Critical Resource Dependencies and the Europeanization of Domestic Interest Groups

Although EU institutions and policies create additional opportunities for national interest groups to influence policy-making, not all domestic interest groups make use of the extended niche that is provided by the EU. Lagging Europeanization has often been explained by resource-based accounts, i.e. the wealth of interest groups determines their ability to Europeanize. This article explores an alternative explanation and analyzes the importance of ties that bind national interest groups to their constituency, their critical resource dependencies and their immediate environment. Our main conclusion is that Europeanization is not just shaped by properties of the EU system, but that the interest group’s embeddedness in its immediate environment should be considered as well.