"The proposed research project explores the lack of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the oldest common policy of the present day European Union, prior to 1992. It does so by analysing the role and influence of organised farm interests as one of the main driving forces behind agricultural policy inertia.The project has two main aims. Firstly, it investigates how and to what extent farm interests became increasingly Europeanised in response to European policy changes and reform attempts of the CAP. Secondly, it explores whether and to what extent they successfully developed and used the European in addition to the national route of lobbying to defend the status quo of the policy. In exploring how and why farmers were able to prevent a reform of the CAP for 25 years, the project will trace the institutional and ideational Europeanisation of agricultural interests; explore the effects of these changes on farmers’ strategies for collective action; and assess their impact on the EU policy field.The project takes into account four national producers’ organisations in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and two transnationally-constituted umbrella groups. To analyse how these organisations wielded power collectively to prevent CAP reform, the project focuses on two case studies of agricultural commodities: cereals and milk"