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The seminar module offers a more extensive and more thorough analysis of a topic from within political science. To this end, the seminar module provides an overview and a critical discussion of the literature and the issues relevant for the topic of the seminar.
The objectives for this module are:
1. Students will become familiar with the scholarly literature related to the engagement of organized interest in public policy
2. Students will be able to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of this literature, including the standard methods/techniques used to empirically investigate key propositions
3. Students will be able to independently apply relevant aspects these theories and related methods/techniques to identify and investigate specific empirical contexts
4. The students will be able to critically assess and evaluate the utility of relevant theories and methods introduced as part of the class
What mix of organized interest is active in public policy? Do some policy issues gather the attention of the crowd, and others pass by largely unnoticed? And, if so, why? Is the population of organized interests that engage in the legislative arena different from those involved in administrative consultations or in commenting on issues in the media?
These are the types of questions that are addressed by the longstanding tradition in political science research which involves counting and mapping the populations of organized interests that engage in public policy. Early work focused upon identifying populations that were generally considered to be ‘policy-active'. More recent work has focused on more systematic data collection and analysis of the engagement of specific groups in specific issues. The work is most advanced in the US, where the focus is on congressional lobbying. In this seminar we review and scrutinize the broad methods and theoretical questions raised in the literature and apply them to the pattern of engagement by organised interests outside the US, including in Danish public policy.
In the seminar, early discussions will focus on identifying theoretically informed questions about organized interest engagement in public policy. Subsequently, the class will be encouraged to explore these by utilizing data sets already available for Danish and other national cases.
Public Policy
Of the nine seminars the student has to pass as part of the MA degree, at least six seminar modules have to be in political science.
Darren Halpin
The assessment method is home assignment.
External examiner/Graded marking.
The seminar module requires active participation of students. At the beginning of the seminar module the lecturer and the students agree on specific "activity requirements" that the students have to fulfill.
The course will involve a mix of formal lecture-based input combined with in-class discussion and debate. Students will be asked to actively work with and collect primary data on interest organization involved in real public policy issues.
The module compendium consists of about 1,200 pages.
Concerning the home assignment the student agrees with the lecturer the reading which is relevant for the research question of the home assignment. The reading forms part of the 1,200 pages which students have to read for each seminar module.
Baumgartner, F.R. and Leech, B.L., (1998) Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science . Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Baumgartner, F. and B. Leech (2001) ‘Interest Niches and Policy Bandwagons: Patterns of Interest group Involvement in National Politics', Journal of Politics , 63, (4), pp. 1191-1213.
Berkhout, J. and Lowery, D. (2008) ‘Counting organized interests in the European Union: a comparison of data sources', Journal of European Public Policy , 15 (4) pp. 489 - 513.
Berry, J.M. (1999) The New Liberalism: The Rising Power of Citizen Groups , Washington: Brookings Institution.
Lowery, D. and V. Gray (2004) ‘Bias in the heavenly chorus: Interests in society and before government', Theoretical Politics , 16(5), pp. 5-30.
Halpin (forthcoming) ‘Explaining Policy Bandwagons: Organized Interest Mobilization and Cascades of Attention' Governance, 24 (2).
Halpin, D. and Jordan, D. (eds) ( forthcoming ) Quantifying Group Populations Palgrave, Basingstoke.
Salisbury, R. H. (1984) 'Interest Representation: the Dominance of Interest Groups', American Political Science Review , 78:1, 64 -78.
Scattschneider, E.E. (1960) The Semi-Sovereign People , New York, Holt, Reinhart, and Winston.
Schlozman, K (2010), "Who Sings in the Heavenly Chorus? The Shape of the Organized Interest System," in Jeffrey Berry, ed., The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
