The Nature and Dynamics of Access: Conceptualizing and Measuring Procedural Engagement Dynamics Between EU Interest Groups and Public Officials

ABSTRACT Policy engagement procedures now demand more from interest groups and require them to adopt more collaborative‐minded behaviors when interacting with policymakers. While existing scholarship largely conceptualizes policy engagement as policy access, commonly measured by frequency or type of engagement, studies examining the precise nature and dynamics of policy access remain rare. We examine how interest groups experience their engagement with policymakers, and whether this impacts their overall level of satisfaction in consultation processes. We unpack the nature of what this engagement entails by considering enabling and restricting procedural aspects covered by the collaborative governance literature to complement the focus on policy access by the interest group literature. Analyzing EU interest group survey data, we find engagement processes feature both enabling and restricting elements, and vary across group types. Furthermore, we clarify the relation between enabling features, and levels of satisfaction with the consultation process, as well as the role of political contestation and prior involvement.