Andreas Dür

Measuring Interest Group Influence in the EU A Note on Methodology

How much influence do interest groups have on policy outcomes in the European Union (EU)? This question is highly relevant for both debates on the democratic legitimacy of the EU and our understanding of policy-making processes in this entity. Nevertheless, because of the difficulties inherent in measuring interest group influence, it has been addressed by only a small number of studies. The purpose of this research note is to stimulate further research by clearly identifying the methodological problems and suggesting ways of how to overcome them. In doing so, I distinguish three broad approaches to measuring interest group influence: process-tracing, assessing 'attributed influence' and gauging the degree of preference attainment. Although the review reveals that all three approaches have their shortcomings, I conclude that the difficulty of measuring influence should not be exaggerated either. Methodological triangulation, 'method-shopping' and largerscale data collection should allow us to improve on the state of the art.

Introduction

More than half a century ago, James March (1955: 432) stressed the importance of measuring interest group influence when he stated: 'Influence is to the study of decision-making what force is to the study of motion -a generic explanation for the basic observable phenomena.' Little can be added to this affirmation; an analysis of interest group influence remains of crucial importance to the understanding of political processes. The increasing number of groups active in lobbying decision-makers throughout the developed world, for which influence is a major objective (if not the only one; see [START_REF] Lowery | Why Do Organized Interests Lobby? A Multi-Goal, Multi-Context Theory of Lobbying[END_REF], arguably has even further boosted the importance of understanding interest group influence for the purposes of explaining and normatively evaluating policy-making. The normative implications are particularly significant at a time when governments and international organizations aim at increasing political participation by societal groups. Does this participatory engineering lead to increased influence by specific societal interests?

Alas, little can also be added to March's emphasis on the difficulties of measuring influence: '[T]here is lacking not only an immediately obvious unit of measurement, but even a generally feasible means of providing simple rankings ' (1955: 434). These difficulties have meant that only few studies have attempted to measure interest group influence. Two recent surveys of the literature on interest groups in the United States (US) hence consider the question of influence as being 'exceedingly difficult to answer' (Loomis and Cigler, 1995: 25) and an area of 'confusion' in the literature (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998: 13). For the European Union (EU), a recent review even comes to the conclusion that 'there seems to be hardly any research dealing specifically with the policy consequences of interest representation' in that entity [START_REF] Lowery | The European Union Interest System in Comparative Perspective: A Bridge too Far[END_REF].

In this research note, I review the relatively small number of studies that have tried to measure the influence of interest groups in the EU. In doing so, I distinguish three methodological approaches: process-tracing, assessing 'attributed influence' [START_REF] March | An Introduction to the Theory and Measurement of Influence[END_REF] and gauging the degree of preference attainment. The aim of this exercise is to provide a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of different measures used in the literature, to outline ways of improving this literature and to stimulate further research in this area. The discussion is premised on the idea that, although measuring interest group influence is difficult, it is not impossible. Analysing the impact of interest groups on political outcomes is not substantially different from other attempts at establishing causality. Progress on this question therefore is possible as long as researchers make a sustained effort.

The challenge

Influence is generally understood as an actor's ability to shape a decision in line with her preferences, or, in other words, 'a causal relation between the preferences of an actor regarding an outcome and the outcome itself' (Nagel, 1975: 29). At least three distinct problems hamper the measurement of influence: the existence of different channels of influence, the occurrence of counteractive lobbying and the fact that influence can be wielded at different stages of the policy process.

First, measuring influence is challenging because it can be exercised through different channels (Dür, 2008b). Interest groups can shape policy outcomes through direct lobbying of policy-makers [START_REF] Hansen | Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919-1981[END_REF]. They can also engage in outside lobbying [START_REF] Kollman | Outside Lobbying: Public Opinion and Interest Group Strategies[END_REF], aimed at influencing public opinion by way of campaigns and similar activities. Furthermore, they can influence the selection of decision-makers [START_REF] Fordham | Selection and Influence: Interest Groups and Congressional Voting on Trade Policy[END_REF], for example by getting involved in election campaigns or by trying to have some bearing on the appointment of Rapporteurs in the European Parliament. Finally, interest groups may wield structural power, that is, influence decisionmakers simply because of the impact that business decisions about whether to invest in a specific area can have on public policy [START_REF] Lindblom | Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Bernhagen | Structural Power and Public Policy: A Signalling Model of Business Lobbying in Democratic Capitalism[END_REF]. As will be shown below, it is very difficult for any method to take into account all of these channels to influence.

Second, the occurrence of counteractive lobbying (Austen-Smith and [START_REF] Wright | Counteractive Lobbying[END_REF] makes the measurement of influence tricky. Even if an interest group does not manage to move an outcome into a preferred direction, this does not necessarily mean that the group lacked influence. It may simply be that it had to counter the lobbying effort of another group (other groups) and was influential in the sense that it avoided an even worse outcome. Related to this is the impact of public opinion on policy outcomes, which has to be controlled for. If a group's position is backed by public opinion, its influence on policy outcomes may be overestimated [START_REF] Burstein | Bringing the Public Back In[END_REF]. Controlling for such other forces influencing the different outcomes is particularly difficult for studies that quantitatively gauge the degree of preference attainment.

Third, influence can be wielded at different stages of the policy process: in the agenda-setting phase, when final decisions are taken or when decisions are implemented. In the 'faces of power' debate in the 1960s and 1970s, influence at the agenda-setting stage was called 'the second face of power' [START_REF] Bachrach | Two Faces of Power[END_REF], as distinct from the first face of power, namely influence at the stage when decisions are taken. Again, it is difficult for any one project to measure influence at all stages of the policy process. Imagine a researcher observing that a directive that was proposed by the European Commission passed through the legislative process with hardly any lobbying activity. In light of this evidence, she may be tempted to conclude that interest groups were ineffective. This is not necessarily correct, however, because interest groups might have shaped the contents of the directive at the agendasetting stage, namely before it was approved by the Commission. The groups then simply had no need to engage in lobbying activity at a later stage of the policy process.

Three methods for measuring influence

Measuring interest group influence hence is a difficult task. In the following, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses in tackling these challenges of three broad methodological approaches: process-tracing, assessing attributed influence and gauging the degree of preference attainment. This discussion sets the stage for an analysis of how we may be able to improve on the state of the art.

Process-tracing

Process-tracing is the most frequently used approach to measuring interest group influence in the EU (see, for example, [START_REF] Cowles | Setting the Agenda for the New Europe: the ERT and EC 1992[END_REF][START_REF] Warleigh | The Hustle: Citizenship Practice, NGOs and "Policy Coalitions" in the European Union -The Cases of Auto Oil, Drinking Water and Unit Pricing[END_REF]the contributions in Pedler, 2002;[START_REF] Dür | Inclusion without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy[END_REF][START_REF] Michalowitz | What Determines Influence? Assessing Conditions for Decision-Making Influence of Interest Groups in the EU[END_REF]. As defined by two advocates of this approach, the 'method attempts to identify the intervening causal process -the causal chain and causal mechanism -between an independent variable (or variables) and the outcome of the dependent variable' (George and Bennett, 2005: 206). In other words, scholars using process-tracing try to uncover the steps by which causes affect outcomes. With respect to measuring interest group influence, scholars scrutinize groups' preferences, their influence attempts, their access to decision-makers, decision-makers' responses to the influence attempts, the degree to which groups' preferences are reflected in outcomes and groups' statements of (dis-)satisfaction with the outcome.

Maria Green Cowles' (1995) study of the impact of the European Round Table of Industrialists on the passage of the Single European Act is a prominent example of how this method can be applied to determine the influence of a specific interest group. Cowles relied on the Round Table's access to key decision-makers, the reflection of ideas launched by the group in decisions taken, and the temporal coincidence between the activities of the Round Table and the re-launch of the process of European integration in the mid-1980s to back her case for the causal role of this grouping in getting the Act passed.

If carried out well, studies using process-tracing have several strengths. First, in small-N studies it is likely that researchers will have a reasonably good knowledge of nearly all factors influencing a political decision. This allows them to take into consideration several rival explanations of an outcome before determining whether or not the influence exercised by specific interest groups had an independent effect on the outcome. Second, many studies using process-tracing rely on semi-structured interviews. Such interviews can give researchers insights into developments that could not be gained from document analysis and/or surveys. The researcher can also probe the interviewee with challenging questions. Again, this should help researchers achieve a valid estimate of interest group influence regarding a specific decision.

Process-tracing, however, also faces a series of problems, which often cannot be overcome even in well-designed studies. Five difficulties stand out: collecting empirical evidence that is precise enough to cover all steps of a causal process; cross-checking evidence gained from interviews against other sources; identifying a yardstick to assess what 'influential' means; avoiding inferences about influence from the level of interest group activity; and generalizing from small-N studies.

First, even when using all sources that are available for a specific casesuch as documents, press reports and interviewees -researchers tend to find it difficult to fill all the gaps in a causal chain from interest group activities to political outcomes (Loomis, 1983: 186). This can lead to an underestimation of influence if the method is applied too strictly. A researcher may conclude that no influence was exerted because she finds no evidence for one of the links in the causal chain, when actually she is encountering a problem of lack of sources. In other words, the absence of proof may be taken as proof of absence. For example, if lobbying took place behind closed doors, the absence of observed lobbying activity leaves a gap in the causal chain that may lead researchers using process-tracing to deduce a lack of influence.

Second, because of the difficulty of gathering the empirical evidence needed, researchers using this method often rely heavily on claims made in interviews with decision-makers and lobbyists. These claims are not reliable, because interviewees may consciously or unconsciously misrepresent a situation. In particular, interviewees may have reasons to over-or understate the influence of interest groups. As put in a survey of research on interest groups: 'The difficulty [of assessing interest group influence] is, in fact, compounded by groups' claims of impact and decision makers' equally vociferous claims of freedom from any outside influence' (Loomis and Cigler, 1995: 25). Moreover, well-known biases in the recollection of past events (failings of human memory, the imposition of current knowledge on recollections of the past, the imposition of a narrative structure on unconnected events and so on; see e.g. [START_REF] Schacter | The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers[END_REF] can lead to unconscious misrepresentations. Although in theory all evidence gained from interviews (or, indeed, any other source) should be cross-checked with other sources, in practice this tends to be difficult. The problem is further compounded if researchers interview those respondents who are most readily available. In the case of the EU, these are most often officials in the European Commission located in Brussels, who may have a stake in a particular reading of an event. The resulting bias in sources is likely to have an impact on the findings.

Third, for studies relying on process-tracing it is difficult to assess the degree of influence because a yardstick is lacking. It sometimes appears that interest groups have to be completely dominant for influence to be ascribed to them in these case studies. A case study on the attempts of the Oil Companies International Maritime Forum to influence EU decisions on the maritime transport of oil illustrates this point [START_REF] Michalowitz | What Determines Influence? Assessing Conditions for Decision-Making Influence of Interest Groups in the EU[END_REF]. The forum was successful in avoiding the establishment of a European fund for compensation in the case of oil pollution damage, an issue that it had vehemently opposed. Moreover, the forum managed to push decisions to the international level, again in line with its preferences. Nevertheless, the author of the case study concludes that the group was not particularly influential, since the influence that was exerted 'only touched upon technical questions' (Michalowitz, 2007: 145). It could be argued, however, that as long as the Forum achieved its aims -that is, managed to bring outcomes in line with its preferences -it should be considered highly influential. This example just illustrates that it is often difficult to ensure the intersubjective verifiability of a qualitative judgement of influence.

Fourth, process-tracing leads to erroneous findings if too much weight is given to the level of interest group activity in making inferences about influence. Even when only little activity is observable, interest groups may have a substantial impact on outcomes. For example, it may be that groups lobby little on a specific issue simply because decision-makers adopted a decision that is in line with the groups' preferences. They may have done so to pre-empt a situation in which they have to confront powerful interest groups. An example is the Common Agricultural Policy, where the European Commission is likely to anticipate the reaction of farm lobbies to any proposal for reforms. Neither is it correct to argue that a strong lobby effort should necessarily be reflected in policy outcomes if interest groups are at all influential. Groups may engage in lobbying for objectives not directly related to influence, for example to attract new members or satisfy existing members (see [START_REF] Dür | Inclusion without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy[END_REF][START_REF] Lowery | Why Do Organized Interests Lobby? A Multi-Goal, Multi-Context Theory of Lobbying[END_REF].

Finally, because of the data requirements involved in process-tracing, this method can be used only in small-N studies. This creates problems when trying to generalize the findings beyond the cases studied. Although sometimes generalizations can be made based on small-N studies, especially if they involve least likely or most likely cases, in many instances this is not the case. Not even the meta-analysis of many studies based on process-tracing will lead to convincing generalizations because the population of such studies is likely to be biased in favour of particularly conflictive decisions, which receive the highest public attention. Moreover, in many studies no reason for the selection of a specific case is given, making it difficult to judge whether these cases are intended to be representative of a larger population.

The 'attributed influence' method

'Attributed influence' [START_REF] March | An Introduction to the Theory and Measurement of Influence[END_REF] is usually measured by way of surveys. In a survey, a group can be asked to provide a self-assessment of its influence or a peer assessment of the influence of other groups. In addition, a survey can be directed at (it is hoped, well-informed) observers who report groups' reputation for influence. Few such surveys have been carried out to assess attributed influence in the EU (for exceptions, see [START_REF] Edgell | The Influence of UK NGOs on the Common Agricultural Policy[END_REF][START_REF] Pappi | The Organization of Influence on the EC's Common Agricultural Policy: A Network Approach[END_REF][START_REF] Dür | Inclusion without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy[END_REF].

A major advantage of this method is its relative simplicity. Although there are difficulties in designing a questionnaire, establishing the population from which a sample of respondents is taken and ensuring a sufficiently high response rate, these difficulties are minor when compared with the difficulties that researchers face when using one of the other two methods discussed in this note. Moreover, the method of measuring attributed influence is likely to capture all channels of influence. Respondents who are asked to assess the influence of British interest groups on the Common Agricultural Policy [START_REF] Edgell | The Influence of UK NGOs on the Common Agricultural Policy[END_REF], for example, are likely to give an estimate that takes into account all four channels of influence distinguished above.

Unfortunately, this method for measuring interest group influence also comes with drawbacks, which vary slightly depending on the type of actors asked. Self-estimations can be biased both towards an exaggeration of influence and a playing down of influence. The former may result from associations stressing the relevance of their work to their members, whereas the latter may be a strategy to avoid the creation of counter-lobbies, which may spring up to stem the perceived influence of a specific actor. In peer assessments, respondents may find it difficult to answer a question on the influence of other actors owing to a lack of information and analytic capacity. In addition, the answers that researchers receive may again be strategic: minimizing the role of other actors to reduce their importance or inflating it to create a public backlash. An interesting result of these tendencies can be that self-and peer assessments differ substantially. Non-governmental organizations, for example, frequently complain about their relative lack of influence over European trade policy, which they contrast with the major influence they attribute to business [START_REF] Dür | Inclusion without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy[END_REF]. Business lobbyists, by contrast, grumble about their lack of influence as compared with the power of nongovernmental organizations.

The method of asking expert observers to gauge the influence of different groups also has shortcomings. When asked to give an assessment of a group's influence across many issues, the assessment may unconsciously be shaped by specific, prominent cases. At other times, experts may simply recap the findings reported in academic studies using one of the other methods discussed here (because their perceptions are likely to be influenced by these studies), and in doing so may simply duplicate the problems of other methods. Expert judgements may also lead to the reification of widely accepted beliefs (e.g. 'big companies are powerful'). As a result, only few 'surprising' results will surface from studies relying on expert assessments.

A few problems are common to all variants of the attributed influence approach to measuring interest group influence. Most importantly, this measure assesses perceptions of influence, rather than actual influence [START_REF] Polsby | How to Study Community Power: The Pluralist Alternative[END_REF]. In addition, surveys generally do not uncover information on what kind of influence interest groups had (what did they change in the real world?). Furthermore, if the question posed is about generic influence, the respondent is asked to provide an average across many issues, thereby neglecting potential differences from one issue to another. Sometimes, however, such variation may be of particular interest. Finally, problems that affect all surveys are pertinent: deficient respondent recollection, interviewer bias and respondents' tendency to avoid extreme values when asked to provide a numerical ranking on a pre-given scale are just some of the more prominent potential pitfalls.

Assessing the degree of preference attainment

The third method for measuring interest group influence is to assess groups' degree of preference attainment. In this method, the outcomes of political processes are compared with the ideal points of actors. At its most basic, the idea is that the distance between an outcome and the ideal point of an actor reflects the influence of this actor. In more complex approaches, researchers try to control for other forces moving outcomes closer to or further away from an actor's ideal point.

Several studies have applied this method to the study of interest group influence in the EU (Schneider andBaltz, 2003, 2005;[START_REF] Mahoney | Lobbying Success in the United States and the European Union[END_REF]Dür, 2008a). Schneider andBaltz (2003, 2005) analysed a sample of 15 legislative proposals presented by the European Commission. For these proposals, they determined the initial position of the lead ministry, the final national position and the ideal points of various interest groups in four countries. They then calculated the degree of influence as the difference between two absolute differences: between a group's ideal position and the initial position of the lead ministry in the country, and between a group's ideal position and the final national position. [START_REF] Mahoney | Lobbying Success in the United States and the European Union[END_REF] drew a random sample of advocates lobbying the EU institutions and then asked these advocates to identify the issue they had worked on most recently. The resulting list of 26 issues became her sample of cases. To assess influence, she coded whether or not an outcome reflected the preferences of the groups active on this issue. This allowed her to draw conclusions on which type of actor was more or less influential. In my own work, I distinguished 19 aspects of the EU's position in the Doha Development Agenda (2001 onwards) on which interest groups could have had an impact (Dür, 2008a). I then took a correspondence between the demands voiced by business actors and the EU's position across a large number of these aspects as indicating business influence.

Measuring interest group influence by assessing the degree of preference attainment has several advantages. Most importantly, this method can detect influence even if nothing visible happens, for example because all lobbying is secret or because structural power is at work. Through whatever channel it works (with the exception of selection in some approaches, see below), influence by definition should be visible in the outcomes that can be studied. As a result, this measure is more likely than process-tracing to find influence at work. Moreover, the degree of preference attainment can be assessed for a relatively large number of cases. The resulting large-N studies, if the cases were selected following the appropriate rules, allow for generalizations of the findings. Furthermore, it is plausible that errors made in the assessment of an actor's influence in specific cases will cancel out across many cases. Finally, even if for each individual case the coding of influence is only dichotomous, the adding up of these values across many cases allows for a measurement of influence at the interval level. This contrasts with process-tracing, where researchers are largely limited to stating that a group either did or did not have influence.

Just like the other measures of interest group influence discussed above, this one also comes with a few drawbacks. The first problem concerns the determination of preferences [START_REF] Tsebelis | Assessing the Contributions of the DOSEI Project[END_REF]. In some policy fields, establishing the preferences of actors is quite straightforward. In monetary policy, for example, it is relatively uncontroversial to assume that internationally oriented industries have an interest in exchange rate stabilization, whereas import competitors have an interest in devaluations [START_REF] Frieden | Real Sources of European Currency Policy: Sectoral Interests and European Monetary Integration[END_REF]. In trade policy, similarly, export-oriented businesses and agricultural producers can be assumed to favour trade liberalization, whereas import competitors have a preference for protectionist policies (Dür, 2008a). In studies dealing with other policy fields, or with many issues across many policy fields, however, the preferences of actors have to be established empirically for each issue that is to be decided [START_REF] Schneider | The Power of Specialization: How Interest Groups Influence EU Legislation[END_REF][START_REF] Mahoney | Lobbying Success in the United States and the European Union[END_REF]. This is mostly done by way of interviews, with the problem that such interviews are likely to uncover the -possibly strategic -positions of actors rather than the underlying preferences. Even in interviews that take place after the events under investigation have finished, the participating actors are likely strategically or unconsciously to misrepresent their preferences. Neither are experts necessarily a reliable source of preferences (see the discussion in [START_REF] Dorussen | Assessing the Reliability and Validity of Expert Interviews[END_REF]. Since this measure of interest group influence relies heavily on information on the preferences of actors, this is a critical problem.

A second problem with this measure of influence is that it can be difficult to control for alternative factors explaining a coincidence between preferences and outcomes. Some authors maintain that random selection (Mahoney, 2007: 38) or a large number of cases (Schneider and Baltz, 2003: 257) should lead to the cancelling out of alternative explanations. Others try to examine their hypotheses against alternative explanations, using either qualitative (Dür, 2008a) or quantitative evidence [START_REF] Frieden | Real Sources of European Currency Policy: Sectoral Interests and European Monetary Integration[END_REF]. Nevertheless, excluding all possible rival explanations is difficult, whether random selection is used or alternative explanations are tackled head on.

A further problem associated with this measure is the black-boxing of the process through which influence is exercised. Although it is an advantage that this method can consider different channels of influence, it is at the same time problematic that it does not make it clear through which channels influence is exerted. Moreover, some studies using this measure cannot take into account influence that is exerted through the selection channel. If decisionmakers share the preferences of societal actors, because voters selected them based on these preferences, measuring influence as the change in decisionmakers' positions resulting from lobbying underestimates the extent of influence exerted. Decision-makers may also adopt a strategic position, which already takes into account interest group demands. Selection effects and strategic behaviour may explain why Schneider and Baltz (2003: 265) find that on many of the issues they studied there was little controversy, with no societal actors contesting the position of the lead ministry.

At least two problems also arise at the time of quantifying the degree of influence. For one, there is a problem with multidimensional topics, because issues have to be very specific to allow researchers to code whether or not a group was successful. It is plausible to imagine a situation in which a group manages to influence one specific aspect of a legislation that is important to it, but not the rest of the legislation. This calls for a disaggregation of political decisions to very specific issues; however, the greater the disaggregation, the more difficult it is to get data on the preferences of actors for each dimension identified. Related to this issue is the difficulty of controlling for the salience that an issue has for an interest group when using this measure of influence. If a group is successful on 20% of the issues and unsuccessful on 80%, a simple quantitative analysis would suggest that the group has little influence. It may be, however, that the group is successful on all of the issues that are highly salient to it (e.g. because it invests more resources on those issues) and unsuccessful on those that are not salient to it. In that case, even if the group is successful on only 20% of the issues, it should be considered quite influential. Thus, although the salience of an issue for an actor is evidently a very important variable, measuring it empirically for a large number of cases is very difficult.

Where to go from here?

In short, measuring interest group influence is a tricky business. How can we move ahead and tackle the difficulties inherent in studying interest group influence in the EU? I stress the need for methodological triangulation, 'method-shopping' and larger-scale data collection to allow for improvements on the state of the art.

Methodological triangulation

A first way forward derives from the previous discussion of the strengths and drawbacks of the three methods of measuring interest group influence. If, as has been argued above, process-tracing is likely to underestimate interest group influence and the measurement of preference attainment is likely to overestimate it, combining the two may correct these biases. Methodological triangulation -the combination of different methods in one study -hence may sometimes resolve problems that cannot be tackled in studies that rely on only one method. In fact, several studies have successfully combined two or more methods to study interest group influence in the EU. [START_REF] Coen | The Evolution of Large Firm Political Action in the European Union[END_REF], for example, brought together evidence from a survey of large firms on the effectiveness of different influence strategies with evidence gained from interviews with decision-makers. [START_REF] Dür | Inclusion without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy[END_REF] combined a survey of interest groups with process-tracing to assess the influence that nongovernmental organizations have on European trade policy. [START_REF] Schneider | Domesticated Eurocrats: Bureaucratic Discretion in the Legislative Pre-Negotiations of the European Union[END_REF] used a comparative case study to illustrate the findings reached in a quantitative assessment of the degree of preference attainment. The 'EAR instrument', a specific combination of the attributed influence method and process-tracing, provides for an even more systematic approach to triangulation [START_REF] Arts | Assessing Political Influence in Complex Decision-Making: An Instrument Based on Triangulation[END_REF]. This instrument uses the self-perception of actors (E, for ego-perception), perceptions from other key players (A, for alter-perception) and process-tracing (R, for researcher's analysis) to come to a sound assessment of influence.

Nevertheless, methodological triangulation should not be seen as a panacea either. Some of the problems mentioned above are compounded rather than solved when several methods are integrated in a research project. For example, gathering the necessary evidence for process-tracing will be even more difficult if a researcher also has to invest time in applying other methods. This is likely to lead to a further restriction in the number of cases analysed, which undermines the possibility for generalizations. Moreover, methodological triangulation brings up the problem of what a researcher should do if, for example, process-tracing leads to different results from the attributed influence method. How should competing results be reconciled? Despite these drawbacks, on many occasions methodological triangulation is likely to lead to more reliable results than the ones we currently have.

Method-shopping

Not all methods available to researchers to gauge interest group influence have been applied to the context of the EU. 'Method-shopping' hence could improve the sophistication of the literature on EU interest group influence. One such available method is 'paired comparisons' [START_REF] Verschuren | Quantifying Influence in Complex Decision Making by Means of Paired Comparisons[END_REF], which is a variant of the preference attainment approach discussed above. It involves measuring, for each pair of actors, which actor's preference was closer to the final outcome. Expressed as an equation,

PR i = | P i0 -FD | ~| P j0 -FD |, (1)
where P i0 and P j0 are the positions of actors A i and A j , respectively, and FD is the location of the final decision.

A i receives a score of 1 if | P i0 -FD | > | P j0 -FD |, 0 if | P i0 -FD | < | P j0 -FD |, and 1 ⁄ 2 if | P i0 -FD | = | P j0 -FD |.
In a second step, influence is ascribed to an actor only if preference realization is owing to influence rather than alternative causes, such as coalitions with more powerful actors or external factors. Adding up the scores for each actor across all pairs then results in a set of values that capture the relative influence of all actors on the outcome.

The method comes with several advantages: even in single case studies, it allows for influence to be assessed at interval level; the way influence is assessed is made transparent; biases may be cancelled out owing to the large number of measurement steps involved; and counteractive lobbying can be taken into account in a systematic manner. Although the method is a handy addition to the toolbox available to researchers of interest group influence in the EU, it obviously also comes with some drawbacks. In particular, the data requirements are so high that mostly this method will be applied to single cases only, again leading to the difficulty of generalizing beyond the case studied. Even in single cases, the method may not be applicable if many actors are involved, since the number of pairs that have to be analysed rises steeply with the number of actors (the number of pairs is 1 ⁄ 2n(n -1), where n denotes the number of actors).

Moreover, although the process of measuring influence is made transparent, paired comparisons still rely on a series of qualitative judgements about the impact of external factors and the possibility for bandwagonning on the influence of other actors. Finally, the method disadvantages actors with extreme preferences, because it looks at the closeness between actor positions and final outcomes rather than the extent to which an actor was able to move a counterfactual outcome towards his or her preference. This latter drawback may explain why in the example given by [START_REF] Verschuren | Quantifying Influence in Complex Decision Making by Means of Paired Comparisons[END_REF], namely the negotiations concerning the Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), the US was assigned substantially less influence than the EU and Japan, and only slightly more than the oil-exporting countries.

Larger-scale data collection

Lastly, I submit that it will not be possible to make truly satisfactory progress on the question of interest group influence in the EU without an attempt at larger-scale data collection (for a similar call for large-N studies on interest groups in the EU, see also [START_REF] Coen | Empirical and Theoretical Studies in EU Lobbying[END_REF]. A large-N project would allow us to better judge the extent to which the findings reported in small-N studies are representative of the universe of decisions taken. In addition, we would be able to test issue-level and contextual variables, which have to be held constant in studies that are restricted to specific issues or policy fields. A large-N study of randomly selected issues may show, for example, that interest group tactics are driven by the issue context and hence have no independent effect on the degree of influence wielded by groups. The approach of starting with a sample of randomly selected issues would also help us overcome the problem that many existing studies consider only a specific type of actor, such as trade associations or firms. Finally, a large-N project comes with the advantage that it may be replicated after a few years (whereas qualitative studies are difficult to replicate), thereby allowing for comparisons over time.

What is needed for the case of the EU, therefore, is a project similar to the one on lobbying and policy advocacy that produced a wealth of empirical information on interest group lobbying in the US [START_REF] Baumgartner | Issue Advocacy and Interest-Group Influence[END_REF]. In the framework of that project, researchers selected 98 issues by asking randomly chosen lobbyists what issue they had spent time on most recently. They then identified the actors lobbying at the federal level on each issue and asked them about their position on the issue, their resources and the coalitions they enter into. Among other things, the resulting novel data revealed that a group's financial resources are a weak predictor of success in influencing policy outcomes [START_REF] Leech | Does Money Buy Power? Interest Group Resources and Policy Outcomes[END_REF]. Moreover, an interesting finding of the project is that business actors are only slightly more successful than other actors in influencing outcomes.

Evidently, for the EU, a slightly different approach may be needed to identify issues (but see [START_REF] Mahoney | Lobbying Success in the United States and the European Union[END_REF]. Particularly problematic for the case of the EU is that, whereas in the US all lobbyists have to register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, in Europe a similar obligation is missing. As a result, it is difficult to establish the universe of actors whose objective is to influence EU policy outcomes. Contacting only lobbyists who are listed in EU lobby registers, for example, will overlook lobbying that takes place through national channels. The resulting bias in the selection of actors who are asked to identify issues may translate into a bias in the sample of issues identified. Another approach for arriving at a sample of issues is to select among the legislative proposals that are included in the Commission's Prelex database (for such an approach, see [START_REF] Schneider | The Power of Specialization: How Interest Groups Influence EU Legislation[END_REF]. This database lists all proposals, recommendations and communications transmitted by the European Commission to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. The evident weakness of this approach is that it fails to capture potential legislative initiatives that are blocked by interest group lobbying before the Commission takes a decision on them. This selection bias will lead to an underestimation of interest group influence. The selection of cases in the EU hence is more difficult than in the US, but the problems mentioned can be overcome. One way of doing so may be by combining the two methods of selecting issues, therefore correcting the biases that arise when using only one method. Whatever the solution finally found to the problem of selecting cases, a large-N project would definitely add new impetus to the study of interest group influence in the EU.

Conclusion

Is the attempt at measuring interest group influence in the EU necessarily doomed to failure? Is researching interest group influence really like 'searching for a black cat in the coal bin at midnight' (as put by a lobbyist, quoted in Loomis, 1983: 184)? My response to these questions is that, although research on interest group influence in the EU evidently is difficult, the issue of influence is too important to be neglected. On the one hand, an understanding of interest group influence is essential for explanations of policy outcomes. On the other hand, the impact that interest groups have on policy outcomes in the EU is central to debates concerning the EU's democratic legitimacy [START_REF] Greenwood | Review Article: Organized Civil Society and Democratic Legitimacy in the European Union[END_REF]. Among the many normative questions whose answers depend on the measurement of influence are: can the involvement of interest groups in EU decision-making processes compensate for the lack of party competition for office; and does the European Commission's strategy of consulting civil society at least partly offset the shortcomings of the EU's political system with respect to democratic institutions?

I have also argued that the difficulties of measuring interest group influence in the EU are not insurmountable. Indeed, important advances have been made over the past decade in furthering our understanding of the impact of interest groups on policy outcomes in the EU. Further progress seems possible by tackling remaining problems head-on, being adamant and not giving up too early. Already a better awareness of the problems inherent in measuring interest group influence as outlined in this research note should improve future studies. If researchers were more conscious of the biases that are likely to result from specific methodological choices, they could take them into account when designing their projects. For example, they may combine two methods in the same project or employ methods that have not yet been applied to the case of the EU. Moving forward would also become easier if researchers had at their disposal better data on the universe of interest groups and their involvement in EU decision-making. Indeed, a larger-scale project that gathers data on interest group lobbying across many issues would not only provide novel insights but also make future small-N studies more effective by giving researchers some idea of how the cases they pick fit into the larger universe of interest group activity in the EU.

Notes

I am indebted to the participants at a workshop at the University of Antwerp and at the wrapping-up conference of Research Group 4 of the Network of Excellence CONNEX in Piran for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. An anonymous reviewer also provided constructive criticisms. Financial support from CONNEX is gratefully acknowledged.

European Union Politics 9(4)

Dür Measuring Interest Group Influence in the EU: A Note on Methodology

About the author


E L M A R R I E G E R University of
 Bremen, GermanyThe Wondrous Politics of Global Ideas: A Comment (elmar rieger is Associate Professor at the Centre for Social Policy, University of Bremen, Germany) Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that that government is founded . . . (Hume 1777(Hume /1985: 32) : 32) Global ideas matter, local politics decide -if that is true, as the articles presented here in the forum seem to indicate, what is it that makes global ideas relevant but still leaves local politics in a pivotal position? Where do ideas about 'setting policies right' come from and, more important still, where do they get their power from? And why, to elaborate a little bit more on the second question, is local politics in spite of shrinking distances and the end of state-defining geography able to make a difference?

To answer the first question, perhaps the most important source of those global ideas which are pushed to restructure the national institutions of economic and social policy is the drive of the USA to globalize its own brand of welfare capitalism in order to fend off alternatives. The more dominant US companies became in the world economy, the greater the need to make sure that this world economy is not a source of contending varieties of welfare capitalism. But this is not just to expand commercial opportunities within a framework of giving American policy formulas and legal institutions a transnational reach. There is much more at stake: the principles of good government established 'from reflection and choice'. 1 Because the SA is both the 'indispensable nation' for globalization and its juggernaut, it is also the most challenged by its centrifugal forces.

The runaway world created by globalization cuts across all boundaries of geography and nationality, undermines organizations, institutions, and identities: 'The trial by market everything must come to', as Robert Frost pithily put it. In this sense, globalization can be said to unite all mankind. But the relationships created by markets are too ephemeral to serve as foundations for new forms of social organization -organizations strong enough to create the solidarity necessary to burden its members with taxes. In some way or another public needs have to be met. The trial by viable community that everything must also come to. Thus, it is a paradoxical unity that globalization brought about, a unity of disunity: it confronts every society and government with disintegration and unending reform, there is no end to struggle and contradiction, and ambiguity and dissension are constant features of our new moral economy. Like the first wave of economic globalization one and a half centuries ago, the present globalization created a universe in which, as Marx said, 'all that is solid melts into air'. In other words, globalization threatens to destroy not only everything we have, but also everything we are.

Globalization is not only about the economic integration of the world, but also the spread of democracy. Democracy, however, or national selfdetermination, is something not easily reconciled with one-world capitalism because it always involves the cultivation of societal peculiarity. Democracy superimposes society on the state and thus presupposes some kind of unity that can also be called 'culture' [START_REF] Rieger | Kultur versus Globalisierung: Sozialpolitische Theologie in Konfuzianismus und Christentum[END_REF]. The more fragile this unity, the more it is challenged, the higher the probability that this unity is achieved with the help of a legend of providential 'mission' (Weber, 1978: 925).

Because democracy has become the hegemonic norm of political organization, and since in a democracy the passion for equality is always stronger than the passion for freedom (Tocqueville), this peculiar constellation of both the global spread of democracy and market capitalism is indeed a threat to the USA as a viable community. James Madison, in his Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 (Madison, 1787(Madison, /1987: 194) : 194) describes the central problem of the peculiar American system:

We cannot however be regarded even at this time, as one homogenous mass, in which every thing that affects a part will affect in the same manner the whole. In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labor under all hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts [i.e. land reform] have yet been made in this Country, but symptoms, of a levelling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in certain quarters to give notice of the future danger. How is this danger to be guarded against on republican principles?

The solution to this problem is that the USA has become a 'world transforming society' [START_REF] Brzezinski | The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership[END_REF]. Its traditional source of cultural security, geographical isolation, has disappeared as a result of new circumstances and technologies. Since turning a European struggle for hegemony into the First World War and making the metaphysical principles of a good society the bone of international contention, Americans are remaking the world to resemble themselves. If democracy and capitalism -in their peculiar American amalgamation -spread throughout the world, security for the long-standing American project of a new society could become automatic. This grand strategy of American foreign policy won new urgency after 9/11, but is far from new [START_REF] Gaddis | Surprise, Security, and the American Experience[END_REF]. 'Regime change' is not limited to Afghanistan and Iraq, but a global strategy for quite some time, and the means to accomplish it is less strategic bombing but more the diplomatic apparatus of the State Department and the Treasury engaged in 'technical assistance' and 'capacity building'. During the cold war, with the Soviet Union as a countervailing centre of power, American leaders were forced, at least to a degree, to care what the rest of the world thought, and framed their international strategy accordingly. When this constraint disappeared, and the promise of 'free' cultural security for the USA, thanks to the irresistible -and irreversiblemovement towards democracy and capitalism did not get fulfilled, the new formula was 'Fukuyama plus force' (Gaddis, 2004: 90).

The American politics of global ideas quite consciously -and most notoriously in the form of the 'Washington consensus' of the World Banktry to create interests and structures in other countries that parallel those of the USA, thus pre-empting any challenge to the American model both from abroad and from the inside. 2 The latter is achieved because domestic critics have a hard time to point to any viable alternative, whereas the former means the build-up of transnational networks of like-minded policy makers. Djelic's article on the globalization of the American competition regime in this issue of GSP illustrates this general mechanism of the interplay between ideas and interests.

The American globalization project is to remake the world in its own image -but the world, more often than not, resists. Paradoxically, at least to the American led globalization, the main reason for this is the very 'democracy' they try to promote. Democracy in the USA, however, is something quite unique, in the sense that the federal constitution is a conscious attempt to check democracy for the sake of freedom. 3 It may well be that the American values bolstering their globalization drive are 'universal', but a democratic polity has always at its centre unique social structures. Without cultural autonomy democracy would be an empty shell. Domestically, the institutional infrastructure that a globalized market economy with highly mobile capital necessitates is subject to electoral politics. Social, economic and financial regulation, the management of foreign trade relations and competition regimes is still placed in the political arena, where one-person-one-vote rules. In addition, it is quite obvious that the economic problems posed by globalization are symptoms of unanswered social, cultural and political questions. With this discourse, democracy does make a difference in order to be legitimate. Democratic government is popular government. When majorities of people perceive themselves to be threatened by globalization they ask questions as if their answer would determine the future of popular government 'by and for the people' [START_REF] Rieger | Limits to Globalization: Welfare States and the World Economy[END_REF].

Thus, the inevitable refraction of global ideas through local politics -and perhaps an answer to the second question. National politicians have to take care of exclusively national voters, and since economic globalization means both the destruction and the creation of economic opportunities every election turns into a referendum into what to accept from globalization under what condition -and what not. Ganghof's article on changes in the tax state shows both the direct effect and the limits to the international tax competition induced by the new freedoms of capital. Because welfare states are well entrenched, politicians are forced to cultivate its tax base. The different fate of corporate and personal income taxation -or the mercantilist privileging of capital -in the last two decades, reflects the increased power of the mobile factors of production and thus a shift of the tax burden to the immobile groups. 4 The rise of global 'epistemic communities', which form part of the infrastructure of globalization is by itself a product of the democratic global-local mismatch. The transnational networks of central banks, antitrust authorities and financial regulators are in a way a reflection of the power of democracy. 5 Cross-country alliances of these interests being unified are attempts to compensate for their domestic weakness -their lack in numbers in one-person-one-vote systems geared towards majority interests. To strengthen competitive markets, to deregulate labour markets and to use private institutions for the production of public goods, to give private capital a stake (and profits) in pension and health care systems -all this is quite impossible in a democratic polity with its natural bias towards social democracy. The European integration project of a single market could succeed because of its basically supranational format, i.e. eliminating the voice of national parliaments in both the creation and the governance of the 'common market'. It is not by accident that, as can be learned from Ervik's article in this issue, the most liberal (in the European sense of the word) reform ideas are voiced in international organizations several steps removed from national parliaments and without representative institutions. For this reason the two Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank, come up with essentially American blueprints for social policy reforms, and the ILO, with its corporatist set-up an essentially European creation, tries to defend the welfare state formulas of social democracy. 6 'The great cold calculated story' (Henry James) of American success and its transformation into a salvation religion for the whole world is a default condition. The basically American faith in the moral weight and the healing power of economic theory is a function of the American political constitution that makes it extremely difficult to harness state power to welfare state goals. In the USA, not the people but the constitution is sovereign. Hence, by default, the drive to exploit the socialist potential of competitive markets, the need to harness the private institutions of capitalism to the realization of public goods, and the evocation of consumer socialism as the American version of the welfare statism that is a correlate of democratic political systems. 7 Whereas in Europe the political adjustment of rights and obligations was used to produce a countervailing system to the distribution of positive and negative privilege by the blind forces of the market, in the USA the operations of the market are used to adjust rights and obligations. 8 notes 1. This phrase is from Alexander Hamilton in his Federalist Paper No. 1, where he states that 'it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force' (Madison et al., 1788(Madison et al., /1987: 87): 87). 2. On the rise (and, perhaps, the imminent fall) of the set of ideas branded as 'Washington consensus' (see [START_REF] Naim | Fads and Fashion in Economic Reforms: Washington Consensus or Washington Confusion?[END_REF]. The notion that the American approach to financial, economic and social regulation is essentially uncontested, both domestically and internationally, informs most work on 'transgovernmental relations' [START_REF] Keohane | Transgovernmental Relations and International Organizations[END_REF], American 'soft power' [START_REF] Nye | Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics[END_REF] or a 'new world order of government networks' [START_REF] Slaughter | A New World Order[END_REF]. Slaughter flatly states that 'where a U.S. regulatory, judicial, or legislative approach is dominant, it is likely to be powerful through attraction rather than coercion -exactly the kind of soft power that Joseph Nye has been exhorting the United States to use. This attraction flows from expertise, integrity, competence, creativity, and generosity with time and ideas -all characteristics that U.S. regulators, judges, and legislators have exhibited with their foreign counterparts' (Slaughter, 2004: 5). To deny that the ideas that inform regulatory approaches are contested is, of course, a political statement. James Madison would agree. In his Federalist Paper No. 10 he argues that 'as long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will object to which the latter will attach themselves. . . . The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good' (Madison et al., 1788(Madison et al., /1987: 123, 124: 123, 124). 3. Zakaria (2003: 17) makes the same point when he argues that the American system 'might be termed "constitutional liberalism" ' and that it has 'nothing intrinsically to do with democracy and the two have not always gone together, even in the West'. 4. This is by no means a new phenomenon, nor does it contradict the substance of democracy, as can be learned from Weber (1978: 352), describing the situation in the decade before the First World War: 'Even where the propertyless strata are dominant, the taxation of personal property meets certain limits, as long as the propertied can freely leave the community. . . . If propertied families leave a community, those staying behind must pay more taxes; and in a community dependent on the market economy, and particularly a market economy, the havenots may find their economic opportunities so much reduced that they will abandon any reckless attempt at taxing the haves or will even deliberately favor them. . . . Thus, even where the have-nots are in control, personal property may either expect mercantilist privileges or at least exemption from . . . taxes, provided a plurality of communities competes with one another among which the property owners can chose their domicile.' 5. Deacon's article in this issue shows a learning process in the sense that the promotion of universalistic forms of social policy in international organizations mimics the success of the neoliberal revolution 'from above'. Of course, there is no absolute judgement possible in 'setting policies right'. When Deacon argues that there seems to be a shift underway from means-tested programmes to universal programmes -and marks this as progress -then this thinking is clearly linked to notions of social policy that have a strong cultural bias. 6. See, for example, the Declaration of Philadelphia from 1944 'on the aims and purposes of the International Labour Organization and of the principles which should inspire the policy of its Members', which is a formal part of the 'constitution' of the ILO. The Declaration (http://www.ilo.org/public/english/about/ iloconst.htm#annex) states as the first 'fundamental principle on which this organization is based' that 'labour is not a commodity', thus defining social and economic security as 'decommodification'. 7. For two historical studies making a similar point see [START_REF] Sklar | The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916: The Market, the Law, and Politics[END_REF] and [START_REF] Livingston | Pragmatism and the Political Economy of Cultural Revolution, 1850-1940[END_REF]. 8. This was first recognized by the American economist John Bates Clark in 1887 and is still relevant today (Livingston, 1997: 43).

references

Global Social Policy 5(1)

The Geography of Comparative Welfare State Research: A Comment

(sven e. o. hort is Professor of Sociology at Södertörn University College in Stockholm, Sweden)

In 2004, the United Nations (UN) had 191 member-states. Far from all of them would be labelled welfare states, although many of them pretend to belong to that category. When Harold Wilensky (1975) pioneered comparative welfare state research some 40 years ago, his sample from 1966 consisted of 64 countries at a time when the UN had 119 member-states. However, his analysis focused on the 22 most developed welfare states (see also Wilensky, 2002). And so it has been, until recently.

Wilensky's sample included the core West European countries, Israel, Canada and the USA in North America, three East European countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary), Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific. Japan was number 23 on the list. Thus, this was the geography of advanced welfare states on the globe -minus Japan (Wilensky 1975). In analytical terms, Wilensky made a distinction between four types of welfare states: liberal democratic, totalitarian, authoritarian oligarchic, and authoritarian populist. In 1990, when Gösta Esping-Andersen published The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, a work that in many ways summarized the research that had followed in the tracks of Wilensky, his sample had shrunk to 18 countries: Japan was included, Israel was gone and, most important, the East European countries had disappeared. The three 'worlds' made up the combined world of advanced capitalism and liberal democracy. Thus, democracy, or Western state-and nation-building more generally, had become a key indicator in the selection of research objects although also the decline in social development should not be forgotten. Nevertheless, it is probably too early to forget the various forms of authoritarian welfare states that hitherto have existed.

Since the early 1990s, the geography of comparative welfare state research has changed dramatically. Hence, globalization, and in particular global


This is a valuable addition to the international literature on comparative social policy, bringing together contributions from a range of experts on the theme of 'the Commonwealth and Social Inclusion'. The book is organized in three sections: (1) an overview; (2) national case studies: Jamaica, Botswana, South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Canada; and, (3) a discussion of the Commonwealth as a transnational institution. The editors Catherine Jones Finer and Paul Smyth have structured the contributions to this collection most effectively and, in contrast to some editors, have taken seriously their task of providing a valuable overview and conclusion. It was intriguing to read the biographical note of one of the editors, Paul Smyth, who is Professor of Social Policy at the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Melbourne and Director of Research at the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne. The latter affiliation sent me to my bookshelf to re-read Power for the Poor: The Family Centre Project -An Experiment in Self-Help, written for the Brotherhood of St Laurence by Michael Liffman (1978) describing an innovative attempt to tackle poverty. David Donnison in a foreword pondered that the world will not often provide so large a volume of resources for 60 families over several years. He suggested that the project served to raise questions about: professions and helping relationships; leadership within agencies; and the challenges faced by welfare ventures run by and for poor people.

The volume under review is concerned with poverty and exclusion and offers a rare insight into what Catherine Jones Finer describes as 'a decent sort of international club for its member states large and (especially) small' where former colonies may be able to play, not merely upon Britain's 'imperial guilt', but upon the guilt of its white-settled Dominions in general (p. 25).

The case studies illuminate diverse historical and cultural contexts. In a short book review it is impossible to convey the richness of the case studies. Leila Patel and James Midgley describe how the Mandela government made a concerted effort to formulate a developmental approach to social welfare that would abolish the racist heritage of the apartheid era in South Africa. The authors note particularly the efforts of the United Nations (UN) to promote a social development perspective through its World Social Summit in 1995 following which the South African government adopted an important policy document knows as the White Paper for Social Welfare which aimed to promote equity, participation and social investment. Patel and Midgley commend the political and economic transition but acknowledge the ever rising social costs as evidenced by high unemployment, rising levels of crime, domestic violence, child sexual offences and the exponential growth in the numbers of people affected by HIV/AIDS. Laksiri Jayasyriya argues that changes in all aspects of political, economic and social life in Sri Lanka have been exacerbated by ethnic conflict and expresses the view that Sri Lanka runs the risk of emulating the Brazil of the 1970s which witnessed a prosperity favouring the middle class, leaving large sections of the poor untouched. A thoughtful essay on 'Colonial Heritage and Ethnic Exclusion in Malaysia' by Souchou Yao, writing as a Malaysian Chinese, provides a thought-provoking analysis: from British colonialism's view of Malays as 'gentle, childlike people living their simple life in innocent contentment ' (p. 148) leading to what the author describes as the 'infantalisation' of the Malay subject. The failure of non-Malay communities or the Commonwealth to provide a radical critique of ethnic exclusion is regarded as highlighting the poor, underdeveloped civil society and public sphere in Sri Lanka.

Malcolm Stewart in a chapter on Canada discusses how politicians in the province of Quebec negotiated for control in such strategy areas as pension policy and immigration; instituted a network of integrated, community based health and social service centres; and, adopted a series of supportive family policy initiatives. Susan St John suggests that there is a readiness in New Zealand in the 21st century to discuss the meaning of social inclusion and a new view of the interrelationship between economic and social policies where the official discourse includes words like poverty, social inclusion and social capability. The theme of 'the Third Way' provides a unifying focus for several chapters suggesting that the 'Old Commonwealth Dominions' are receptive to policy currents that offer a humane alternative to neoliberal retrenchment, US dominated economic globalization and the dismantling of social protection.

For this reviewer the chapter by Patricia Harris on social inclusion, globalization and the Commonwealth provides an exceedingly balanced critique of the way the term social inclusion became a plank of Blair's New Labour and entered the field of policy analysis and development studies. She cautions that this, at first sight, heart-warming notion, promising greater cohesion and more shared opportunities, begs a host of questions about 'who gets to belong, to what sort of collectivity, and on what terms' (p. 29). Harris locates the term within an historic tradition whereby western theorists and administrators have pondered the relationship between market and society and in particular concerns about social order, social solidarity, and social participation and social justice. The author concludes that at an international level the principle of social order would call for laws to keep transnational capital honest while social justice would require taxes on the world's wealthy to be used for redistribution across the globe. Solidarity would demand protection of human rights so that that there would be -quoting Marshall (1949/1965: 102) -a general enrichment of the concrete substance of civilized life.

Global Social Policy 5(1)

Ann Lavan University College Dublin, Ireland