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Studying Preference Attainment using Spatial Models
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2026
Abstract
Interest group influence represents the Higgs boson of contemporary social research. Scholars have tried to define and measure influence for decades: tens of different definitions are used in the literature and as many methods to measure it can be found. The literature has recently converged towards an agreement on how to study interest group influence: preference attainment. The latter has monopolised the research in the literature in the last years. Yet, a discussion on what preference attainment is, what it does and what it does not is still missing in the literature. This works aims to fill this gap by providing a theoretical and methodological informed discussion on interest group influence and preference attainment. In so doing, I propose a novel method to apply preference attainment in an effective and efficient manner.
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- Copyright © 2016 European Consortium for Political Research
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