Interest organization exhibits a striking diversity of structural forms in different national contexts. The range of variation can be expressed in terms of a spectrum from the loose-jointed ‘pluralistic’ interest group system in the United States – ‘untidy, competitive … and very varied’ (Wilson 1993: 139), to the more formally structured, tightly integrated corporatist systems in some of the northern European countries. Cross-national heterogeneity can be explained by different patterns of economic development and corresponding differences in the class configurations from which organized interests emerge. It may also reflect differences in the institutional environment, which shapes the institutional design of the organizational landscape. The fragmentation of the American system, for instance, has been explained by the dispersal of power within the apparatus of the state (Salisbury 1979: 218–20). In short, ‘the characteristics of associational systems … are deeply influenced and determined by the socio-economic and political history of each single country’ (Lanzalaco 1992: 199–200).

The centralized, hierarchical design characteristic, as we have seen, of corporatist systems is unlikely to emerge spontaneously in the early stages of democratic transformations. Corporatist design is associated with sharply defined and cohesive class formations. With its social structures as yet ill defined, post-communist society is likely to generate a more fragmented spectrum of interests, reflected in interest group systems which approximate more closely the more untidy and varied pattern of the pluralist design.

In the introduction I located the source of associational activity in the issues and cleavages arising out of economic relations. Interest group configurations reflect patterns of social differentiation embedded in the underlying structure of capital ownership, and the ordering of employment relations and labour markets. For both employer and employee, the employment relationship is the source of the ‘categoric cleavage’ around which common interests form, and group formation is decisively shaped by the character of the relationship. Institutionalized employment relations and homogenous labour markets, it was argued, are the key to solidaristic forms of trade union mobilization. Employers also share common interests in labour market relations, but their interests are defined also in relation to their status as owners of capital. Business interests are thus shaped by the degree of capital concentration, the mix between national and international capital, and relations between large and small firms.

From this perspective, the attempt to identify emergent patterns of interest group activity in post-communist society should begin by examining the structures of capital ownership and employment accompanying market transition. In the early stages of transition, it has been argued, economic relations are insufficiently developed to generate the stable and clearly defined group interests and identities on which the associational order is based in group theory.

As we saw in the introduction, the pluralist model of the associational order implies autonomous organization based on the volunteer involvement of the participants, with a professional staff merely serving the function of organizational maintenance. This conception of group dynamics was contrasted with the model postulated by exchange theory, in which associational activity is conceived in terms of the relationship between the professional leadership of the group offering benefits to a clientele in return for membership. Group leaders are thus seen as political entrepreneurs, and association is reinterpreted as a type of business activity, its defining characteristic being the essentially commercial relations between the group and its members. If, as we saw in the previous chapter, the decision to subscribe to an interest group is governed by instrumental cost–benefit calculations, the willingness to participate in organizational activity is likely to be lower than where membership motivations revolve around the solidary incentives associated with group identification. Group dynamics are thus likely to be characterized by mass passivity and professional domination, taking the form of the loosely coupled exchange relationship of the entrepreneurial model rather than the pluralist ideal of autonomous associational activity.

Empirical studies of the internal life of interest groups in the post-communist societies of east/central Europe are scarce, but what evidence there is supports the expectations outlined above. Trade union activity is strongly marked by the syndrome of mass passivity and elite domination.

This chapter examines the behavioural dimension of associational activity. It is motivated by one central question: is the social and cultural composition of post-communist society conducive to group participation and collective action? The question can be approached from the three social science perspectives outlined in the introduction, each focusing on somewhat different aspects of the socio-economic makeup of society. First, from the social psychological perspective, participation is taken to be a property of the democratic personality, in which a sense of personal effectiveness engenders perceptions of efficacy in public life. Post-communist society, it will be argued in this chapter, is unlikely to foster the sense of material security which has been seen as one of the essential prerequisites of the democratic personality. With its combination of opportunities and threats, market transition is reflected in a dual psychological response: either economic individualism and the pursuit of private material objectives, or a sense of powerlessness and anomie in the face of unfamiliar market forces. Survey data will be used alongside interview findings to investigate the effects of east Germany's accelerated market transition on psychological orientations towards participation in the associational arena.

A second approach equates democratic participation with the accumulation of social capital. In Almond and Verba's formulation, the roots of a civic culture lie in mutual trust and co-operation in social life spilling over into the political sphere.

As we saw in the introduction, association was initially ascribed a key role in democratic transition. The rise of Solidarity alongside the crisis of the communist state in Poland in the 1980s and the emergence of undercurrents of opposition elsewhere in east/central Europe fostered a wide-spread belief in the potential of autonomous associational activity for hastening the demise of communism and creating the conditions for post-communist democracy. This belief was buttressed by changing perceptions of the power structure of the communist state, as the notion of totalitarianism gave way to a more pluralist conception of group interests jostling for influence within a more differentiated political system. Perceptions of oppositional activity as the seedbed of civil society were thus reinforced by a pluralist analysis of group mobilization in the internal dynamics of the regime, fuelling the belief in association as the mainspring of post-communist politics and society.

In retrospect, the belief in opposition movements as the foundation of post-communist civil society can be seen to have been greatly exaggerated. Whilst other revolutions have come about through the mobilization of new social formations, the democratic revolutions in east/central Europe were precipitated by the enfeeblement and collapse of regimes through economic sclerosis. In some countries, democratic revolution was not accompanied by mass mobilization; even where it occurred, it was rarely much more than a sideshow to the main event. The course which the revolutions took, and the outcome, was dictated much more by the interaction of elites.

The emergence of interest group politics in post-communist society is one of the decisive issues of democratic transformation. Interest groups occupy a key position in pluralist democracy, aggregating private interests, representing those interests in the public policy process and thereby mediating between society and the state. The free association of individuals in groups formed to promote their common interests is thus an important tributary of the democratic process. Their emergence in the new states of east/central Europe is widely recognized as one of the main preconditions of democratic consolidation. Research suggests, however, that, whilst interest groups have proliferated across the region, they bear little resemblance to the pluralist model. Their predominant characteristics are continuity with the old regime, organizational instability and fragmentation, elite domination and mass passivity, and an outsider status in the public policy process. This book attempts to explain the hesitant emergence of associational activity in post-communist society, and to predict the sort of associational order we might expect to see in the future.

It approaches the question from the perspective of group theory. The theoretical core of the book is provided by the various strands of pluralist theory which identify the source of associational activity in particular patterns of social differentiation and stratification arising out of economic relations of modern society.

The general explanatory approach underpinning this analysis claims that empirical policy patterns in distinct policy areas may be accounted for by examining the goal-oriented, rational-strategic interactions of public and private corporate actors with a stake in that policy area. Actors' interactions are guided by considerations of self-interest in that they attempt to achieve their goals, such as maximising their resources, in a specific context of institutional rules. While systems of rules, as factors, may both restrain and facilitate actors' choices, they do not determine them. There is always space for the individual actor's decision-making, accounted for by specific preferences, belief systems and cultural traditions (Mayntz and Scharpf 1995).

Interaction in a policy field may be understood as a process of bargaining and conflict among ‘consequential’ actors who dispose of diverse, but mutually important, resources – material, legal, informational, expertise and networking-related – which are exchanged and bargained for in a particular institutional context so as to reach a policy decision (Lauman and Knoke 1987). All actors concerned share a primary interest in the policy area, but pursue different specific goals.

If European policy-making is understood as the interaction of public and private corporate actors in an area of common policy interest, then such policy processes cannot be interpreted solely in terms of the national preference-formation and power considerations of member-state governments prior to EU bargaining processes (Moravcsik 1993).

Redistributive policies convey resources to specific groups or individuals at the expense of other groups or individuals. This in turn gives rise to a basic economic cleavage which pitches those who finance policy measures against those who benefit from them – the ‘haves’ vs. the ‘have-nots’ – and makes the resolution of conflicts the chief problem facing European policy-makers in redistributive policy. The conflicting interests in regional and social policy, between those who finance a measure and those who benefit from it, vary according to scope and mode. In regional policy, for example, the European Union pursues redistributive objectives to narrow spatial disparities, and successive reforms have been passed enabling the Commission to target financial aid to the poorest regions within the EU (Mazey 1996). In European social policy, the question is whether benefits should be redistributed between classes and age groups, and in European labour-relations policy, to what extent workers should be granted rights such as access to information or co-decision-making vis-à-vis management.

Beyond this divide, disputes between European and national actors over competences are pronounced in both policy areas. Where the Commission works to secure rights enabling it to target resources, member-state governments defend those same rights vehemently precisely because the power to distribute funds – to regions and local authorities (regional policy), individuals or groups (social policy) – constitutes an important source of electoral legitimation.

Under which conditions and in what form do deadlock and development emerge in market-making policy? The goal of a European market-creating policy is to eliminate trade barriers so that individual actors may benefit from the exchange of goods, services, capital and labour. However, the large-scale gains obtained from the integration of national markets tend to be unevenly distributed across countries, sectors and groups. Hence, market creation evokes support from liberalisers who expect to benefit and opposition from pro-regulators who expect to lose. Exactly how diverse interests are reconciled by manoeuvring around decisional dead-locks is explored by taking a look at two examples of the European policy of service integration, transport, where I examine the abolition of trade barriers in road haulage, and telecommunications where I focus on the liberalisation of telecommunications services.

Road haulage policy

Articles 3(f) and 74 of the Treaty of Rome state, in general terms, that the Community should develop a common transport policy. For almost three decades, however, transport policy in Europe was considered to be a story of: ‘[f]alse starts, of politically inept Commission proposals, or persistent Council inaction, of divided government views’ (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970: 143). Nevertheless, a basic decision to harmonise was taken as far back as 1965 in order to resolve the competitive distortion between road, rail and inland waterway transport. As regards prices, in 1968 the Council agreed to a system of compulsory bracket tariffs for international road transport.

Deadlock and subterfuge occur in various forms and modes, as shown by the exploration of specific policy areas. But how do the explanations of why deadlock occurs and how it is overcome compare across policy issues? It was claimed that decision-making in Europe has a distinct tendency to stall in all types of arenas because, in a system of multi-level governance involving very diverse actors and ruled by quasi-unanimity, policy-making is likely to reach stalemate if one of the actors presumes that the application of any given policy will cause them economic loss, impair their decision-making competences or impose additional costs of instrumental adjustment. Given that the great majority of decisions taken entail one or other type of costs for those concerned, there is a strong in-built tendency for the decision-making process to be brought to a halt in all policy areas under investigation.

In market-making policy, road haulage and telecommunications, the decisional process was blocked because sectoral actors (road haulage associations and the state-owned PTTs) anticipated economic losses. In the telecommunications sector this fear was reinforced – due to the public, monopolistic nature of the service deliverer – by the prospect of losing considerable institutional decision-making power. And in both areas there was a marked unwillingness to accept a new regulatory approach which would involve high costs of instrumental adjustment, if not the actual abolition of key actors traditionally dominant in the sector.

European research and technology policy has been slow to develop for a variety of reasons. Foremost, policy-makers were confronted with various possible lines of action. They could stick to their own national prosgrammes, opt for voluntary intergovernmental co-operation with other European and non-European governments, or establish a common policy to pool resources and establish a supranational authority in research and technology policy (Eberlein and Grande 1997). Although there is general agreement that joint activities would be advantageous for Europe's competitive position on the world market, initial attempts at co-operation failed. As a result, a striking discrepancy emerged between general commitment to closer European co-operation, on the one hand, and the prevalence of national policies, on the other, leaving scant room for a European research and technology policy. With the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty the EU received more extensive political power in the fields of research and technology policy. It was given the task of strengthening the scientific and technological bases of European industry so as to make the latter more competitive in international markets (Sandholtz 1992). Thus, the goals of research and technology and industrial policy are closely linked (Peterson 1996; Lawton 1997). In 1994 the Council passed the Fourth Action Programme providing 12.3 billion ECU for the development of research and technology for the period 1994–8 (Byström 1996).