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Reputational theory holds that an agency's reputation is a valuable political asset. However, since Daniel Carpenter's influential contributions, reputational studies have focused on reactions to reputational threats, rather than on reputation as such. Therefore, there is a curious lacuna at the heart of reputation studies: A lot is known about reactions to reputational threats, but fundamental questions about reputation per se are left unexplored. This paper investigates the dimensionality of the reputational concept, its variation across types of audiences, and its consistency across agency subunits. This is done in the context of the EU Commission, the core executive institution of the European Union. While this case is interesting in itself, its main value is to suggest what a research agenda focusing on the core building blocks of reputational theory might look like. Our survey of actors in the EU's Transparency Register provides mixed, but mostly supportive evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

A series of studies have identified gender bias in teaching evaluations in higher education—with women being evaluated lower than men. However, other recent studies indicate that gender bias is not present across all contexts. Our study adds to the understanding of the role of gender in teaching evaluations by focusing on a Danish university—a national context with relatively high educational gender equality and support for egalitarian gender norms. Crucially, the study pays systematic attention to the role of students' gender in explaining evaluation outcomes. In a quantitative analysis of 125,000 evaluations in the social sciences at a Danish university, we identify a same-gender affinity. While there is no overall gender bias in the evaluations, students evaluate a teacher of their own gender best. To understand the mechanisms behind this pattern, we analyze comments provided by students in teaching evaluations and 20 interviews with students. Students are generally more positive in their descriptions of a teacher of their own gender. Moreover, we identify gendered patterns in the perceptions of teachers as well as in the aspects of teachers' behavior and characteristics appreciated by students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of studies analyzes interest groups' media visibility. Yet little is known about how the drivers of media access may vary across different interest group systems. This article focuses on two major mechanisms through which organizations can gain media visibility: media management efforts and the newsworthiness of elite actors. We hypothesize that media effort explains interest groups' media access more strongly in competitive, pluralist interest group systems and that insider (i.e. "elite") status does so more strongly in hierarchical, corporatist systems. We analyze surveys and media data on interest groups in the pluralist United Kingdom, the moderately corporatist Denmark, and the more strongly corporatist Finland. As hypothesized, media effort is most effective in the UK and weakest in Finland. However, we find only weak support for the insider status hypothesis: there is some evidence of the expected cross-country differences, but the effects are small and unrobust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governmental entities such as the EU Commission regularly consult societal stakeholders. In such consultations, a variety of different tools are used ranging from open online consultations over stakeholder conferences to discussions in closed policy fora. Recent research has demonstrated how the range and diversity of the consulted actors vary across these consultation formats. Yet, we know little about the value societal stakeholders attach to their participation in consultations. In this paper, we argue that some consultation formats facilitate an insider match between the motives of societal stakeholders and the Commission with clear potential for also affecting Commission initiatives. Other consultation instruments are more likely to facilitate an outsider match where stakeholders may draw public attention to their views and the Commission enhance the perceived legitimacy of its decisions. We find support for these expectations based on data from a survey administered to stakeholders registered in the EU transparency register. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of studies have found gender bias in student evaluations of teaching. Evidence from several observational studies show that women are evaluated lower than men. These findings are supported by experimental studies aimed at isolating the effect of a possible gender bias from other differences between male and female teachers. In this paper, we conduct two experiments in Denmark to test whether a similar gender bias is present in a national context that is generally considered among the most gender equal. Study one investigates differences in the evaluation of two similar presentations by teachers reported to be either male or female. Study two focuses on the evaluation of teaching material prepared by teachers presented as men and women respectively. The two studies arrive at similar conclusions: There is no gender bias in favor of men in the evaluations made by students. The paper discusses the implications of these findings. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2022.2048355. [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]

The EU Commission regularly consults with external actors when preparing policy proposals. This paper investigates possible bias in the voices the Commission listens to across all policy areas and consultation instruments. We map the full range of consultation instruments used by the Commission and analyse variation in group representation across types of consultations and policy areas. Our analysis draws on a dataset of more than 350 major Commission proposals between 2011 and 2016. We find that the Commission has established a consultation regime with the widespread use of standard consultation instruments, including open online consultations, stakeholder conferences and consultation in closed fora. The range of consulted actors depends on both consultation instruments and policy types. Open online-consultations are most inclusive. Our findings indicate that the Commission may be able to counteract the influence of business by selecting the most appropriate format for consultation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media attention is a scarce, yet attractive, resource for interest groups. Existing studies show that media attention is concentrated on a relatively small number of well-resourced groups, often representing economic interests. However, the literature still struggles to disentangle the reasons behind this bias in media attention. Is it explained by media selection practices or uneven interest group activity? We cannot separate these two possible mechanisms by simply studying aggregate levels of media attention. In this study, we therefore compare the set of groups that lobby in specific policy areas with the groups that appear in the news on issues related to those same policy areas. The investigation is based on data from Denmark and the United Kingdom. First, we use survey data to identify the policy areas in which groups actively lobby. Second, we identify groups' media appearances in news stories related to those same policy areas. Third, we compare diversity among the groups actively lobbying with the groups actually appearing in the news and investigate possible biases. We find that even when the analysis of media appearances is narrowed down to only those groups active in a policy area, the news media allow more access to well-resourced groups. However, in contrast to previous findings, differences in media appearances across interest group types are not reproduced. These results imply that media selection biases are mainly produced by varying lobbying resources rather than discrimination based on the type of interests that groups represent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of parliament are accountable to both their district and party. Consequently, they have to balance their responsiveness to these competing principals when their preferences diverge. Existing research on this representational dilemma focuses mostly on the role of political institutions, whereas this article offers a new individual-level explanation: pre-parliamentary party careers. Using sequence analysis, three ideal-typical pre-parliamentary career paths are identified: the party local, the party functionary, and the party civilian. The share of party locals increases over time at the expense of party civilians in the Danish parliament, and these party locals are more likely to diverge from the party's position when it is unpopular among their constituents. These findings corroborate existing evidence of political professionalisation in parliamentary democracies, but they also suggest that professionalisation may be associated with a localisation of politics leading to more rather than less constituency representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appearing in the news media is crucial for interest groups. When making a media presence, groups carefully frame their messages to push political processes in their preferred direction and to maintain organisational support. This article provides a cross-country comparison of the frames used by interest groups appearing in the news media. The article addresses the extent to which groups portray their demands as intended to further the interests of group members or other societal groups or to appeal to benefits to the economy or to the public at large. The analysis uses a dataset registering interest group appearances in the news media in Denmark and the UK. It includes 1,958 group appearances in two major UK newspapers and 3,284 appearances in two comparable Danish newspapers. Differences in frame use are demonstrated across the two countries; between different policy areas as well as between different types of interest groups. [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]

This article provides the first systematic cross-country analysis of interest group appearances in the news media. The analysis included three countries – the UK, Spain and Denmark – each representing one of Hallin and Mancini’s1 three overall models of media and politics: the liberal system, the polarized pluralist system and the democratic corporatist system. It finds important similarities across countries with high levels of concentration in media coverage of groups, more extensive coverage of economic groups than citizen groups, and differential patterns of group appearances across policy areas and between right- and left-leaning papers. It also identifies country variation, with the highest degree of concentration among group appearances in Spanish newspapers and the most attention to economic groups in Danish newspapers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Involving interest groups in public committees is a crucial feature of policy-making in many democratic systems. This article investigates how the composition of committees in Denmark has developed from 1975 to 2010, with specific focus on interest group seats. We argue that the committee system has been adapted in response to societal changes. We expect relatively better representation of citizen groups over time and a decline in the level of concentration in access. These expectations are tested in an analysis of the composition of all public committees in the two years. We find remarkable stability in the 35-year period, but also an adaptation of the committee system largely in the expected direction. This traditional corporatist institution appears less weakened than often assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution analyses whether the factors affecting perceived interest group influence on political agendas differ depending on whether groups lobby in their own domestic context or seek influence at the European Union (EU) level. Findings from a multinomial logistic regression analysis based on survey responses from 1,723 domestic interest groups in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands do not indicate that differences in the national setting are important for perceived group influence at the two levels. However, they underline how the decision-making level acts as a contextual factor, which conditions the explanatory potential of other crucial variables: Embeddedness into domestic decision-making is primarily an asset for securing perceived influence on the national rather than the EU agenda, whereas group resources matter more at the EU than the national level. In this way our multi-level design underlines how the state-of-play for securing perceived influence varies across lobbying contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

The article tests the argument that group-membership relations vary between public interest groups and other types of groups. While public interest groups draw their members from diffuse constituencies supporting the causes of the groups, sectional groups exhibit a closer correspondence between the interests advanced and the members recruited. According to the literature, differences can therefore be expected both in the patterns of membership recruitment and in the degree of membership influence in groups. The analysis draws on a survey of all national interest groups in Denmark. It demonstrates that public interest groups differ from other groups in their patterns of membership recruitment. However, it finds no tendency for public interest groups to be either less or more democratic than the average group. [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]

The news media are frequently accused of portraying politics as a strategic game rather than focusing on political issues. However, the understanding of the prevalence of different news frames in the media coverage of politics is limited in several respects. This article seeks to contribute to remedying this by (1) conducting a longitudinal analysis of the use of different news frames during election periods as well as in everyday politics, (2) adopting an analytical framework including several different types of process focus, and (3) pointing to the importance of including political developments alongside changes in the media system when explaining developments in the news coverage of politics. The empirical analysis of twenty years of public radio news in Denmark confirms a long-term trend toward greater focus on electoral consequences in news stories in election periods; however, the trend is not mirrored in news stories when an election is not imminent. In explaining these findings, situational factors related to the political system and party politics must be included alongside explanations pointing toward an increasing professionalization of political parties as well as long-term changes in the media system and in party competition. [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]