The historical institutionalist tradition in comparative politics commonly assigns analytical primacy to political institutions. Whereas this polity-centeredness may be quite justifiable for purposes of comparative public policy, students of comparative political economy should pay systematic attention not only to economic institutions but also to a range of economic-structural variables that lie beyond the conventional confines of institutional analysis. Providing the basis for an analysis of collective actors and their interests, such an approach is needed to account for institutional change and policy realignments within stable institutions.
Traditional corporatist groups such as business groups and unions still play an important role in many countries, and the rumors exaggerates the decline of corporatist structures. Nevertheless citizen groups have grown in number and political importance. We show that Danish and Swiss citizen groups have gained better access to the administrative and the parliamentary venues in the period 1975-85 through 2010, but with Swiss citizen groups more successful than their Danish counterparts, particularly with regard to the parliamentary venue. Danish and Swiss neo-corporatism has confronted similar socio-economic and political challenges during this period, but the political opportunity structure is more favourable towards citizen groups in Switzerland than in Denmark. The Swiss referendum institution makes parliamentarians more open to popular demands while in Denmark strong unions, a strong parliament, and frequent minority governments makes it more difficult for citizen groups to be heard.
Social Network Analysis (SNA) conceptualizes a policy-making process as a network of actors. It can assess if an interest group (IGs) occupies a leading central position within this policy network, if it belongs to various ad hoc coalitions or if it plays a brokering role between different stakeholders. Such network variables are crucial to capture how IGs mobilize and gain access to policymakers, and to explain their goal achievements and potential policy influence as well. This article reviews recent studies applying the methodological tools of SNA. It then proposes an innovative research design to investigate how IGs seek to influence the course of a policy-making process across many institutional venues.
