The impact of interest group diversity on legal implementation in the European Union

Do interest groups have an impact on transposition of European Union (EU) directives? This paper offers an analysis of interest group communities of member states and links the concept of diversity to legal implementation. In order to accommodate diverse interests, member state governments allow for some deviations when transposing EU legislation into national law. Therefore, successful transposition is hard to achieve in member states with diverse interest group environments. This paper tests this argument by applying a large N study including 19 directives and 15 member states. The results show that correct transposition is likely to be negatively affected by high levels of diversity of national interest groups; however, this effect is conditional on the discretion granted to member states by EU legislation.