Staying alive: crisis-induced disruptions and interest group survival

Well-functioning interest groups are essential for democracy, yet little is known about how groups cope with major disruptions in their environment. Using the seminal Energy-Stability-Area (ESA) model from population ecology theory, this study investigates how the Covid-19 pandemic affected organisations’ constituency interests (Area) and political access (Energy), resulting in different levels of instability experienced by individual groups. The findings - based on cross-country and survey experimental data from eight European polities - trace how system-level shocks trickle down to individual organisations. Specifically, they suggest that interest-disruptions (Area) are linked to mortality fears, with mixed findings regarding staff loss. Only limited evidence is found for the impact of access-disruptions (Energy) on mortality anxiety and staff loss in the medium term. These findings partly contradict expectations based on the ESA model and illustrate the difficulty of bridging macro and micro theories, and the need for better measures of group-level disruptions and resilience.