Lobbying as a Technique

Mobilising members to write to their representatives.

Sponsoring research at universities and think tanks, which produces a body of apparently independent material that supports the position.

Coalition building, which makes a narrow interest look like a broad one. An industry that wants a duty reduced does better when consumer bodies say the same thing.

The techniques that shade into something else

Political contributions, which are lawful in most systems subject to disclosure and limits.

Employment, whether of retired officials by the industry they regulated, or of serving officials afterwards. This is the revolving door, and it is the single most criticised feature of professional lobbying, because it can make a present decision an investment in a future job.

Hospitality, travel and gifts, which most systems now cap or prohibit.

Payment for an official act, which is not lobbying at all. It is bribery, and the line is drawn there in every legal system.

What separates lobbying from corruption

This is the analytical heart of the topic and the question most likely to be set.

The thing supplied. Lobbying supplies reasons, arguments, information and political support. Corruption supplies a personal benefit to the decision maker.

The quality of the decision. After lobbying, the decision remains the decision maker's own, taken on considerations they are entitled to weigh. After a bribe, the decision has been bought, and the official's own judgment has been displaced.

Disclosure. Lobbying can survive being disclosed. Corruption cannot, which is why disclosure regimes are the standard regulatory response: they do not prohibit influence, they compel it into the open, on the theory that influence which cannot bear publication will not be attempted.

The public interest test. A lobbyist argues that what benefits their client also benefits the public. That argument may be weak, but it is the kind of argument a decision maker may lawfully act on. A bribe makes no such argument.

The case for lobbying, and the case against

An answer that only condemns lobbying is a weak answer, because it cannot explain why every democracy permits it.

For. Government cannot know everything, and those affected by a rule know most about it; lobbying is how that knowledge reaches the file. It is an exercise of the right to petition government and, in India, of the freedoms of speech and of association. It supplies representation between elections. And regulated lobbying is better than unregulated influence, because the alternative to a lobbyist with a registration number is the same person without one.

Against. Access is bought, and money buys more of it, so the loudest voice is not the largest interest but the richest. It is opaque, and the public rarely learns which arguments reached which official. The revolving door corrodes the independence of regulators. It privileges concentrated interests over diffuse ones: a duty that costs every household ten rupees and earns one industry a hundred crore will be lobbied for hard by the industry and by nobody at all against. And it shifts effective decision making out of the legislature, which is public and recorded, into meetings that are neither.

A worked example

A pharmaceutical association wants a proposed price control on a class of medicines dropped.

Direct. It seeks a meeting with the Department, and takes a costing study showing that the proposed ceiling is below the cost of production for smaller manufacturers.

Draft language. It suggests a proviso exempting formulations below a stated turnover. If that proviso enters the draft, the argument for the rest of the year is about the size of the exemption, not about whether there should be one.

Committee. It gives evidence before the Standing Committee examining the parent Bill, and the evidence is published.

Grassroots. It funds a patient organisation's campaign warning that price control will cause shortages, and it commissions a study at a management institute on the effect of price control on innovation.

Coalition. It persuades a small manufacturers' body to make the same demand, so the case now looks like protection of small enterprise rather than protection of margins.

The line. If a director offers the joint secretary a consultancy for his son, the activity has stopped being lobbying and has become an offence, and every one of the five techniques above was lawful up to that point.

Distinctions that carry marks

What lobbying is NOT

Lobbying is not inherently corrupt. It is the ordinary way organised interests communicate with government, and a system that banned it would not abolish influence but would drive it underground.

Lobbying is not a synonym for pressure group activity. A group may lobby, litigate, demonstrate, publish or strike. Lobbying is one instrument in the kit.

Lobbying is not confined to legislatures. Most of it is now aimed at the executive, because most binding rules are made there.

Regulating lobbying is not the same as limiting it. Disclosure regimes do not cap how much lobbying may be done. They compel it to be recorded, on the theory that publicity is a better discipline than prohibition.

Quick revision

1. Definition: direct communication with holders of public power, on behalf of an identified interest, to influence a law, rule, policy or decision.
2. The word comes from the lobby of a legislature: the activity happens around the decision, not in the formal proceeding.
3. It is a technique, not a kind of body. Groups, firms, consultancies, NGOs, unions, State governments and foreign governments all use it.
4. Direct: meetings, memoranda, supplying draft language, committee evidence, technical assistance. Indirect: campaigns, advertising, member mobilisation, sponsored research, coalition building.
5. Lobbying against bribery: what is supplied, whose judgment decides, and whether it can survive disclosure.
6. The revolving door is the most criticised practice, because it can turn a present decision into a future job.
7. The regulatory answer everywhere is disclosure, not prohibition.

Test yourself

1. Define lobbying and explain what the word's origin tells you about the activity. Lobbying is direct communication with legislators, ministers or officials, on behalf of an identified interest, intended to influence the framing, passage, administration or repeal of a law, rule, policy or decision. The word comes from the lobby of a legislature, the ante-room where members were met on their way to the chamber, and that origin captures the essential feature: lobbying occurs outside the formal proceeding, in the space around the decision rather than at the moment of it.

2. Distinguish lobbying from bribery. Lobbying supplies reasons, information and political support, and the decision remains the decision maker's own, taken on considerations they may lawfully weigh; bribery supplies a personal benefit and displaces the official's judgment with the payer's. Lobbying can survive disclosure and bribery cannot, which is why the standard regulatory response to lobbying is registration and publication, and the response to bribery is prosecution.

3. What is the revolving door, and why is it criticised? The movement of people between regulatory office and the industries they regulate, whether by an industry hiring retired officials for their contacts and knowledge, or by officials taking employment afterwards with those they dealt with. It is criticised because it can convert a present official decision into an investment in a future job, so the official's independence is compromised without any payment being made or any rule being broken at the time.

4. State the case for permitting lobbying. Government cannot know everything and those affected by a rule usually know most about it, so lobbying is how that knowledge reaches the file. It is an exercise of the right to petition and of the freedoms of speech and association. It supplies continuous representation between elections, when a vote settles everything at once. And regulated lobbying is preferable to unregulated influence, since prohibiting it would not abolish influence but would remove any record of it.

5. Why is "supplying draft language" the most effective technique? Because it settles the terms on which everything afterwards is argued. Once a group's clause, proviso or exception is in the draft, the discussion is about whether to amend its words rather than about whether to adopt its idea, and the burden has shifted onto whoever wants it removed. It is also the least visible technique, since the published draft carries no indication of who wrote which part of it.