Campaigns without civil society? The involvement of organized interests in electoral politics

Elections are key moments for interactions between civil society and representatives. While bottom-up mobilization tries to influence the composition of parliament and policy outputs, political parties and politicians engage with broader civil society to strengthen their legitimacy and to obtain strategic benefits in terms of electoral results. This study focuses on the role organized interests play in election campaigns and explains why collective societal actors do not engage in a significant way in the electoral process. By examining the Portuguese case during the 2019 elections, this study relies on data triangulation to map the involvement of organized interests in the electoral process. We argue that political parties have no incentives to foster linkages with interest groups, while civil society organizations prefer to stay in the shade or do not have opportunities to engage in electoral politics. The findings have implications not only in terms of low levels of political mobilization, but also with regard to policy innovation (and lack thereof).