Three Dimensions on the Future of Lobbying Regulation

Simply put, lobbyists outnumber and outgun their regulators. Lobbying has never been as sophisticated, complex, and well-funded as it is today. Significantly, interest group strategies are more advanced than the regulatory practices meant to contain them, which has raised alarms about states’ ability to resist unwanted influence from interest groups. This poses a question: How can government regulations be brought up to speed to address 21st century lobbying practices? 

Lobbying: Evolution & Complexity. Government affairs, the dedicated offices with specialized staff meant to systematically engage with policymakers and influence policy, have evolved exponentially since their early form in the 1970s. The density and diversity of players has increased, while their strategies draw from a large tool-box which includes policy studies, meetings, political financing, micro-targeted adds, and revolving doors (or “sliding doors” in the EU’s case). Furthermore, mobilization takes place across levels of governance, bureaucratic agencies, and political campaigns. 

Fundamentally, lobbyists make strategic choices as they attempt to gain access to policymakers by responding to a demand for resources. These resources support policymakers political and technical legitimacy in return for influence and information-leaks. For example, technical bureaucrats might demand political expertise as they shape policy proposals. Conversely, political actors require knowledge of technical issues as they discuss future regulations. In this complex policymaking structure lobbying strategies consider: (i) macro-level characteristics of the specific polity, such as its political structure and institutional characteristics; (ii) meso-level dimensions that address the policy good and the policy process; and (iii) micro-level capabilities that reflect specific staff choices that can maximize the likelihood of maintaining engagement with policymakers.

Risks & Concerns. As a result, government affairs activity has become particularly intense raising concerns about: (i) policymaking transparency, (ii) institutional capture, and (iii) biased influence. As an example, there are more than 12,000 interest groups registered on the EU’s lobbying register. Calculations place nearly 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, mobilizing daily to engage with the EU institutions which have about the same number of staff.   Whereas lobbying can improve the quality of policymaking procedures and outputs through the provision of specialised expertise. It also potentially risks de-legitimizing the policymaking process, institutional independence, and the quality of policy outputs. 

Overall, policy measures targeting lobbying take one the following forms: (i) interest group registers; (ii) political financing reports; and (iii) cooling off periods for policymakers exiting public service. To an extent, these measures have led to improvements in interest group behaviour. Nevertheless, considering the intricacy of interest group mobilization, current approaches are scattered and disconnected. Indicatively, the monitoring and information collected is isolated within organizational silos, it is often unavailable to the wider public, and offers limited space for cross-cutting observations of lobbying dynamics.

Beyond questions about government legitimacy, accountability, and transparency. This gap between regulations and lobbyists poses an actual risk in terms of institutional capture and efficacy; there is a plethora of real-case examples to demonstrate the point.  To close this regulatory gap, based on the literature and our own research, we propose three dimensions that encapsulate these issues, which should be addressed from a policymaking perspective.

Regulatory Consolidation. One of the primary issues we observe in current lobbying regulations is the isolation of policy measures within political systems. Regulations addressing lobbying are established at different moments in time, to address different issues by different governmental agencies, organizations, or departments. Interest groups respond to various legislative acts and report to different organizations. The agencies ensuring policy implementation tend to be separated, there are different departments responsible for interest group mobilization, political finance, and cooling-off-periods. Interest groups employ strategies selectively from an integrated toolkit, to take advantage of policy blind spots. 

The result is an inherent difficulty for the state to observe and appropriately manage interest group lobbying. Consolidating different policy measures through cross-organizational coordination (or integration) would simplify the process, enabling governments to track and regulate lobbying activity effectively. 

System Interoperability. The policymaking process is increasingly multi-level and multi-venue. Along with limited regulatory co-ordination within jurisdictions, there is limited interoperability of systems targeting interest group activity across states. Authorities in different states even if applying similar principles employ different approaches. For example, a company can simultaneously lobby different US states and Washington DC or different EU member states and Brussels, without the policymakers being aware of the company’s activity. This creates an information asymmetry that encourages lobbying arbitrage. It allows the lobbyist to maximize their negotiating position within the wider opportunity structure.  As an example, one can consider the lobbying activities of Big Tobacco. 

System interoperability focuses on the ability to share information over the lobbying activities of specific interest groups across jurisdictions in an automated fashion. Creating a global database tracking interest group activity seems far-fetched however, setting up databases that are interoperable at least within common trade (or economic) spaces is organizationally possible (consider the EU or NAFTA). For example, a regulator in Ireland should be able to be draw and import data on interest group behaviour from regulators managing a lobbying register in Austria. We note that this approach minimizes complexity because it does not necessitate the creation of system wide databases e.g. EU-wide. However, it does require some common programming/ software standards.

Open-source Implementation. Interest groups’ government-affairs budgets dwarf the resources available to regulators. This points to: (a) a scalability issue: regulators might have a reasonable policy in place, but do not have sufficient resources to scale their operations and match the lobbyists. (b) high start-up cost for polities that do not have but wish to set-up measures to address interest group activity.

Open-access implementation allows (i) third parties to directly contribute to policy implementation in an automated fashion. For example, NGOs tracking MPs meetings can directly contribute to the regulator’s mission by providing missing data or updating data. (ii) to make tools, such as software and regulations, available to the wider public for use, free of charge. For example, the code behind the software used to monitor interest group activity can be made available for research and development by third parties.

These three dimensions speak to a common bouquet of issues that researchers, policymakers, and policy stakeholders engage with. This allows states to make regulatory leaps, necessary for the distance that needs to be covered. That is to say, lobbying strategies are constantly evolving. To effectively regulate these activities policymakers, need to consider not only known-unknowns but also potential future unknown-unknowns. 

For more on this, please check out our recent publication: 

Coen, D., Katsaitis, A. and Vannoni, M. (2023), Regulating government affairs: Integrating lobbying research and policy concerns. Regulation & Governance. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12515 

David Coen, Professor of Public Policy at the UCL Department of Political Science / School of Public Policy and founding Director of the UCL Global Governance Institute.

Alexander Katsaitis, is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University.

Matia Vannoni is Associate Professor in Public Policy in the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London.