Every autumn I also offer a course devoted to lobbying at Tokyo University to a group of Masters students who have no legal background. As I teach my students, lobbying and its repertoire of tactics, techniques and practices is no longer the prerogative of major corporations. It belongs to anyone – including yourself – who is interested in influencing public authorities, and it is increasingly valued by a variety of players, including non-profit organisations, philanthropic foundations and social entrepreneurs. As a result of my advocacy evangelism, every year several of my students join NGOs, public affairs consultancies and public interest law firms. The latter, unlike commercial firms, pursue as their primary mission assisting under-represented people or causes, rather than making money.
Fundamentally, lobbying is a process by which advocates get together, formulate arguments, identify targets, select tactics and decide whether to work with others in an effort to bring about change. As we will see in Part III, there are techniques, tips and tricks that anyone can learn, but for now let’s look at the basics of lobbying.
Think Tanks as Lobbyists
A think tank is essentially a university without students. It can carry out research and advocacy on a vast swathe of topics, ranging from social policy to political strategy, from economics to the military, technology and culture. Unsurprisingly, think tanks tend to be influential in policy debates. That’s indeed their raison d’être.
Yet in the scramble for funds, think tanks often agree to push agendas important to their corporate donors, thereby blurring the line between objective research and goal-oriented lobbying. Think tanks sometimes agree to become vehicles for corporate (or less commonly, non-corporate) influence and branding campaigns on issues as various as international trade, real estate development and migration. If in the past donors did not attach conditions to their contributions, today they increasingly do.7
The problem is that when they agree to bend their research objectivity to accommodate vested interests, they reap the benefits of their tax-exempt or tax-favourable status, without necessarily disclosing their connections to corporate interests. It has become common practice for the conclusions of some think tank reports to be discussed with donors before their publication. Sometimes donors openly explain how the resulting ‘scholarship’ will be used as part of broader lobbying efforts.
Many think tanks in the EU receive a significant amount of funding from EU institutions for research projects whose intellectual independence is questionable.8 On top of this public money, they also receive corporate sponsored contributions that make their work difficult to distinguish from lobbying.9
If the real value of a think tank should be to promote new and interesting ideas, think tanks’ current proximity to corporate interests and their lack of transparency about it puts their ability to do so in question.
Despite this, their number and influence are growing. The United States – Washington DC in particular – boasts the largest pool of think tanks, and it has recently seen a proliferation of narrowly-focused outfits whose interests seem tied to specific industries. At the same time, the big names, such as Brookings, the American Enterprise Institute and Cato, have experienced huge growth. While no other country has the same presence and variety of think tanks as the US, they are spreading across the world and increasingly play a lobbying role.10
In Europe, the number of think tanks has grown but, it is generally agreed, has not approached the critical mass and scientific quality of their transatlantic counterparts – apart from a few exceptions, notably in Brussels and the UK.11 While US think tanks act as incubators for bright, promising newcomers with an outstanding academic record who are waiting to enter government for the first time, in the European space, many think tankers lack an academic profile and as a result are not perceived as completely independent.
Academics as Lobbyists
Through their writing, academics may also take a stance on a live policy issue and go on to influence its outcome. By leveraging their authority as credible and apparently independent authorities, they can effectively influence decision-makers. Unfortunately, as is the case with think tanks, the public is often unaware of the financial relationships between for-profit companies and the academics who testify before parliaments or speak at other public events. While it is common practice to disclose in a footnote of any scientific paper the origin of the funding that supported that research, this remains entirely voluntary.
Lobbying regulations in most countries largely ignore the phenomenon of academic lobbying. Yet there is mounting evidence about the existence of corporate-financed academic efforts, which are often aimed at sowing confusion and scepticism about scientific research.12 Academics-turned-lobbyists are often called ‘merchants of doubt’, insofar as they are paid to twist the truth and inject doubt into the public debate. While this is not a new practice, today it can be found in all kinds of policy areas – ranging from e-cigarettes to the science of climate change.
Why Lobbying?
While we have already discussed the many problems with lobbying, there is a positive side to lobbying – especially when it comes to you finding your political voice. Indeed, while it must indisputably be regulated – by shedding light on which bodies lobby, how, at whom, and for how much – lobbying is a required component of any working democracy.13
How can lobbying, one of the culprits in our disillusionment with public life, actually empower you as a citizen? Three inter-related factors explain how. Each addresses a major shortcoming of the democratic system and makes a case for citizen lobbying.
1. Lobbying Works
When compared with actual representative democracy lobbying works because it enables anyone to directly voice her concerns. Lobbying is about persuading others, notably decision-makers, about the importance of that concern and to accept your solutions for how to address it. It means engaging actively with the policy process. It generally consists of putting pressure on elected representatives to initiate – or block – a certain policy, whether it is a decision to drill your area for gas, to launch reform of the pension system or to crack down on payday lenders. Through lobbying, you exercise two essential yet often neglected democratic functions: you communicate information while at the same time keeping tabs on your politicians. And it enables you to do so in between elections.
Moreover, unlike voting, where your preferences are all boiled down to a tick on the ballot sheet, lobbying lets you be specific about what you want, as well as letting you gather useful information. Because of its attention-grabbing nature, lobbying puts greater pressure on the representative to listen to you. As a result, she has much more reason to pay attention to you, the lobbyist, than to you, the voter.
While lobbying cannot guarantee that all voices will be listened to with equal attention, it can persuade elected representatives to change their priorities and take more people’s interests into account, making the political game fairer.
James Madison, a Founding Father and the chief force behind the US Constitution, expressed this idea in The Federalist Papers in 1788. He suggested that lobbies (he called them factions) could be thwarted by requiring them to compete with other lobbies. He believed that the powerful force of one lobby could be counteracted by one or more others and that only as a result of this balancing exercise would good government emerge. From this perspective, the lobbying game can be understood as a check and balance on the workings of government. By preventing any group from having a permanent victory, it keeps a critical watch on power.14
2. Lobbying is for Everyone
Unlike actual electoral representative democracy, lobbying is something all of us can do. While only few individuals can run for elections (as they must usually sign up to a political party and enjoy a certain amount of wealth and influence), virtually everyone can try to persuade her representatives – or support a civil society organisation to do so. While professional lobbyists do tend to be qualified, there is nothing to stop you helping yourself from the l
obbying toolbox. It does not require in-depth knowledge of how government works, but just a basic understanding of how to frame your cause to your elected representative. Anyone can tap into their personal interests, talents and network to push for a cause. At the heart of citizen lobbying is a deep belief in your own potential. Regardless of who you are, each of us can voice our concerns and channel them into the policy process.
Thanks to the information and digital revolution, lobbying is no longer the prerogative of well-funded groups with huge memberships and myriad political connections. In a famous 1997 judgement, the US Supreme Court emphasised the potential of the internet, arguing that ‘through the use of chatrooms, any person with a phone line can become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox’.15 The internet’s global reach is contributing to enormous advancements in democracy, social activism and advocacy.16 As an individual, you can just as easily make an appointment with a politician to shape the policy process, denounce an injustice through an online campaign – and crowdfund it on the net – or inspire new forms of consumer and civic resistance on social media.
Many traditional channels of participation remain under-used by citizens – like public consultations and petitions – and further opportunities to participate in the policy process are growing all the time. It would be a pity not to seize the chance to ensure that they are not just tick-box exercises for our elected representatives, who can then claim they have listened to you.
Whether you are a young student or a senior professional, whether you work for an NGO or in the private sector, you’ve got more power than you may think. You may act alone or mobilise your community. You may also decide to team up with an existing organisation pursuing your cause, whether professional or amateur. In particular, by sharing your expertise with a pre-existing organisation, you can help people get their voices heard in government. NGOs are often under-resourced and understaffed, and might appreciate your help. This is particularly true given the multiplication of channels of influence – which call for more resources, expertise and time. Paradoxically, the creation of more opportunities to speak up and deliberate could end up favouring the usual suspects at the expense of the less-organised.17
3. Lobbying is Good for Society
‘It is said that indirect lobbying by the pressure of public opinion on the Congress is an evil and a danger. That is not an evil; it is a good, the healthy essence of the democratic process.’
Supreme Court decision in Rumely v. United States, 195218
Contrary to conventional wisdom, lobbying is not only legitimate but is also necessary in a democracy. Transparency International, the leading anti-corruption organisation, expressly endorsed lobbying when it recognised in 2009 that:
Lobbying provides useful information and opinions to political representatives and public officials. It is not, therefore, a morally questionable activity, but an important element of the democratic debate and decision-making process.
Despite the bad press it receives, lobbying is increasingly favoured today. This is part of a broader trend towards a more inclusive and participatory approach in the way governments work.
The main aim of the policy process is to ensure that the government pursues the public interest. But we can only find out what the public interest is with the help of those affected by regulation: citizens, businesses, consumers, NGOs, the public sector, international trading partners and others. Indeed, although citizens’ involvement is a prerequisite for the good functioning of any democratic system, it is only recently that the value of open and inclusive policymaking has been widely accepted.19 For too long, voting was regarded as the limit of public participation in policymaking and the policy process a top-down affair.
But today we are witnessing a new political moment in which citizen participation is no longer the assumed domain of outsiders but has become widely encouraged, if not directly mandated, by governments and international organisations. Now, more and more people think and expect they should play a more active role in government decision-making between elections.20 Yet this happened – at least from the public authorities’ perspective – more out of administrative necessity than idealism. The old ideal of an omniscient government, cognisant of its citizens’ needs and capable of governing alone, is no longer tenable. It has become clear that making decisions without the public’s backing can lead to confrontation, disputes, disruption, boycotts, distrust and public dissatisfaction.21 As a result, the policy process has been opened up to virtually anyone who is willing to devote some of their time to comment and make observations. Those may be individual citizens or organised groups such as trade unions, consumer organisations and of course companies, and are collectively referred to as ‘stakeholders’. Nowadays, we are all able – at least on paper – to lobby our public officials and governments.
Lobbying plays a crucial role at two different stages in the policy process: information gathering and rule-making. Firstly, it enables everyone potentially affected by a decision to provide information during the preparation phase. How can a policymaker know how a particular problem, such as the magnitude or frequency of natural disasters prompted by global warming, will unfold? How can she predict how a particular reform (e.g. limiting emissions) may affect the environment or the labour market (e.g. the number of people hired or sacked)? As such, lobbying acts as a corrective force that reinforces electoral-representative democracy. How can a policymaker take a decision about a new policy without having heard from those most affected by it? How can she ensure she has taken everyone’s interests into account? Parties with a vested interest will probably give a better idea of its potential impact.
In this way, lobbying aims to guarantee that the policy process is well-informed, accountable and more inclusive.
But the benefits of engaging with all these stakeholders extend beyond the information-gathering phase. Failing to listen to the public in the rule-making process can lead regulators into difficulty, inefficiencies and lead them to overlook solutions they hadn’t considered. Furthermore, public participation makes compliance more likely by building legitimacy into regulatory proposals. It can therefore make regulation more effective and cut the cost of enforcing it.22 Lobbying can also lead to more creative and innovative policies, as stakeholders outside government – like you – are more likely to come up with non-traditional solutions. As management expert Adam Grant puts it, it is non-conformists who change the world.23
Yet a great deal of the promise and benefits of citizen engagement have yet to bear fruit. Public consultations are typically top-down exercises involving a few actors, often well-organised corporate interests, and which fail to engage the groups most affected by the policy at stake. Those are the people I call the ‘missing stakeholders’.24
That is why we need not only to open up these participatory channels to the public, but also to make sure that everyone can actually gain access to them. Chris Welzel and Russell J. Dalton demonstrated that societies which enable citizens to be assertive and critical of public authorities tend to have governments that are more effective and accountable.25 As they argue, governments are like waiters in a noisy restaurant: to get their attention you have to speak up. But to call a waiter you need first to gain a seat at the table!
Given how few people engage with their elected representatives, those who write a letter or send an email, monitor their pledges and check on their actions can have a disproportionate effect on what gets done and what is neglected. That means you have more power than you think. Regardless of how busy you are, you can learn how to actually use it in your daily life. The time has come to democratise lobbying by learning how to do it.
Let’s see what being a citizen lobbyist involves, and how you could become one.
What is Citizen Lobbying?
‘I’m tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it.’
Alexander Woollcott
&
nbsp; As we’ve now seen, citizen lobbying is lobbying by citizens for citizens. In a nutshell, it involves you pushing for a cause or interest with your elected official, or through another participatory channel, to correct an unfair or harmful situation affecting the community. Thanks to the pressure you apply, the situation may be resolved through persuasion, compromise or through political or even legal action.
But what does citizen lobbying mean in practice? It is about you picking up the phone, sending an email or setting up a Twitter account (generally more effective) to reach decision-makers. It is about you filing a petition or creating a Facebook group to promote your cause. It is about you monitoring how a particular issue – whether the right of refugees not to be stripped of their possessions when they enter a new country, or the protection of birds – is handled by the political process. So it might involve you acting on your own for a cause you care deeply about, or you might represent another person’s needs as if they were your own. But you might also provide support, by sharing your talent, expertise and some of your spare time, to an NGO like ActionAid, the WWF or a smaller NGO. It may entail getting other people involved – friends, neighbours, patients or victims of a particular problem – to voice their concerns.
Remember how student Max Schrems succeeded in challenging Facebook in Europe? He initially crowdfunded his project online. That enabled him to create a community of supporters around him and bring his challenge before the Irish authorities. Remember how my students and I managed to put on the agenda the elimination of roaming charges on mobile phones? A petition was lodged and the media attention did the rest.
Lobbying for Change Page 7