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Interest Group Membership and Group Dynamics

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs

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Definition

This chapter describes the different types of members interest groups aggregate, how they are involved in the group, and their influence within the organization. The chapter opens with a brief reflection on the intermediary role of membership-based interest groups, who are often seen as transmission belts that relay the preferences of their members to policy-making processes. Subsequently, different types of members based on their nature (i.e., individuals, firms, institutions, and groups or associations), and the societal interests they represent (i.e., sectional, or cause) are discussed. In doing so, this entry also examines the different collective action problems experienced by interest groups and the consequences for the involvement and influence of members within the group. The main argument is that the internal logics that characterize member involvement in interest groups that aggregate individuals are significantly different when the members of groups are...

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Further Reading

  • Albareda, A. (2018). Connecting society and policymakers? Conceptualizing and measuring the capacity of civil Society Organizations to act as transmission belts. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(6), 1216–1232.

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  • Holyoke, T. T. (2013). A dynamic model of member participation in interest groups. Interest Groups & Advocacy, 2(3), 278–301. https://doi.org/10.1057/iga.2013.8.

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  • Kohler-Koch, B., & Quittkat, C. (2013). De-mystification of participatory democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Adrià Albareda

Authors
  1. Adrià Albareda
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Correspondence to Adrià Albareda .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Chester Business School, Chester, UK

    Phil Harris

  2. University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria, South Africa

    Phil Harris

  3. Good Governance Institute, London, UK

    Phil Harris

  4. Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

    Alberto Bitonti

  5. Aurora WDC/Medical, College of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Craig S. Fleisher

  6. Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz

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Albareda, A. (2022). Interest Group Membership and Group Dynamics. In: Harris, P., Bitonti, A., Fleisher, C.S., Binderkrantz, A.S. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44556-0_120

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