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74 Chapter 4 the European Union, but rather a rare initiative put forward by the Council. Therefore policy change expectations of the lobbyists were lower and they knew this type of procedure could be stopped. Their decision to take a blocking position was further supported by the tension they observed between the supranational institutions—as the EP disapproved of a procedure on which they would not have equal say, and the Commission disapproved of the Council initiating such a proposal, when it should, in their view, have come from the Commission.2 Thus, while the European Union provides an institutional setting that generally promotes modifying lobbying positions, here we see a strong blocking strategy was pursued by advocates faced with a proposal they vehemently opposed and who felt empowered by a questionable policymaking procedure. The link between the nature of the issue and the lobbying position is strong when it comes to the level of conflict on the issue: of those advocates reporting using a blocking position in the United States, all reported doing so on high-conflict issues where opposing camps were dueling. No advocates reported blocking stances if they were active on issues with no conflict or were active on issues with multiple perspectives that were not in direct opposition. Note that it is theoretically possible to block on a no-conflict issue; for example , an amendment gets introduced with language that could negatively affect an industry, the lobbyists for that industry choose a blocking strategy, but no other advocacy organizations are interested or mobilized on that precise point—thus it would be a situation in which blocking occurred on a noconflict issue. When it comes to low-conflict issues in the United States, even though the institutional system is more favorable than the EU system to blocking strategies , none can be found. Thus, if advocates are working on a case where one perspective dominates or multiple perspectives are contributing to the debate, all advocates involved see modifying approaches as the most productive. In the European Union the exact same pattern emerged; of those advocates in a blocking position, all were active on high-conflict issues while no advocates reported blocking positions if they were active on issues with no conflict at all or issues with multiple, but not opposing, perspectives. Again, theoretically, advocates could attempt to block a policy proposal harmful to their interests that did not concern other advocates; we do not, however, see any evidence of this. As in the United States, EU lobbyists find modifying strategies more effective than blocking on low-conflict issues. Looking at issue scope, reported in figure 4.2, very few U.S. advocates are engaging in blocking strategies on large-scope issues: none reported doing so if they were active on an issue with an impact on multiple sectors, and only 9 percent of advocates reported doing so on issues with system-wide scope. Instead, kill-the-bill strategies were reserved for niche or single-sector scope Lobbying Positions 75 issues; 91 percent of advocates using blocking strategies reported doing so on such smaller-scope cases. The relationship between issue scope and lobbying positions is identical in the European Union, with only 9 percent of advocates reporting blocking on large-scope issues (affecting multiple sectors or the entire system), while the majority of advocates using blocking positions did so on small-scope issues that had an impact on a single small or large sector. This was the expectation: large-scope issues, affecting and mobilizing larger numbers of organized interests , would be difficult to kill. Finally, the policymaking procedure of an issue goes a long way in explaining the lobbyists’ positions. The positions of lobbyists were correlated with three types of U.S. policymaking procedures—legislative, mixed, or regulatory.As table 4.1 shows, of those using a blocking procedure in the United States, 91 percent reported doing so on legislative issues while only 9 percent attempted to block a regulatory or mixed issue. Thus, when a case is being decided by bureaucrats, advocates find it much more difficult to take a blocking stance. This provides additional support to the institutional hypothesis that the degree of electoral accountability plays a role in determining lobbying positions, but even more important are the rules surrounding the policymaking process. Executive agencies are often mandated to pass regulations by legislative acts. So, similar to the EU system, once a proposal emerges, it will eventually be realized as a regulation . Advocates then are forced to...

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