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The (un)heavenly chorus in British politics: Bringing the what, the when and the how questions into the analysis of interest group influence

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British Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Increasing attention has been paid to interest group influence in the last decades. Nonetheless, the literature has hitherto theoretically and analytically focused on who exerts influence, overlooking on what, when and how influence is exerted. By replicating the analysis in Bernhagen's article Who Gets What in British Politics – and How? An Analysis of Media Reports on Lobbying around Government Policies, 2001–2007, this work aims to bring the what, when and how questions back into the analysis of interest group influence. In doing so, it provides a more nuanced discussion on politics as being ‘about who gets what, when and how’. Aloof from any pretence of conclusiveness, preliminary findings show that not only are those questions worthy of investigation per se, but also that they potentially have a strong impact on the who question.

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Acknowledgements

I owe my gratitude to Prof Bernhagen for providing the replication codes and for commenting on a previous draft of this work. The data set is publicly available at discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=6651&type=Data%20catalogue.

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  1. School of Public Policy, University College London, London, UK

    Matia Vannoni

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  1. Matia Vannoni
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Vannoni, M. The (un)heavenly chorus in British politics: Bringing the what, the when and the how questions into the analysis of interest group influence. Br Polit 10, 378–388 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2015.6

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