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A crucial aspect of elite dominance in modern democracies concerns the degree to which different political elites share similar career paths and shifts between different elite positions. Similarity in career paths and transfers across elite positions are crucial aspects of elite dominance in modern democracies. This paper argues that there are limits to elite career similarity and sector transfer because of varying recruitment criteria and reputational cargo across different political elite groups. We argue that career similarity and transfers across elite positions are lower when recruitment criteria are exclusive. We also argue that acquired reputation may be a career liability limiting transfers into other elite groups. Empirically, we examine career trajectories and transfers across elite groups by mapping the full career of Members of the Parliament, top bureaucrats and interest group leaders in Denmark. We demonstrate that within the Danish political elite, career paths are relatively distinct and transfer few. Career distinctiveness and lack of elite transfers are especially pronounced for the bureaucratic elite, which is guarded by stricter recruitment criteria and on guard against reputations that might taint its image as a pure merit civil service. In contrast to other studies, our results suggest that the shutters between elite sectors are relatively closed. However, the few individuals passing through these most exclusive revolving doors may have a significant political impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a multitude of studies have investigated the link between opinion and policy, we have little knowledge of how and when organised interests affect this linkage. We argue that the alignment of organised interests affects opinion–policy congruence by influencing the weight decision‐makers attach to citizen preferences. Moreover, we propose that alignment between majorities of groups and the public matters the most when status quo bias must be overcome for the public to obtain its preferred policy. We test our theoretical claims drawing on a comprehensive media content analysis of 160 policy issues in Germany and Denmark. Our results present a more sceptical picture of the ability of groups to suppress the opinion–policy linkage than the one frequently presented in the academic literature and public debate. We find that the capacity of groups to affect whether policy is congruent with the majority of the public is restricted to situations where the public supports a change in the status quo. In these cases, policy is less likely to end up reflecting public opinion if the majority of interest groups do not support the public position. In cases where the public is supportive of the policy status quo, the position of interest groups does not affect the likelihood that policy will eventually reflect the preferred position of the public. Our findings expand existing knowledge of organised interests in the study of policy representation and have important implications for understanding democratic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes interest group representation and framing in the news media. In contrast to previous work, it focuses on the role of the policy area in shaping the types of groups appearing in the media and the frames used by groups. Empirically, the analysis maps group representation and framing across six different policy areas in the Danish news media. It distinguishes between whether groups frame their viewpoints as furthering (a) the interests of group members, (b) the interests of other specific societal groups, (c) broad economic concerns, or (d) public interests in general. Interest group representation and framing is found to vary between these policy areas. Some areas mainly contrast economic groups and the interests of their members, whereas debates in other areas are more likely to be shaped by references to beneficiaries of welfare state services or broad, public interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Nordic countries have a tradition of integrating privileged interest groups into policy making, a number of studies have argued that this Nordic 'routine corporatism' has changed over the last decades. Studies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden demonstrate that interest groups are less frequently involved in committees preparing policy, that lobbying of parliament has become more important and that the position of citizen groups has strengthened. However, systematic studies of present‐day Finland are largely missing. This article therefore adds to the literature by focusing on the Finnish case. Drawing on surveys of interest groups and civil servants, the involvement of interest groups in policy making in Finland is assessed and compared with Denmark and the United Kingdom. It is found that: (1) working groups and similar bodies are still very important sites of advocacy; (2) public administration is a more important site of advocacy than parliament or government; (3) economic groups continue to enjoy a particularly privileged position; and (4) resources predict groups' access to policy making more strongly in Finland than in Denmark or the United Kingdom. These findings imply that routine corporatism persists in Finland to a greater extent than in Denmark. The study augments the existing evidence that corporatism may have adapted to new circumstances rather than being eliminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key issue for interest groups and policymakers is the ways through which organized interests voice their interests and influence public policy. This article combines two perspectives on interest group representation to explain patterns of interest group access to different political arenas. From a resource exchange perspective, it argues that access to different political arenas is discrete as it is determined by the match between the supply and demands of interest groups and gatekeepers-politicians, bureaucrats, and reporters. From a partly competing perspective, it is argued that access is cumulative and converges around wealthy and professionalized groups. Based on a large-scale investigation of group presence in Danish political arenas, the analyses show a pattern of privileged pluralism. This describes a system where multiple political arenas provide opportunities for multiple interests but where unequally distributed resources produce cumulative effects (i.e., the same groups have high levels of arena access). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest groups may approach political decision makers in two phases of the legislative process: the pre-parliamentary, administrative phase, in which bills are prepared by bureaucrats; and the parliamentary phase, in which bills are discussed and possibly revised by parliamentary committees. The article investigates the factors that lead groups to engage in these phases based on group proceedings for 225 bills presented to the Danish parliament in the 2009/2010 session. We conclude that resourceful groups are clearly more active in both arenas, but the parliamentary arena is also a venue for voicing discontent and defending gains achieved in the administrative arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prominent presence in the news media is important for interest groups. This article investigates the development in the diversity of interest group media attention over time. The analysis draws on a dataset of 19,000 group appearances in the Danish news media in the period 1984-2003. It demonstrates how diversity has risen continually over time, leading to a media agenda less dominated by labour and business and more by public interest groups and sectional groups. This development is related to the increasing political importance of the news media and the decline in group integration in public decision-making processes. The article also shows how the development of group appearances is closely related to changes in media attention towards different policy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public bureaucracies are increasingly characterized by employee diversity in terms of ethnicity. Investigating relations between ethnic groups in bureaucracies is therefore important. This article focuses on the particularly interesting case of the Greenlandic administration. Being a former Danish colony, Greenland still recruits bureaucrats from mainland Denmark. These work alongside locally hired employees resulting in an administration with different ethnicities, cultures and languages. The analysis of ethnic relations is based on 28 interviews with bureaucrats of Danish and Greenlandic origin. Even though overall relations are found to be largely harmonious, ethnicity makes a difference. Interviewees describe differences in ethnic traits and behaviour and processes of social categorization. Particularly among Greenlanders, Danes are described as dominant and this dominance is reinforced by co-variation between ethnicity, language skills and education. Finally, inter-group relations are found to vary with the numerical balance of ethnic groups in different parts of the bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance contracts entered between ministerial departments and their agencies are used throughout the Danish central government. The article analyzes the use of performance contracting in 2005. The analysis draws on transaction cost theory and actor-centered institutionalism, stressing the bargaining aspect of hierarchy and the importance of economic and political transaction costs. The analysis shows considerable variation in the content of performance demands. Ministries with different organizational designs use contracts in markedly different ways and agencies with a strong interface to individual citizens and businesses are more likely to meet demands regulating policy delivery and service levels. Further, contracts contain substantive clauses, the terms of which are largely assessable. It also shows that performance contracts only rarely specify demands related to cost efficiency within agencies. Many of these results are statistically significant, even though a general point is the wide variation in the implementation of performance contracts between individual ministries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]