Ellis Aizenberg, Hannah Werner, Sharon van Geldere
{"title":"Helping citizens to lobby themselves. Experimental evidence on the effects of citizen lobby engagement on internal efficacy and political support","authors":"Ellis Aizenberg, Hannah Werner, Sharon van Geldere","doi":"10.1080/13501763.2023.2266459","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Ideally, interest groups form a link between citizens and politics. However, this link is often flawed in practice. Many citizens also feel that the average citizen is not heard and that special interests exert undue influence on policymaking. One proposal to address this problem is the stimulation of so-called citizen lobby: Ordinary citizens can use lobbying strategies to achieve influence on decision-makers. This benefits both policymakers and citizens as it can empower citizens to make their voices heard and it can help policymakers to build perceived legitimacy among citizens that are dissatisfied with existing decision-making processes. Formal channels for citizen lobby often exist but remain underused. However, what happens when governments actively engage with citizen lobby? We conducted two survey experiments in the Netherlands (N = 1218) and showed that engagement with citizen lobby has no systematic effect on internal political efficacy but has robust positive effects on political support.","PeriodicalId":51362,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Public Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of European Public Policy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2023.2266459","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Ideally, interest groups form a link between citizens and politics. However, this link is often flawed in practice. Many citizens also feel that the average citizen is not heard and that special interests exert undue influence on policymaking. One proposal to address this problem is the stimulation of so-called citizen lobby: Ordinary citizens can use lobbying strategies to achieve influence on decision-makers. This benefits both policymakers and citizens as it can empower citizens to make their voices heard and it can help policymakers to build perceived legitimacy among citizens that are dissatisfied with existing decision-making processes. Formal channels for citizen lobby often exist but remain underused. However, what happens when governments actively engage with citizen lobby? We conducted two survey experiments in the Netherlands (N = 1218) and showed that engagement with citizen lobby has no systematic effect on internal political efficacy but has robust positive effects on political support.
期刊介绍:
The primary aim of the Journal of European Public Policy is to provide a comprehensive and definitive source of analytical, theoretical and methodological articles in the field of European public policy. Focusing on the dynamics of public policy in Europe, the journal encourages a wide range of social science approaches, both qualitative and quantitative. JEPP defines European public policy widely and welcomes innovative ideas and approaches. The main areas covered by the Journal are as follows: •Theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of public policy in Europe and elsewhere •National public policy developments and processes in Europe •Comparative studies of public policy within Europe