considerable progress in the analysis of both the access and voice strategies they use as they seek to influence the policy process. Other scholars have focused on the legal strategies that private actors deploy when they endeavour to shape public policy by bringing cases before the ECJ. Although both lobbying and litigation strategies have been well studied in the context of European integration and are, in principle, available to most business interest groups, few scholars have asked what determines actors' selection of one or the other in their pursuit of policy change. This paper attempts to bridge these two strands of research and theory by offering a framework in which private actors' choice between lobbying and litigation can be understood and hypotheses about their behaviour derived.