Adrià Albareda

ABSTRACT Firms lobby public institutions even when associations they are members of are lobbying those same institutions. This is what we conceptualise as ‘parallel lobbying’.

Abstract Interest groups are perceived as vehicles that can enhance the legitimacy of public institutions at the national and supranational level. However, the potential of these organizations to enhance democratic representation is often questioned and has rarely been systematically analysed. In this article, we examine the under-researched area of interest group accountability, a key component for groups to realize their democratic potential.

Abstract The European Commission's outreach to interest groups implies that they function as ‘transmission belts’ that aggregate and articulate interests as policy‐relevant information for policy‐makers. Operating as a transmission belt, however, requires an organizational design fit for this purpose. We offer one of the first systematic analyses of how organizational design affects interest group access to public officials.