Establishing groups across or within major political parties (Animal Ask)

In this report, we ask whether the animal advocacy movement should invest more resources into forming party groups focused on animal welfare. For context, we usually encourage animal advocacy organisations to pursue legislative lobbying in general, and there are guides offering advice on how to conduct legislative lobbying for animal advocacy (1,2).
In this report, we focus specifically on party groups. Party groups are informal groups of MPs focused on a particular policy area. Party groups on various topics exist in many legislatures around the world. Party groups are a way to influence animal welfare policy through existing parties. Party groups may influence policy in a number of ways, such as: policy advocacy, in which groups can concretely affect specific details of policy proposals; information exchange, in which groups can provide information to politicians through reports and events; and agenda setting, in which groups make a particular topic more salient in a legislature or in the media. Academic studies show that party groups often have a policy impact. There are two main types of these groups:

• All-party groups (APGs), which draw their membership from across multiple parties in a legislature. The European Parliament's Animal Welfare Intergroup is an example of an APG.
• Sub-party groups (SPGs), which exist inside a single party. The UK's Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation is an example of an SPG.
  We do not recommend that the movement invests huge resources into systematically launching party groups around the world. That said, we do believe that party groups are one promising tool among the many available in the legislative lobbying toolbox. While party groups are relatively cheap to run, the policy wins that tend to be obtained by party groups don't seem hugely different from what standard legislative lobbying would achieve. We also emphasise that successfully running a party group is a long-term investment—running a party group requires patience, political acumen, great communication skills, and (for sub-party groups) actively participating in the broader scene of the target political party.
  We also identify the countries where there are not yet animal advocacy party groups. In a 2013 publication, Ringe et al conducted a close examination of party groups in 45 of the world's advanced industrial democracies. That study found that of these 45 countries, 25 have some form of party group system. There are 17 countries that already have animal welfare party groups. Therefore, the following countries do not yet appear to have animal welfare party groups in their national legislatures: India, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, New Zealand, Norway. This is also true for the subnational legislatures in India's states, South Africa's provinces, Germany's states, Indonesia's provinces, plus some states in the USA and some states and territories in Australia. These jurisdictions would be the most promising opportunities for launching new party groups focused on animal advocacy.