Book Launch of Viral Lobbying

Description

In the 'Viral Lobbying' a team of experts analyse lobby patterns during the Covid pandemic. Based on elite surveys and focus group interviews with selected groups, the book provides new evidence on the lobbying strategies used during the COVID 19 pandemic, as well as the resulting access to and lobbying influence on public policy.

The empirical analyses reach across eight European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom), as well as the EU-level. In particular, the book draws on responses from approximately 1,600 interest organisations in two waves of a cross-country survey (in 2020 and 2021, respectively).

This quantitative data is supplemented by qualitative evidence from a series of 12 focus groups with organised interests in Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands conducted in spring 2021.

The launch was hosted by the Brussels Campus of the University of Maastricht with academics, policymakers, journalists, lobbyists and civil society representatives attending. The talk was edited into a podcast available on SoundCloud