Featured Graduate Student Research: Christina Toenshoff
Featured Graduate Student Research: Christina Toenshoff
In total, I conducted 17 interviews in three European cities and connected with two Berlin-based professors, who work on similar projects, to exchange research ideas. Originally, I planned on speaking solely to environmental groups and interview them about their interests and lobbying strategies vis-à-vis trade policy. However, environmental groups were unexpectedly difficult to get in touch with, especially during the summer time. While I did eventually interview all of the major environmental groups who lobby on trade in the European Union, I also arranged interviews with policy makers in order to study the way in which environmental groups’ lobbying is received. More details on the interviews conducted in each city as well as the main insights gained from the interviews are listed below.
Interviews in London:
During my week in London, I interviewed four individuals. One person, who ran a grassroots lobby group for climate action, told me about their group’s views on trade and how they get in touch with policy officials. Another, who worked on policy for a large environmental thinktank, gave me an overview of their novel focus on trade and the environment now that Britain is starting to conduct its own trade policy. I also interviewed two civil servants, one of whom was able to shed light on the inner workings of environmental decision making in the UK and EU institutions and one who talked to me about the UK’s role in international climate change negotiations and the way in which civil servants interact with environmental lobby groups. After a successful week in London, my next destination was Brussels – the center of European trade policy.
Interviews in Brussels:
Given the centrality of Brussels in trade policy making, my week there was very busy. I talked to current and former trade lobbyists for all major environmental groups working on trade in the European Union. These interviews focused on environmental NGO’s lobbying priorities and strategies. In addition, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), as well as their assistants and advisors, turned out to be very accessible and happy to be interviewed. In total, I spoke to three assistants of MEPs, two MEPs themselves and one trade advisor for a parliamentary faction. The MEPs stemmed from multiple left- and green leaning parties and were members of the International Trade Committee, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy or the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. They also represented very different views on European trade policy – I spoke to some who were largely in favor of recent European trade agreements, and some who had been leading figures in the efforts to stop TTIP and CETA. This gave me a great overview of how environmental groups’ demands are received and represented in Parliament, as well as how the European Parliament interacts with the European Commission’s DG Trade.
Interviews in Berlin:
My last stop was Berlin, where I spent another week interviewing as many people as possible. Speaking to volunteers and policy professionals in Germany was particularly interesting, because Germany was the center of anti-TTIP and CETA demonstrations, led partially by large environmental groups. First, I managed to speak to someone representing the same citizen lobby group I had talked to in London, which gave me a chance to compare and contrast lobbying strategies across different European countries. Another interview was conducted with a professional trade lobbyist working for a German environmental NGO. In Germany, the economy committee of the Bundestag is responsible for trade policy and I was lucky enough to also speak to an assistant to a member of parliament who sits on that committee. Lastly, being in Berlin gave me a chance to exchange ideas with two Berlin-based professors, who are also working on European trade policy and the lobbying strategies of NGOs.
Insights from the Interviews:
The interviews provided valuable insights into the inner workings of trade and environmental policy within the European Union. First, I learned that decision-making in the European bureaucracy is often driven by personal career ambitions of individual civil servants. More than changes in governing parties, changes in leading bureaucrats and negotiators seem to make a big difference in terms of European trade policy decisions and the extent to which the Commission is willing to listen to NGO demands.
Another lesson I took away is that lobbying on both climate change and trade policy, is most effective if done very early while mandates are still being negotiated. However, due to limits in terms of resources and information, NGOs are often unable to lobby until an agreement is already close to being concluded or ratified.
Further, I found out that NGOs, even the largest ones, do not think that they can make an issue salient if it is not already in the public eye. They therefore focus on trade agreements that already have some media coverage. In terms of their choice of topics, there are clear network effects: NGOs form networks, where they share information and join together to strategize. Expertise and interest in a certain trade agreement or clause of one organization often sparks the involvement of others. NGOs also prefer to lobby on agreements where they have partner organizations or outlets in all treaty partners.
Strategies and priorities differ between NGOs, and I would classify them in three broad types of organizations. There are purely online-based campaign groups, which will only lobby on agreements that are already in the public eye and test which messages get the most attention before investing in bigger campaigns. Another type are organizations that rely partially on grass-roots membership and action but also maintain headquarters in political hubs. These will use grass-roots movements if an agreement is sufficiently salient to mobilize their members. They will also use inside-lobbying, talking directly to policy makers, for salient and less salient agreements. However, they can be most impactful if there are large public protests supporting their work. A last group contains organizations that rely mostly on outside funding by governments, foundations and firms and therefore function like think-tanks. These can afford to work on all international trade agreements, whether they are in the public eye or not. Their main role is to provide reports and expertise to policy-makers and to other NGOs in the network of environmental groups.
Lastly, I learned that environmental groups and Green Party politicians are not at all satisfied with the EU trade agreements’ sustainability chapters or the changes the EU has made to Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). They demand much more far-reaching reforms and are quite pessimistic about how much of an effect they can have on EU policy-making. The one group that seems to be relatively convinced by the EU’s policies on the environment and trade are liberal-leaning Social Democrats.
Next Steps:
With the knowledge gained thanks to these interviews, I will now begin work on two related research projects. The first will try to confirm the lobbying patterns of environmental NGOs that were detected in the interviews. It will look at the role of network effects and public salience in lobbying decisions. The second will try to tease out statistically whether the inclusion of extensive environmental clauses is driven by the need to bring at least some Social Democrats into the ratifying majority for a trade agreement.
Thank you again to The Europe Center for generously funding these interviews, which will form the foundation of my research in years to come. Next to great insights for my academic work, I also had a lot of fun touring three European capitals for this project.
Christina Toenshoff is a PhD Candidate in Political Science.
