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The Washington Lobbyists
... Women's representation similarly lags at the national level among lobbyists active in Congress. Only 7 percent of Milbrath's (1963) sample of Washington lobbyists were women. This number rose to 22 percent in the 1980s when Schlozman and Tierney (1986) conducted their research, and to 35 percent by 1999 when Bath, Gayvert-Owen and Nownes (2005) Beyond differences in percentages, when and where women are represented as lobbyists also varies across policy domains. ...
... A second mechanism linking the election of women legislators with the hiring of women lobbyists is informational in nature. In addition to cultivating relationships with individual legislators, lobbyists also provide information to lawmakers and perform ancillary duties such as drafting legislation (Milbrath 1963;Hall and Deardorff 2006). Importantly, scholars find lobbyists and special interests tend to target and mobilize legislative allies rather than trying to convert lawmakers to a particular position (Hall and Deardorff 2006). ...
Despite a growing body of literature examining the consequences of women’s inclusion among lobbyists, our understanding of the factors that lead to women’s initial emergence in the profession is limited. In this study, we propose that gender diversity among legislative targets incentivizes organized interests to hire women lobbyists, and thus helps to explain when and how women emerge as lobbyists. Using a comprehensive data set of registered lobbyist–client pairings from all American states in 1989 and 2011, we find that legislative diversity influences not only the number of lobby contracts held by women but also the number of former women legislators who become revolving-door lobbyists. This second finding further supports the argument that interests capitalize on the personal characteristics of lobbyists, specifically by hiring women to work in more diverse legislatures. Our findings have implications for women and politics, lobbying, and voice and political equality in the United States.
... The "positive" view (lobbying as a functional expression of democracy) is based on various arguments. Some highlight how lobbying is a form of collective action and political participation, shielded by the liberal-democratic ideals of pluralism, freedom of speech, and the right to petition the government (Truman 1951;Milbrath 1963;Holyoke 2015). Others stress the "exchange logic" that drives the relationship between interest groups supplying information and demanding access and policymakers demanding information and supplying access (Bouwen 2002). ...
In political studies, lobbying is portrayed as a vital process of political participation, contributing information, policy capacities, and political capital to policymaking, but also as a potential source of representation biases, undue influence, and policy capture. Given such Janus-faced nature of lobbying within democracy, the primary aim of this article is to investigate which perception prevails among citizens empirically. By analysing the primary data of two surveys of 4000 Canadian and 1600 Swiss citizens, it investigates the public perception of lobbying across countries with contrasting institutional and regulatory frameworks and different levels of trust in political institutions. Results show that citizens’ perception of lobbying differs in the two contexts, being predominantly negative in Switzerland and positive in Canada. Additionally, Swiss citizens are significantly more likely than Canadians to view lobbying as inadequately regulated. Both trust in political institutions and the perception that lobbying is properly regulated have a significant and positive impact on the perception of lobbying. Interestingly, despite Switzerland’s higher levels of trust in political institutions than Canada, this trust does not translate into a more positive perception of lobbying, suggesting that robust regulations may play a more decisive role than institutional trust in shaping public perceptions.
... Definitions of lobbying generally share the notion that it involves the efforts of non-state actors to influence the policy process and its outcomes through direct and self-initiated interactions with governmental decision-makers (Graham, Evans, and Chen 2023;Milbrath 1963). This can be undertaken by firms themselves ("in-house lobbyists") or through specialized intermediary businesses ("consultant lobbyists"). ...
Lobbying is a multi‐faceted phenomenon that involves interest groups and corporations contacting politicians and officials in order to try to achieve their policy preferences. While interest group policy‐related lobbying has received a great deal of attention, studies of corporate contract lobbying are rarer even though this is a much older phenomenon. The article critically examines the commonly‐held position that in the latter case “lobbying is for winners”; that is, that large scale corporate lobbying helps secure contracts that might otherwise have gone to a different firm. It argues instead that firms enjoying technological and other market‐related strengths enjoy an “insider advantage” and lobby less than firms in more competitive situations. In other words that in many situations “lobbying is for losers,” a tool used by weaker firms trying to match or offset the technological and other advantages enjoyed by dominant firms. The article draws on government lobbying registers to examine recent defense‐related procurement efforts in Canada to purchase fighter jets, naval surface ships, patrol vessels, and search and rescue aircraft and the contract lobbying they engendered. Evidence from the four cases provides support for the “loser” thesis with respect to large‐scale technologically advanced goods but also the need to carefully define what constitutes an “inside advantage” allowing firms to forego or delay their lobbying activity, often until only after a contract has been awarded.
... Building on Lester Milbrath's canonical political science definition of lobbying (Milbrath 1963), but adjusting it to the characteristics of legal analysis, this contribution defines lobbying as the attempt by natural or legal persons who lack legal authority in the lawmaking process, except for citizens acting on their own behalf, to influence the lawmaking activity of those holding such authority (on this definition, see also Ammann 2025). In terms of scope, this article focuses on legislative lobbying, i.e., on attempts to influence the legislature, and on inside lobbying, which concerns direct communications between lobbyists and lawmakers (see, e.g., Weiler and Brändli 2015). ...
Compared to global lobbying hubs like the USA and the European Union and to its neighboring countries, Switzerland hardly regulates legislative lobbying, i.e., lobbying that targets the legislative branch. Only three types of legal provisions apply to lobbying in the Swiss legislature: First, legislators must disclose their ties to interest groups. Second, access to the parliamentary building is limited and granted at the discretion of each legislator, who may give an entry pass to two individuals of his or her choice. Third, legislative lobbying is illegal if it violates the criminal law provisions on bribery. Proposals to enact more comprehensive regulation have failed, often after several years of legislative debate. Pursuant to the classification proposed by Chari et al. (Regulating Lobbying: A Global Comparison, 2nd ed., Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2019), the Swiss legal framework governing legislative lobbying qualifies as a ‘low-robustness’ regime at best. Yet, Switzerland ranks high in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (6/180 in 2023). Is more extensive regulation superfluous or overdue in Switzerland? While the Swiss legal and political order is exceptional in some respects, these characteristics do not justify ‘Swiss exceptionalism’ with regard to the regulation of legislative lobbying, as some of these specificities pose distinctive threats that the law needs to tackle.
... Scholars have long contemplated the nature of public affairs and lobbying (McGrath et al., 2010;Milbrath, 1963). Much attention in research has been given to the contentious role of this field. ...
Purpose
This article addresses recent calls in the literature for advancing our understanding of public affairs consultants and their role conceptions. By testing and further exploring self-perceptions of public affairs consultants the study aims to offer new insight into how consultants define and view their occupational role.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on a nationwide survey with public affairs consultants in Sweden.
Findings
Four main role conceptions were identified (advocate, do-gooder, expert and intermediary). Further, the study tests how personal and professional characteristics correlate with different role conceptions, by viewing professional experience and consultants' selection of clients. Data also suggest that consultants' background in politics does not promote any specific role perception. Finally, the findings also show that how consultants choose clients is a divider in the industry, where some act as passive intermediaries while other take a more active role in their choice of clients.
Originality/value
The findings enhance our understanding of public affairs as a field, and specifically about the modelling of professional roles amongst consultants. The empirical results in this study show how contemporary role typologies needs to be extended to better capture the specificities of consultants' roles in public affairs. By addressing the issue of how consultants choose clients the study engages with the complex debate of whether consultants ought to act as objective or subjective agents and hence join the conversation on ethics in public affairs.
... In termini cognitivi e di comunicazione tale aspetto prende il nome di framing ("incorniciamento"), vale a dire la scelta di una certa prospettiva nel presentare la issue in questione, gli aspetti problematici, la propria posizione in merito, la valutazione etica che si dà di sé e degli altri gruppi coinvolti, enfatizzando strategicamente alcuni aspetti e tralasciandone altri 33 . In questo senso si comprende appieno una delle "classiche" definizioni di lobbying, che, sottolineando l'aspetto cognitivo sottostante a ogni decisione (e a ogni tentativo di influenza di una decisione), ricorda come «un processo di lobbying sia totalmente un processo di comunicazione» 34 . ...
How can we define lobbying? What is a lobby? Is an interest group different from a pressure group? And how can we categorize different types of groups? Who can be technically labeled as a lobbyist? By adopting the perspective of political science, the article tries to answer all these questions, providing the fundamental definitions of the concepts involved in the practice, the study, and the regulation of lobbying, also untangling some theoretical problems that often lead to various misunderstandings in the public discourse on lobbying, and that are usually behind ineffective or “flawedµ attempts of regulation of lobbying activities
... information about ongoing policy debates,(Austen-Smith and Wright 1994;Schnakenberg 2017;Hansen 1991) or capacity to work on di ferent legislative issues.(Hall and Deardor f 2006;Bauer, Pool and Dexter 1964;Milbrath 1963) However, in each of these respects, committee chairs are signi cantly advantaged over other legislators. Indeed, compared to other legislators, chairs generally accrue higher levels of campaign contributions,(Box-Ste fensmeier and Grant 1999;Esterling 2007;Fouirnaies 2017) have higher levels of expertise, activity, and interest in their committees' issue areas,(Volden and Wiseman 2014) and have separate, additional sta f dedicated speci cally to chair's needs in committee.(Deering ...
This dissertation examines why Congress addresses some problems while ignoring others. Key to this process are congressional committees, which organize much of Congress's day-to-day activity but whose role has been downplayed in recent scholarship on congressional lawmaking. I examine how committees come to address particular problems with legislation, across three substantive papers. First, I find that while committee leaders may be more constrained in their agenda-setting powers than in the past, they can still direct their committee's attention to issue areas that they prioritize personally. In the second and third parts of the dissertation, I examine how interest group lobbying influences chairs' agenda-setting decisions with respect to individual bills. In the second paper, I develop the concept of interest diversity as the relative degree of observable variety of social identities, political causes, or industries represented by set of organizations. Using new data on interest groups' positions on over 5000 bills introduced during the 109th to 113th Congresses, I develop and validate a measure for interest diversity among groups lobbying on a bill. I show that the net interest diversity on a bill, the difference in supporters' and opponents' interest diversities, varies in ways that are both consistent with general predictions about interest group activity as well as with well-understood patterns of legislative and interest group behavior. In the third paper, I examine how bills' net interest diversity impacts the legislative agendas of congressional committees. I argue that committee chairs' incentives to promote viable legislation induce them to favor bills garnering the support of a diverse array of causes and industries, who are in turn able to mobilize the sustained support and attention of many legislators. I find that bills with higher net interest diversity are more likely to be considered in committee. I then show how these associations vary across bill sponsors and party alignments between Congress and the White House. Taken together, these results suggest that interest group influence, and what makes interest groups influential, is moderated by legislative institutions and may be more benign than is commonly assumed.
... In their survey of American organized interests, Baumgartner et al. (2009) report that the most frequent tactic in which respondents indicated engaging was personal contact with rank-and-file members of Congress and their staffs (80.6%), and many respondents also reported making personal contact with majority and minority members of congressional committees (60.7% and 53.6%, respectively) and officials in federal agencies (41.9%) relevant to their policy goals (see also Drutman 2015;Schlozman and Tierney 1986). Further, when asked which lobbying activities they believed to be most effective, most organized interests participating in surveys conducted by Berry (1977) and Milbrath (1963) selected direct contacts with policymakers. While many governments outside of the USA provide more formal opportunities for organized interests to participate in the policymaking process (Binderkrantz et al. 2017(Binderkrantz et al. , 2020, organized interests in those contexts also report frequent direct contacts with policymakers in the legislative and executive branches of government (Beyers 2004;Binderkrantz 2005). ...
While organized interests employ a broad range of activities in pursuit of their goals, practitioners and scholars alike deem access, or direct contacts with policymakers, as the “gold standard” of activities. However, this type of access is difficult for empirical researchers to study because scant records of direct contacts exist. In this essay, I discuss the role of access in studies of organized interests and policymaking and describe three common approaches to the empirical study of access: official records of access, when they exist; survey self-reports by organized interests and policymakers; and experiments. I identify the strengths and limitations of each approach and provide guidance and recommendations for empirical researchers using these approaches to study access.
... However, to understand the complexities of individual policy issues, politicians require information about them in the first place. As interest group scholars have long argued (Milbrath, 1964;Baumgartner and Leech, 1998) information provision is one of the key activities that interest group engage in, often targeting both politicians as well as mass public. It is important to note that this information cannot be assumed to be entirely objective and unbiased. ...
The essays in this thesis explore diverse manifestations and different aspects of political text. The two main contributions on the methodological side are bringing forward novel data on political actors who were overlooked by the existing literature and application of new approaches in text analysis to address substantive questions about them. On the theoretical side this thesis contributes to the literatures on lobbying, government transparency, post-conflict studies and gender in politics. In the first paper on interest groups in the UK I argue that contrary to much of the theoretical and empirical literature mechanisms of attaining access to government in pluralist systems critically depend on the presence of limits on campaign spending. When such limits exist, political candidates invest few resources in fund-raising and, thus, most organizations make only very few if any political donations. I collect and analyse transparency data on government department meetings and show that economic importance is one of the mechanisms that can explain variation in the level of access attained by different groups. Furthermore, I show that Brexit had a diminishing effect on this relationship between economic importance and the level of access. I also study the reported purpose of meetings and, using dynamic topic models, show the temporary shifts in policy agenda during this period. The second paper argues that civil society in post-conflict settings is capable of high-quality deliberation and, while differing in their focus, both male and female can deliver arguments pertaining to the interests of broader societal groups. Using the transcripts of civil society public consultation meetings across former Yugoslavia I show that the lack of gender-sensitive transitional justice instruments could stem not from the lack of women’s 3 physical or verbal participation, but from the dynamic of speech enclaves and topical focus on different aspects of transitional justice process between genders. And, finally, the third paper maps the challenges that lie ahead with the proliferation of research that relies on multiple datasets. In a simulation study I show that, when the linking information is limited to text, the noise can potential occur at different levels and is often hard to anticipate in practice. Thus, the choice of record linkage requires balancing between these different scenarios. Taken together, the papers in this thesis advance the field of “text as data” and contribute to our understanding of multiple political phenomena.
... Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 07 August 2020 tion from interest groups to the government (Bauer et al. 1963;Milbrath 1963). Interest groups, then, lobby only those who are political allies. ...
Political executives and interest groups need each other to accomplish their political and policy goals. Important actions taken by top-level bureaucrats, ministers, and heads of states might be influenced by interest groups. Interest groups, in return, might serve as soldiers for the executives, gathering information or helping them implement policies. Without studying the connections between interest groups and political executives, one cannot paint a complete picture of how any political executive work. By reviewing the re search on interest groups and lobbying in political executives, this chapter offers avenues for future research about the relationship between interest groups and different political executive types, and interest groups' impact on policy outcomes. These are not merely theoretical issues. They have implications for institutional and policy design and are of ut most importance for practitioners.
... We owe the notion that lobbying is essentially a communicative process to the pioneering work of Lester Milbrath (1963) which utterly redefined how we think of interest representation and articulation (McGrath, 2018). Milbrath is perhaps the ultimate pluralist, seeing a collective dynamism in the voicing of diverse policy preferences by interest organizations. ...
This paper explores the development of the field of public affairs (PA) through the observations, research and experiences of two of its most cited scholars, deputy editors, and longtime contributors to the Journal of Public Affairs. We examine how PA and its practitioners have moved non‐linearly from 2000+ PA, to Public Affairs 2.0, toward a still evolving model of practice. Three areas of practice are explored in depth, including (a) how the function is managed, (b) its communication activity, and (c) how it supports organizations in interacting and engaging with stakeholders and issues. Finally, four alternative futures are laid out as possible paths along which the function may evolve as it moves forward to its next decade's end in 2030.
... This new market for political policy advice has caused scholars to talk of a "PR-itization" of politics and coin terms such as the development of a "consultocracy" (Tyllström, 2013;Kantola & Seeck, 2011). Despite this, societal validation and legitimacy remains a struggle and reoccurring debates concern how and if public affairs practices contribute to democratic society (Davidson & Rowe, 2016;Milbrath, 1963). In essence this is a question discussed in renowned and contemporary academic works on who has the power to influence public discussions, public opinions and political policies in democratic societies. ...
This paper offers insights into how public affairs practitioners perceive their often-debated role in the political process. By examining the specific group of public affairs practitioners called “revolvers”, i.e. individuals who move from a position in the political sphere to a position as a public affairs consultant or vice-versa, we engage in the on-going discussion concerning the legitimacy of public affairs in modern democracies. The empirical material consists of interviews with revolvers who as public affairs practitioners have experience of working in the Swedish political sphere, as well as the commercially driven public affairs industry. Consequently, the article contributes to our understanding of lobbying in the political process from the perspective of the controversial revolvers and gives us an important insight into how revolvers in Sweden argue and act in their efforts to create legitimacy for their role by attempting to fuse corporate and public interests. The perception which is predominant in this study, suggests that the revolvers regard themselves as a kind of corporatist influence in a democratic society rather than a special interest influencer. The revolvers appear to find common ground when defining the purpose and contribution of their occupation as advocates, but that different lines of arguments arise when practitioners displace and differentiate themselves from the tainted work connected to lobbying and advocacy tasks. Hence it is clear that there is tension between the professional role conception and role performance.
... Despite various definitions of the term, the core of lobbying is always considered a form of communication. Milbrath (1960Milbrath ( , 1963 discusses the benefits of lobbying, mostly the know-how and expertise that lobbyists can transfer to decision-makers. On the other hand, he also stresses the influence of interest groups on policies and their ability to change the perception of politicians to favor particular opinions (Milbrath 1963, pp. ...
This chapter offers a deeper theoretical analysis of rational-choice principles, interests, subjects, and methods of mediating interests including the position of interest groups in democratic political systems. A stakeholder-centered model is presented based on a simple scheme of interest groups, decision-makers, business, and the public. Three hypothetical situations are modeled: a world with no lobbying, with non-transparent lobbying, and with transparent lobbying. The role of information symmetry is discussed. It is argued that non-transparent lobbying can lead to government failures as it can lead to illegal practices of influence and corruption, with their economic implications. The failures are often corrected by some form of regulation but any regulation should always be discussed with regard to efficiency and the optimum of its outcome.
... Second, the transaction costs will be lower for information demanders when trying to find the best credible information among their close friends rather than acquaintances (Milbrath 1963). Combined with government officials' risk-averse nature (Argyris 1985;Steinacker 2002), local officials wish to seek reliable and valuable information (Feiock et al. 2010). ...
Studies have found that information sharing between city governments can be easily observed within the
same county jurisdiction, but less attention has been paid to the reasons why the jurisdictional boundary matters.
This article fills this lacuna, drawing on the insight of the “strength of strong ties” argument that “people help their
friends first.” The analysis reveals that city governments in the Orlando, Florida, metropolitan area are more likely
to share economic development information (EDI) with governments in the same county as the collective demand for
such information in that area increases. This study additionally finds that the greater the demand for EDI, the more
likely it is that city governments will seek the information from their county members. As a result, as the demand
for information increases among city governments in a metropolitan area, the likelihood that it will be shared by all
members of the area beyond the county boundaries decreases.
... Influencing decision-making processes by using media or public support is regarded as outside lobbying (Kollmann, 1998). This approach aims to reach the general public (Trapp & Laursen, 2017), to present an issue or a public interest and to pressure decision makers (Ihlen et al., 2018) and also to communicate facts, arguments and power (Milbrath, 1963). This approach is also used as a strategy to educate the public on the key problems and the strategies to address these problems (Gardner, Geierstanger, Brindis & McConnel, 2010). ...
This study examines how the media and journalists are used in lobbying processes. To explore the topic a systematic review of the literature in peer-reviewed journals published between January 2000 to June 2018 was undertaken. The findings of this paper indicate that lobbyists and interest groups engage with a plethora of various strategies and systematic methods when influencing or trying to advocate the work of journalists and media organisations. The findings shed the mystery of lobbyists and interest group’s communicative attempts. This study increases the knowledge of the relationships between journalists and lobbyists in lobbying processes. Based on the literature review, the paper presents a categorised model of media influencing strategies in lobbying process.
... A second major reason to defend the existence of lobbying is the expertise of the specialzed interests 8 . As opposed to the Congressmen as 'generalists' (Hall and Deardorff 2006), lobbyists -as experts -provide technical information (Milbrath 1963) and -as organizations affected by regulation -oversight about the practical applicability of policies (Epstein and O'Halloran 1995;McCubbins and Schwartz 1984). In this way, lobbyists can contribute to the draft of sophisticated policies. ...
In most contemporary democracies lobbying is considered a usual part of the policy process, often even constitutionally granted. Ideally, interest groups serve as transmission belts that feed societal interests into the political system. This positive view is challenged in two ways. On a macro level, critical scholars see in lobbying a source of bias in interest representation. On a micro level, there is a conflict, which actions of lobbyists are considered acceptable and which are not. The majority of US citizens believes that more than 50 percent of members of the Congress are corrupt. It is not recorded if this is directly related to the increasing amount of lobbying but it shows the importance of clarification what corruption actually is and what might seem as corruption although it is not. The distinction between lobbying and corruption is such an important clarification due to their similarities in their modes of transactions actions outside the public eye. Focusing on action that aim to influence public policy, this paper discusses what action can be seen as sound lobbying and what kind of actions should be rated as corrupt. It, firstly, gives a short overview about the historic emergence of lobbying and anti-corruption regulation in the United States. Secondly, I span examples of lobbying strategies and of (non-)corrupt political actions along the dimensions legality and legitimacy. Thirdly, I synthesize these two categorizations into a single typology. Based on this typology, I finally evaluate the current regulations in the United States.
... Indeed, scholars assessing the information provision process tend to make dissembling the near-default position of interest group lobbying (e.g. , Milbrath 1963;Berry 1977;Grossman and Helpman 2001). Thus, formal models of information provision operate under the strict conditions of a "cheap talk game": decisionmakers cannot verify the accuracy of the information they receive, and there are no added costs for interest groups to send inaccurate, biased, or erroneous information (Grossman and Helpman 2001;Austen-Smith 1993). ...
There is demand for more in-depth knowledge about the strategies, which think tanks employ to influence EU policy-making. The strategies of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) are explored based on desktop research and interviews with practitioners. The two think tanks have drawn on strategic advice through their concern about assuring quality, independence, transparency, integrity, and last but not least resources. Whereas CEPS has been hesitant to make large-scale changes to its core strategies, the ECDPM has introduced a sound strategy paper 2017–2021. This challenges the idea of a one-size-fits-all template for think tank strategies. While theoretical recommendations may be used in practice, strategic consideration from practitioners might also inspire and nuance advice for successful think tank strategies in the EU and beyond.
... Scholars in the US have mainly focused on the advocacy process, highlighting the contributions on group theory (Bentley, 1908;Truman, 1951;Milbrath, 1963), mobilization (Dahl, 1961;Olson, 1965;Walker, 1983), lobbying tactics (Schlozman and Tierney, 1986;Berry, 1989;Baumgartner & Leech, 1998), lobbying targets (Bauer et al., 1963;Austen-Smith and Wright, 1994;Hojnacki and Kimball, 1998), lobbying coalitions (Hula, 1999;Hojnacki, 1998;Whitford, 2003), and influence (Smith, 1984;Gerber, 1999;Smith, 1995 andTauber, 1998). ...
... With persistent distrust of both lobbyists and special interests among members of the public (see Milbrath, 1963), and occasional political scandals and litigation, the effectiveness of ethics and transparency laws is an issue of public concern. There is existing evidence that lobby laws are either not obeyed or enforced as intended by regulators. ...
Laws that restrict and disclose the actions of lobbyists are attempts to protect elected officials from undue influence and preserve public trust in lawmaking processes. Imposing too many campaign finance restrictions and reporting requirements on registered interest groups, however, might discourage them from registering. I use an original data set compiled from several decades of lobbyist lists to determine whether these laws suppress registration rates among interest groups. More limits on campaign finance activities, but not heavier reporting burdens, are shown to be associated with depressed registration of interest groups. As unregistered interests are not subject to these regulations, this presents a paradox of political reform. Reformers can either restrict the campaign finance activities of organized interests or disclose their lobbying activities more fully, but not both. I provide estimated totals of registered interest groups given a set of laws that maximizes compliance.
... A number of scholars in the US in the 1960s, 70s and 80s studying the revolving door mainly analysed case studies and anecdotes in specific policy domains (e.g. Bauer et al., 1963;Milbrath, 1963;Berry, 1984). Their findings did, however, not allow for making representative statements about the revolving door at large. ...
Being a politician has become a profession for many. With the development of the European Parliament (EP) into an influential institution at the European level, building a career in the EP has become an interesting option for politicians. This thesis studies the different career paths of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and explores how these career paths and MEPs’ ambitions have an impact on their participation in the legislative process and thereby the way they represent citizens. This thesis is based on three empirical research papers. The first paper identifies two career paths that MEPs might follow, in addition to the three others which are generally used, and links these to the activities of MEPs in parliament. I find that an MEP’s career path and ambitions are relevant in explaining certain legislative behaviour across member states and party groups. The second paper looks at the career ambitions of MEPs and finds that MEPs’ career paths are also the result of expressed ambitions by politicians themselves, despite their dependence on party leadership and the second-order nature of EP elections. MEPs looking to pursue a career in the EP are more actively involved in the parliament’s activities. This higher level of participation and acquired policy influence is rewarded when MEPs stand for re-election. The third paper looks at the group of MEPs who become lobbyists after their time in parliament. Building on what is known from Washington, this paper finds that being on a powerful committee, from a smaller political group and having a longer tenure make it more likely that an MEP becomes a lobbyist. The findings across the three papers support the idea that the career paths and ambitions of politicians provide an important explanation when trying to understand an MEP’s willingness to invest resources in the EP’s legislative process.
... Lobbying is today primarily used as a generic term for influencing public officials. Other schools understand lobbying as persuasion or advocacy , representation of interests (EC 2006(EC , 2008Fairbass and Warleigh 2002), and communication (Milbrath 1960(Milbrath , 1963TI 2015a). If lobbying is perceived as a communication tool, it is a two-way exchange of information: while lobbyists present the opinions and arguments of their clients, recipients of lobbying present the opinions of their offices or their superiors, which also express the status of their knowledge about the problem and induce a willingness to accept the possibility of a solution . ...
One of the factors that contribute to confining corruption opportunity space is transparent lobbying as part of a broader approach to governance, based on the principles of openness, transparency, participation and disclosure. The problem of lack of transparent lobbying is closely related not only to corruption but to increased inequality of access by voices representative of a wide range of interests to public decision-making. This issue is also one of the relevant issues of Europeanisation that comes to attention in the European public space; lobbying is an important source of information for European decision-making processes, which speaks in favour of creating transparent rules for its functioning. Despite a real reluctance of national political representation to enforce statutory regulation of lobbying there is however a number of factors (besides regulation) that contribute to the transparency of lobbying. One of them is Open Government Partnership initiative which takes a more comprehensive approach to openness via seeking ways to make the government more transparent, responsive, accountable, and effective. The paper focuses on two research questions: Under what circumstances may open government affect the transparency of lobbying and thereby reduce the corruption opportunity space? Does the Czech Republic use the potential of its membership in Open Government Partnership well? The analysis is completed by data from Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia. The performed research uses descriptive, analytic, comparative and interpretive techniques.
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/b6Z7GvUwYvv7virfT4pj/full
This article provides an empirical overview of federal lobbying in Canada, examining lobbying contacts by field and sector from 2011 to 2022. We track shifts in lobbying representation over this period, including across Harper Conservative and Trudeau Liberal administrations. The study reveals the dominance of business interests in lobbying in Canada and a high level of lobbying concentration. By sector, export-oriented industries with high environmental and climatic impacts—namely, agriculture, fossil fuel and manufacturing industries—predominate. With the transition to Trudeau, we find a significant increase in overall rates of lobbying and a modest increase in the ratio of public interest representation. Overall, the lobbying industry is characterized by greater access but unequal voice.
Poliittiseen vaikuttamiseen liittyvässä keskustelussa on noussut yhä useammin esille lobbaus erilaisten kanavien kautta. Keskusteluissa on kuitenkin syvennytty vain vähän uutismedian ja toimittajien rooliin sekä siihen, kuinka heihin kohdistetaan poliittista lobbausta. Tämä artikkeli tarkastelee laadullisen aineiston avulla toimittajien kokemuksia lobbaamisesta, jolla pyritään vaikuttamaan poliittisen päätöksenteon uutisointiin. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu talouden ja politiikan uutisointiin keskittyneiden toimittajien teemahaastatteluista (n=16). Analyysi osoittaa toimittajien huomioivan ja hyödyntävän poliittista lobbausta toimitustyössä. Toimittajiin kohdistetun poliittisen lobbaamisen kasvua selittävät journalismin, käytännön työn sekä poliittisen viestinnän muutokset ja kehityskulut. Toimitusten pieneneminen, työmäärän ja kiireen lisääntyminen sekä ammattimaistunut lobbaus ovat lisänneet toimittajien kokemuksia heihin kohdistetusta poliittisesta lobbaamisesta. Varautuminen poliittiseen lobbaamiseen on heikentynyt ja on yhä useammin toimittajan oman ammattitaidon varassa. Toimittajien ja toimitusten kyvyllä huomioida nämä haasteet ja vastata niihin voi olla merkittäviä vaikutuksia suomalaiseen poliittiseen journalismiin.
We examine the historical effects of ethnic and racial diversification among legislators on identity group mobilization and the hiring of nonwhite lobbyists. We propose that diversification among legislators encouraged identity groups to lobby, that these groups hired lobbyists who reflected their members’ identities, and that all interests also hired lobbyists who reflected the identities of new legislative targets. We apply a Bayesian estimation approach to infer the identities of lobbyists who were active in the American states over several decades. We find that the election of African Americans to state legislatures encouraged black identity groups to lobby, that all identity groups, including those representing Hispanics or Latinos, generally hired lobbyists who reflected their members’ identities, and that the election of Asian Americans to state legislatures encouraged interests generally to hire Asian-American lobbyists. Hispanic or Latino lobbyists gained clients in response to diversification in more Democratic legislatures.
Le lobbying professionnel, apparu en Europe centrale à la faveur l’ouverture des marchés aux investisseurs étrangers, représente un nouveau débouché lié à la sphère publique. Qui investit ce métier peu institutionnalisé et ambigu aux yeux de l’opinion publique, et avec quelles attentes ? Peut-on considérer que ces acteurs qui se font les intermédiaires entre le secteur privé et le secteur public appartiennent au champ politique ? Une typologie des lobbyistes et leur analyse en tant que groupe professionnel contribuent à répondre à ces questions. Principal critère de différenciation dans la typologie proposée, le passage par la sphère publique s’avère commun à la majorité des lobbyistes et semble exercer à cet égard un rôle paradoxal : tout en alimentant une dépendance pragmatique et symbolique par rapport à la sphère publique, il assure aux lobbyistes une maîtrise des ressources nécessaires pour la construction d’un statut autonome.
The political activities of industries associated with the production and consumption of fossil fuels have thwarted state efforts to advance climate policy. Yet research on the role of trade associations that firms use to coordinate their activities remains sparse. Studies of business political activity are generally focussed on the firm level with trade associations typically considered only as part of wider advocacy coalitions. Scholars are still to examine the full range of political activities of trade associations. Using an original dataset built from trade associations’ IRS filings, we find that trade associations engaged on climate change spent $3.4 billion in 10 years on political activities, with the largest expenditure on advertising and promotion, followed by lobbying, grants and political contributions. Our data challenges the prevailing assumptions about the primary political activities of business actors. To explain the variation in spending, we present the findings from a regression analysis and semi-structured interviews. We argue that scholars have for too long failed to account for the political activities of trade associations, which are also one of the most important opponents of climate policies.
This article focuses on lobbying in South Africa, with special reference to the business sector. Lobbying does indeed take place in South Africa, but is on an ad hoc and unstructured basis when compared with the USA, for example. Most of the persons who perform local lobbying functions do so in a part-time capacity while maintaining major positions as interest-group officials, PROS In companies or as corporate executives. Rather than trying to measure their influence In the policy-making process, the study analyses the level of interest group activity and the lobbying techniques they employ. The institutional foci of lobbying activities are also identified. Conceptual and comparative perspectives are integrated with the empirical data.
Politicians and lobbyists have incentives to conceal any quid pro quo relationships between them, leaving scholars largely unable to link campaign money to legislative votes. Using behind-the-scenes information gained from novel data sources such as legislators' schedules, fundraising events, legislative amendments, and the campaign contributions of individual lobbyists and the political action committees these lobbyists control, Amy McKay instead investigates how lobbyists influence the content of congressional legislation. The data reveal hidden relationships between lobbyists' campaign assistance and legislators' action on behalf of those lobbyists. Relative to constituents and even average lobbyists, the lobbyists who provide campaign money to members of Congress are more likely to secure meetings with those members, to see their requests introduced as legislation, and to achieve a larger portion of their legislative goals adopted into law. These findings raise important normative concerns about the ability of some to use money to co-opt the democratic process.
We study a model of repeated elections that features privately informed politicians and ideologically extreme lobby groups. We establish existence of a class of perfect Bayesian equilibria. If office incentives are high, then all equilibria feature strong parties: liberal politicians all choose the same policy, as do all conservative politicians. When the effectiveness of money approaches zero, these equilibrium policies converge to the median, providing a dynamic version of the median voter theorem. When the effectiveness of money becomes large, however, the most polarized strongly partisan equilibria become arbitrarily extremist, and thus highly effective lobbying creates the possibility of arbitrarily extreme policy outcomes. In case the effectiveness of money is not large, lobbying incentives can push politicians to choose more moderate policies than they otherwise would, and an increase in the effectiveness of money can increase the welfare of the median voter.
Litigation has long been a part of interest groups' lobbying tactics in the U.S. In Europe, by contrast, taking political conflicts to court has traditionally been viewed with skepticism. However, in the wake of an increasing judicialization of politics in Europe, litigation has also become part of the toolbox of European interest groups. Using original survey data from five European countries, we study how they use that tool. We show that European interest groups go to court somewhat less often than their American counterparts, but that the groups that do end up in court have similar characteristics. Overall, we find that the more politically active and resourceful a group is, the more likely it is to turn to the courts. However, a subset of politically active groups, one that deploys distinct outsider tactics, is more likely to use litigation than the rest. Government funding, however, reduces groups' propensity to litigate.
Recent research suggests that there are two different types of lobbyists: those specializing in providing access to their personal connections with public office holders, and those specializing in a particular policy sector. This article advances this research by examining the actual behaviour of consultant lobbyists with data gathered from the Canadian Lobbyist Registry. Specifically, we probe two questions. First, using four indicators found within the literature, we investigate whether the behaviour of consultant lobbyists reflects the well-connected generalist or the issue specialist lobbyist. Second, we examine moving public office holders to see whether administrative officials – who make greater use of technical information – or politicians and partisan advisors – who are more interested in partisan/political information – are more likely to continue to be contacted by consultant lobbyists who contacted them in their previous position. Our results suggest that a more nuanced understanding of lobbying is required. While the majority of activities by consultant lobbyists are consistent with providing expertise to policymakers, a sizable minority of lobbyist activity is consistent with selling access to public office holders. Yet even here, our second analysis suggests that personal relationships may also involve the provision of expertise.
Numerous scholars view the late 1800s as a period o f considerable party influence and little group influence. I show that in the area o f pension policies for Union veterans, entrepreneurial group politics thrived in the late 1800s and rivalled party influence. A rational choice framework is used to analyze the ability of a lobbyist entrepreneur to profit from the complex interactions between Union veterans, Congress, the Pension Bureau, and the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). I argue that lobbyist entrepreneurs operate with recognition of the opportunities for delegation from individuals to the group and from legislators to bureaus and groups. The viability of the group's linkage function depends upon the entrepreneur's abilities to master the intricacies of delegation.
Why do local governments sometimes hire lobbyists to represent them in other levels of government? I argue that such mobilization efforts depend in part on the policy congruence between localities and their elected delegates in the legislature. I provide evidence consistent with this theory by examining how municipal governments in the United States respond to partisan and ideological mismatches with their state legislators—a common representational challenge. Using almost a decade of original panel data on municipal lobbying in all 50 states, I employ difference-in-differences and a regression discontinuity design to demonstrate that cities are significantly more likely to hire lobbyists when their districts elect non-co-partisan state representatives. The results are broadly consistent with a model of intergovernmental mobilization in which local officials purchase advocacy to compensate for the preference gaps that sometimes emerge in multilevel government.
Who supports trade in the US Congress? We uncover the ideological space of trade voting, focusing on trade agreements and development policy as two fundamental cleavages around globalization. We then cluster members of Congress into coherent voting blocs, and identify the most pro-trade voting blocs in each Chamber. We find that these blocs: cross party lines; are ideologically heterogeneous; and are over-represented on the committees with jurisdiction over trade. We then examine two leading theories of Congressional voting – on constituency characteristics and campaign contributions – and find support for each using our learned voting blocs. Members of pro-trade blocs have defended their constituents’ and contributors’ interests by speaking out to confront the Trump administration’s protectionism. We conclude that unsupervised learning methods provide a valuable tool for exploring the multifaceted and dynamic divisions which characterize current debates over global economic integration.
The main aim of this research was to determine the roles of interest and pressure groups in the development of sustainable educational policies in Turkey. To that end, the research was conducted with a qualitative research design. The data were gathered by using a semi-structured interview technique and analyzed with content analysis technique. For this purpose, seven teachers and six school principals determined with a maximum variation sampling technique were interviewed. Results of this research reveal that, in general, interest and pressure groups were classified into three categories as: business and self-interest groups, professional groups and identity groups. When the development of educational policy in Turkey is concerned, it was indicated that especially self-interest groups have some political agendas, and they provide support and work with the government closely in order to realize their political agendas and their own memebers’ interests. It was also remarked that these groups are necessary and have influences on the development of sustainable educational policies and leadership. It can be recommended that although interest and pressure groups are essential in the current system, the effects of these groups should be limited for the sake of educational and scientific principles.
Across the United States over time, numbers of registered interest groups have continued to increase, but these populations mask the total amount of lobbying that is occurring within America’s statehouses. Among registered interests, average numbers of hired lobbyists have increased markedly since the late 1980s. This study both quantifies this increase and identifies a set of causal variables. Previous studies have proposed a variety of short-term, political and long-term, institutional factors that govern rates of lobbying. Using a new data set spanning multiple decades, I find that changes in lobbying can largely be ascribed to institutional variables, including the implementation of term limits and regulations on lobbying. Lobby regulations, one-party dominance, and legislative expenditures also appear to play a role in determining rates of multiclient lobbying. Direct democracy and state spending do not affect the hiring of lobbyists by registered interest groups.
This book examines how the Global Education Industry (GEI) has brokered, funded, and implemented new conceptualizations of ‘good’ education. With a focus on new private providers and policy actors in education, the authors of the book analyze the impact of the GEI on educational research, policy and practice. How did philanthropies and foundations manage to make their voices heard in school reform debates, what are the implication of digital technologies and data infrastructures on teaching and learning, and should the fast advance of the GEI be merely seen as a logical consequence of the commercialization of education? Moving beyond single-country case studies, the book focuses on key issues related to the study of the Global Education Industry in an international context, discussing the rationales, processes and impacts of current developments. This comprehensive book will be of interest and value to scholars and researchers of the GEI, as well as policy makers.
The introductory chapter provides an overview of the emerging Global Education Industry (GEI). Referring in an exemplary manner to the landscape of worldwide operating businesses and organizations, it introduces the readers to how the field of education and educational policy is being currently reshaped. This includes the changing role of the actors involved (states, NGOs, companies) as well as the shifts in their rationales and logics and modes of operating. After delineating the central concepts and issues related to the GEI phenomenon, the introduction presents the questions and challenges that result from these recent developments: not only for educational policy and practice but also for educational theory and research. This not only involves, for instance, the blurred line between business interest and modernization, but also pertains to the question as to whether current conceptual approaches are adequate to grasp the present-day developments. Here, the aim is to show how actors from the educational field will have to perform a change of perspective in order to fully explore the consequences that the GEI will have for the future(s) of education. Finally, the introduction provides a brief overview of the chapters of the book.
Increasingly, as the discussions in the preceding chapters show, economic rationales and logics pervade educational thinking and practice; business strategies and modes of operation progressively penetrate the education sector with the active involvement of business actors and stakeholders. In the concluding chapter, we want to go beyond the particular expressions and manifestations of the Global Education Industry (GEI) phenomenon by discerning different but overarching rationales, logics, and modes of operation identified from a more synthetic reading of the chapters included in this volume. The chapter is rounded out by raising questions as to the social dislocations gaped open by the GEI phenomena and interrogations of theoretical lenses that guide our analyses.
This chapter discusses the role and position of education research in the current policy agenda of the European Union (EU), in particular in the Horizon 2020 research framework program. In discussing this topic, the intention is to reflect upon the impact dominant views have in knowledge generation activities, in particular in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH). The contribution looks into the different perceptions of the role of SSH research and roles assigned to SSH research in European research policy, highlighting the tensions involved. It also deliberates on the policy drivers for embedding SSH research in the EU’s research agendas. The discussion illustrates the tensions for education research by referring to a concrete example before the main elements of the dominant knowledge regime are discussed and questions as to changes in epistemic governance ensuing from the ‘embedding’ of education research in this regime of knowledge production are asked. The chapter concludes with outlining some concerns about the (potential) implications and risks for education research as a field when it is ‘fully integrated’ in this economic imaginary.
Purpose: The present study identifies the professional skills profile that a Public Affairs (PA) practitioner of a major company or an organization representing the interests of various economic sectors should have in Spain.
Design/methodology: The study uses a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology. The initial identification of the competences, as well as the general functions of the profile to be evaluated, has been carried out using the in-depth interview technique with the directors of APRI (Association of Professionals of Institutional Relations of Spain), who defined these competencies from their expert perspective. Subsequently, through a survey of seventy-two managers, sufficient data were obtained to statistically process the information and obtain significant results in the identification of such competences. This information has been processed, firstly, through factorial analysis, which has made it possible to synthesize these competences. Once the analysis of factors was carried out, a cluster analysis is added for the classification of the respondents or managers.
Findings: The perception of the interviewed executives has been determined regarding the functions that an institutional relations practitioner must fulfill. It should be noted that this is a profession for which there is no clarity about the role and the legitimacy of its members, particularly in Spain. In fact, it is associated with a function that is seen as exerting undue pressure on political power. A field study was conducted to determine the opinion of these managers on the competences that a professional in institutional relations should have.
Originality/value: This study provides a description of the job position of a person responsible for institutional relations in Spain. Moreover, it adds a typology of managers, according to the competences defined for the person responsible for institutional relations.
Lobbying is considered to be an important factor in the success or failure of climate change legislation. This paper provides an estimate of lobbying expenditures related to climate change legislation in the U.S. Congress from 2000 to 2016. During this time period, over $2 billion was spent on this activity, constituting 3.9% of total lobbying expenditures. Major sectors involved in lobbying were fossil fuel and transportation corporations, utilities, and affiliated trade associations. Expenditures by these sectors dwarf those of environmental organizations and renewable energy corporations. Levels of expenditures on lobbying appear to be related to the introduction and probability of passage of significant climate legislation. Future research should focus on tying particular positions on climate legislation and lobbying expenditures at the corporate level.
Published in 1963, Lester Milbrath’s The Washington Lobbyists has become indispensable for understanding how lobbying operates and the societal benefits it brings. Milbrath there presented the first detailed survey of lobbying activities, and his findings have been generally affirmed by a range of later studies, although his conviction that lobbying was an essentially benign force which exerted relatively little impact on policy has been more contested. Milbrath’s theoretical model of lobbying as a communication process has enduring value to scholars and practitioners alike, and the definition of lobbying which he formulated continues to be useful. This article seeks explicitly to celebrate Milbrath’s outstanding research on lobbyists, more than 50 years after his book was published, and highlights some elements of Milbrath’s work which have not yet been fully explored by scholars.
Why do some interest groups in some countries use litigation as part of their advocacy
strategies while others do not? The literature on legal mobilisation has offered many answers, but much of the research has focussed on individual case studies and has suffered from the problem overemphasising positive cases, i.e. those interest groups that litigate. It is more difficult methodologically to identify those groups that could have litigated but chose not to or those that would have liked to litigate but were not able to.
The proposed paper provides a solution to this problem by drawing on data from a large scale survey of European interest groups (the ‘Comparative Interest Group Survey’, www.cigsurvey.eu) which allows for a detailed comparative analysis with significant variance on the dependent variable (the use of litigation). At this stage, the paper will use data from surveys conducted in Sweden (n=650), Belgium (n=1002), the Netherlands (n=909) and Slovenia (n= 439). This allows us to make a three-fold contribution to the literature on interest group litigation:
First, the focus on the role of courts in interest group advocacy has deep roots in research originating from the United States, whereas a more global outlook on this phenomenon is more recent. In Europe, too, the expansion of access to courts and the growing availability of directly enforceable individual rights, both through national processes of constitutionalisation and thegrowing influence of international law emanating from the European Union (EU) and the European Convention on Human Rights have led to an increased prominence of litigation and heightened attention to courts as venues for political conflict. The proposed paper thus contributes to the ongoing international application of insights derived from the US and can produce results that can in turn be re-imported.
Second, by using cross-national data it will be able to address the impact of cross-nationally varying structural factors such as the availability of rights, access to courts, or the costs of court proceedings on the propensity of interest groups to litigate.
Third, by being able to draw on large scale surveys of interest groups we will be able to also test several group level hypotheses about the use of litigation, such as those relating to group resources, expertise, ideological predisposition or the depth of relations with other groups or decision-makers.
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