Is there really a 'strong power' or not? The Italian Association of Banks (Abi): organizational resources, lobbying strategies, and influence

The aim of this paper is to empirically measure the influence of the Italian Association of Banks (ABI) with respect to three policy processes, each of which being oriented towards the liberalization of the Italian banking policy sector, between 2006 and 2012. Theoretically, I argue that interest groups’ influence depends upon: the quality of their organizational resources and lobbying strategies; the characteristics of the issue(s) at stake. In order to be influential, interest groups’ organizational resources and lobbying strategies have to fit with issue characteristics. The empirical analysis shows that: ABI holds some organizational resources (expertise) and does not hold others (symbolic resources); ABI prefers to develop insider lobbying strategies rather than outsider lobbying strategies; ABI is less influential than it is commonly assumed. This is probably because of the characteristics of liberalization policies (high political salience; low technical complexity), which do not constitute the ideal battleground for ABI.