Effectiveness of Interest Groups
Research Question: With regards to the formation of environmental policies how influential are interest groups such as energy firms, trade associations, environmental NGO’s, and aboriginal groups?
Possibly change Research question to...
With regards to the formation of environmental policies which interest groups are most influential?
Possible Survey Questions: How effective do you think interest groups are at influencing environmental policies made by the government? 1) very effective 2) somewhat effective 3) neutral 4) somewhat ineffective 5) very ineffective
As a result of the changed research question, this survey question could be reformulated to...
How effective do you think each of the following interest groups are in influencing environmental policies made by the government? Rank each of the following groups (Energy firms, trade associations, environmental NGO's, and aboriginal groups)as;
1) very effective 2) somewhat effective 3) neutral 4) somewhat ineffective 5) very ineffective
What resource do you think is most necessary for interest groups in order to influence environmental policies? a) Money b) Public opinion c) Contacts d) Control over investment e) Expertise, skilled leadership
What does control over investment mean?
I like your survey questions. I wonder if "interest groups" is too broad though? I personally think, for example, large energy (oil) firms and trade associations would have significantly more effectiveness than aboriginal groups.
Another resource I would imagine some groups have to influence government is the amount of votes they could sway, for example a union telling its members how to vote. Does this count under "Public Opinion" you think?
1) What does control over investment mean?
Control over investment is the power that businesses obtain in the sense that they create jobs for people. Governments are constrained from initiating policies that undermine the business climate because their main concern is re-election which is very dependent on the healthiness of the economy.
2) Are interest groups too broad? Effectiveness of aboriginal groups in comparison to trade associations?
Yes, I think you are right about interest groups being too broad of a category to research as a whole. I have added changes above to the research and survey questions; let me know what you think. Regarding the effectiveness of aboriginal groups in comparison to the others, it is important to acknowledge that aboriginals obtain jurisdictional resources which allow them to veto certain projects with regards to the impacts it may have on their land and the lifestyle they want to maintain.
3) Public Opinion:
The amount of votes a group can sway is a result of their effectiveness as a group. All groups are aiming to have public opinion in their favour due to the fact that governments often use public opinion as a measure to consider when formulating policies.
I think we would have to change the wording of "Control over Investment" to something that could be easily understood by the general public. Maybe "independence from external authorities"?
Marie I really like this original question: Research Question: With regards to the formation of environmental policies how influential are interest groups such as energy firms, trade associations, environmental NGO’s, and aboriginal groups?
its simple and the survey choices you provided beneath are clear and concise. The only thing I would do is specify the actors: So I propose we keep NGO's and energy firms, but also add in epistemic communities.
I agree, I like this question. Also agree with Boris, let's specify the actors to get some direct results.
"What resource do you think is most necessary for interest groups in order to influence environmental policies? a) Money b) Public opinion c) Contacts d) Control over investment e) Expertise, skilled leadership?"
I think being able to spread "information" is key for interest groups who wish to successfully influence environmental policy. I think it would be good if we can ask people "how informed" they are about specific environmental issues or what kind of information they've been open to in regards to environmental issues/policy. For example: How many times have you heard about the Alberta Tar Sands issues within the last year: 1. More than 5 times 2. More than once but less than 5 times. 3. Never. (just an example) We can also ask through what means the information was communicated, and how many times etc.
Nice one.
I think the particular example Boris gave is an excellent example of the kinds of questions we could potentially ask people if we wanted to know how well they were informed a propos to some environmental policy/ issue X, though I would be careful around structuring our the answers we provide them to reflect a realistic frequency of times they have been exposed to a certain issue. So, in the context of this Tar Sands example, I think we'd have to be rational and assume that the gregarious people of MetroVancouver have (likely) heard of the Tar Sands at least more than 5 times a year - it would be more like 5 times per month.