RESEARCH DESIGN

Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung) in order to be selected (for technical details see Beyers et al. [2014c]; De Bruycker and Beyers [2015]). After sampling, EurActiv was added as a media source and we archived all articles related to the 125 proposals. Furthermore, we identified all actors – organized interests as well as policy-makers – mentioned in each article that appeared in the European Voice, Agence Europe, Financial Times, Le Monde and Euractiv. Only coverage that was directly and substantively related to the proposal was included. This resulted in a total of 1,501 articles on 122 proposals and 8,499 mentions and/or statements of an actor in relation to the legislative case. Statements are parts of a news item in which actors presented information and expressed their view in favour or against a legislative proposal. In total we identified 3,796 public statements (related to n ¼ 118 proposals). Note that these statements are considerably concentrated around a small set of proposals; about onethird generated less than 10 statements and only 20 proposals received over 50 statements. It is noteworthy that 1,631 or 43 per cent of all statements came from interest groups and MEPs, which means that these EU media are important venues for legislative debates in which both organized interests and MEPs get involved. In the remainder we concentrate on the 54 legislative cases where representa-

tives of at least one interest group and MEPs of at least one of the bigger party groups made public statements and adopted a policy position.2 The included parties are S&D, ALDE, EPP, Greens-EFA, ECR and GUE/NGL.3 For these 54 cases we identified 1,318 MEP-group dyads; these dyads are the units of observation for our data analyses. One drawback of media sources and the requirement that at least one MEP and one interest group need to have taken a policy position is that we primarily focus on publicly salient cases or cases where the EP has codecision powers (see Note 6). However, if the goal is to identify politically salient cases, a systematic screening of media sources is a useful method. One major and specific advantage for our purpose is that media sources allow us to rely on one single data source for both MEPs and interest group officials. This differs from previous research, where either MEPs or interest groups were surveyed – for instance, through consultation documents, votes or political statements in the EP – and indirect inferences are made about other actor types (Marshall 2010). Instead, we analyse MEPs and interest groups on the basis of one single data source with public statements related to the same ongoing legislative processes. The distribution of dyads across the 54 legislative proposals varies considerably, with 52 per cent of the proposals having less than 12 dyads and two proposals with more than 100 dyads. The skewed nature of the occurrence of MEP-group dyads corresponds with the overall attention levels, where most proposals attract little attention and only a few stimulate massive mobilization (De Bruycker and Beyers 2015). All statements were coded by two trained researchers using a technique that

resembles Koopmans and Statham’s (1999) political claims analysis.4 Our key variable is the political goal stakeholders put forward in relation to one

Next to the business or NGO ‘friendliness’ of DGs, also the political colour of the Commissioner in charge could be an important contextual factor. MEPs from the same party as the Commissioner are less likely to oppose proposed legislation. They will tend to be loyal towards their party, support the proposal as it stands or seek only minor changes. This gives these MEPs less leeway to be responsive towards interest organizations who seek to influence the submitted legislative proposal. In addition, the overall pattern of alignments should reflect to some degree the political colour of the EC as a whole. The policy positions MEPs and organized interest adopt – and the resulting alignments – concern position-taking vis-a`-vis legislative proposals submitted by the EC. In the period 2008-10, the EC can – when considering the debates during its instalment, its political programme and the appointed Commissioners – be characterized as being on the right/center-right (Dinan 2010). Therefore, we expect that parties such as EPP (European People’s Party-European Democrats until 2009; European People’s Party from 2009 onward), ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) and ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists, from 2009 onwards) should, generally, be more favourable towards EC proposals, while parties on the left – such as the Greens-EFA (The Greens-European Free Alliance), S&D (Party of European Socialists (PES) until 2009; Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats from 2009 onward), GUE/NGL (European United Left-Nordic Green Left) – should be more critical.1 We expect the two main types of interest groups – business and NGOs – to position themselves according to the same logic: business groups more in favour and NGOs more against legislative proposals submitted by the EC. To summarize, we expect that a structural pattern of MEP-group alignments

exists and can be identified. We anticipate that (1) business will be more closely aligned with conservative, Christian-democratic or economic liberal parties and (2) NGOs are more closely aligned with the social-democratic or green parties. However, MEP-group alignments might vary according to the issue context. In this regard we expect that (1) legislative proposals of business-friendly DGs will result in a closer alignment between the mobilized interest groups and rightist parties and (2) MEPs from the same party as the Commissioner in charge of the proposal align to a lesser extent with the mobilized interest group community. Finally, if no structure of MEP-group alignment is observed, we can conclude that, with regard to the EU, party and interest group politics are two different worlds and that party competition is not reflected in EU lobbying.