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Anne Rasmussen

Bio: Anne Rasmussen is an academic researcher from University of Copenhagen. The author has contributed to research in topics: European union & Medicine. The author has an hindex of 28, co-authored 90 publications receiving 1920 citations. Previous affiliations of Anne Rasmussen include European University Institute & University of Bergen.


Papers
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse a new dataset of participation in the European Commission's online consultations during the last ten years and compare it to the population of registered interests, and find that business dominance in consultations is even higher than in the registered groups.
Abstract: Social science literature contains ample warning that even if a range of methods exists for involving external interests in policy making, external interests still do not necessarily have equal opportunities to voice their concerns. Schattschneider’s oft-quoted indictment of the American interest-group system that ‘the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent’ has been echoed in subsequent studies not only of the United States but also of other political systems. However, even if the literature finds strong support for the conclusion that business interests dominate at the aggregate level, such a finding masks considerable internal variation. The bias in the heavenly chorus is not equally strong every time it sings, because a number of characteristics related to the performance itself may affect the degree of bias. It is, therefore, surprising to find a lack of studies explaining and empirically testing the conditions under which we are likely to see different levels of bias in the participation of substantive interests between cases. Moreover, studies often draw conclusions on bias without explicitly relating the distribution of active interests to that of the interest-group population as a whole. In this research note, we analyse a new dataset of participation in the European Commission’s online consultations during the last ten years and compare it to the population of registered interests. Our aggregate findings show that business dominance in consultations is even higher than in the population of registered groups. Moreover, our findings offer a first systematic empirical, large n test of how the character of different types of policy affects participation patterns. We find a linkage between characteristics of policies and degrees of bias in individual consultations. Participation on expenditure issues with direct consequences for budgets is more diverse than on regulatory issues, where private actors primarily cover the costs. Finally, a narrower range of interests mobilize on proposals with concentrated costs than on proposals whose costs are carried by a broader range of stakeholders. We start the note by briefly reviewing the literature on bias in interest representation and considerations of the conditions under which we should expect it to vary. Thereafter, we examine how the character of policy affects mobilization patterns.

110 citations

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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared different approaches to defining and classifying interest groups with a sample of lobbying actors coded according to different coding schemes and found a closer link between group attributes and group type in narrower classification schemes based on group organizational characteristics than those based on a behavioral definition of lobbying.
Abstract: The interest group concept is defined in many different ways in the existing literature and a range of different classification schemes are employed. This complicates comparisons between different studies and their findings. One of the important tasks faced by interest group scholars engaged in large-N studies is therefore to define the concept of an interest group and to determine which classification scheme to use for different group types. After reviewing the existing literature, this article sets out to compare different approaches to defining and classifying interest groups with a sample of lobbying actors coded according to different coding schemes. We systematically assess the performance of different schemes by comparing how actor types in the different schemes differ with respect to a number of background characteristics. This is done in a two-stage approach where we first cluster actors according to a number of key background characteristics and second assess how the categories of the different interest group typologies relate to these clusters. We demonstrate that background characteristics do align to a certain extent with certain interest group types but also find important differences in the organizational attributes of specific interest group types. As expected, our comparison of coding schemes reveals a closer link between group attributes and group type in narrower classification schemes based on group organizational characteristics than those based on a behavioral definition of lobbying.

109 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined whether groups mobilise on issues in policy areas that are regarded as salient by the public and found that higher rates of mobilisation are found on those issues that fall within policy areas and those with consequences for budgetary spending.
Abstract: Although scholars have long speculated about how organised interests link the public to decision makers, there has actually been little empirical research on this important element of democratic theory. This important gap in the literature is addressed in this article by examining, in addition to other supply-side and demand-side factors, whether groups mobilise on issues in policy areas that are regarded as salient by the public. Based on an analysis of 4,501 contributions in 142 European Commission online consultations, it is found that organised interests potentially can act as a transmission belt between the public and decision makers. Although the results vary to some degree by issues, higher rates of mobilisation are found on those issues that fall within policy areas that are regarded as salient by the general public and those with consequences for budgetary spending.

97 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined how support from the public affects advocacy success, relying on a new original data set containing information on public opinion, advocacy positions, and policy outcomes on 50 policy issues in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Abstract: Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in research on advocacy success, but limited attention has been paid to the role of public opinion. We examine how support from the public affects advocacy success, relying on a new original data set containing information on public opinion, advocacy positions, and policy outcomes on 50 policy issues in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Claims by advocates are measured through a news media content analysis of a sample of policy issues drawn from national and international public opinion surveys. Our multilevel regression analysis provides evidence that public support affects advocacy success. However, public opinion does not affect preference attainment for some of the lobbying advocates whose influence is feared the most, and the magnitude of its impact is conditional upon the number of advocates who lobby on the policy issue in question.

91 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the density of interest organizations per economic sector in the European Union on the basis of political and economic institutional factors is analyzed, and it is shown that economic institutions structure the supply and demand for interest organizations by affecting the number of potential constituents, the resources available for lobbying and the geographical level of collective action of businesses.
Abstract: The number of interest organizations (density) varies across policy domains, political issues and economic sectors. This shapes the nature and outcomes of interest representation. In this contribution, we explain the density of interest organizations per economic sector in the European Union on the basis of political and economic institutional factors. Focusing on business interest representation, we show that economic institutions structure the ‘supply’ of interest organizations by affecting the number of potential constituents, the resources available for lobbying and the geographical level of collective action of businesses. In contrast, we do not find consistent evidence that political institutions produce ‘demand’ for interest organizations by making laws, developing public policy or spending money. This is in contrast to the extensive evidence that such factors affect lobbying practices. The European Union interest system is (partially) shaped by economic factors, relatively independent from...

79 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols used xiii 1.
Abstract: Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

14,171 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The purpose is to show how transnational and transimperial approaches are vital to understanding some of the key issues with which historians of health, disease, and medicine are concerned and to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective.
Abstract: The emergence of global history has been one of the more notable features of academic history over the past three decades. Although historians of disease were among the pioneers of one of its earlier incarnations—world history—the recent “global turn” has made relatively little impact on histories of health, disease, and medicine. Most continue to be framed by familiar entities such as the colony or nation-state or are confined to particular medical “traditions.” This article aims to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective. Its purpose is not to replace other ways of seeing or to write a new “grand narrative” but to show how transnational and transimperial approaches are vital to understanding some of the key issues with which historians of health, disease, and medicine are concerned. Moving on from an analysis of earlier periods of integration, the article offers some reflections on our own era of globalization and on the emerging field of global health.

1,334 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical as discussed by the authors, and context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn).
Abstract: The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical. Context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn). We begin with the remarkable Athenian democracy, and its frequent enemy the Spartan oligarchy. In Athens legislation was passed directly by an assembly of all citizens, and executive officials were selected by lot rather than by competitive election. Athenian oligarchs such as Plato more admired Sparta, and their disdain for the democracy became the judgment of the ages, until well after the modern democratic revolutions. Marsilius of Padua in the early Middle Ages argued for popular sovereignty. The Italian citystates of the Middle Ages did without kings, and looked back to Rome and Greece for republican models. During the English Civil War republicans debated whether the few or the many should be full citizens of the regime. The English, French, and American revolutions struggled with justifying and establishing a representative democracy suitable for a large state, and relied on election rather than lot to select officials. The English established a constitutional monarchy, admired in Europe, and adapted by the Americans in their republican constitution. The American Revolution helped inspire the French, and the French inspired republican and democratic revolution throughout Europe during the 19 century.

1,210 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 1961-Diogenes
TL;DR: More recently, Tocqueville as mentioned in this paper argued that "nothing has changed and nothing has changed since Democracy in America was published in the 1830's" and that "everything has changed with each exposure to it".
Abstract: more impressive with each exposure to it. Everything has changed and nothing has changed since Democracy in America was published in the 1830’s. Its author grasped with remarkable perception both the mutable and the immutable qualities of man. There could be nothing more salutary for us today than to assimilate his fine sense of what was permanent in a world which, like ours, was undergoing deep convulsions. Committed to the classical economics of Adam Smith, Tocqueville did not share Smith’s illusions about the eternal nature of the market. On the contrary, as Albert Salomon has emphasized, his point of view

1,009 citations

Journal ArticleDOI

517 citations