Alberto Bitonti, Giulia Mugellini, Claudia Mariotti, Mary Francoli, Jean-Patrick Villeneuve
{"title":"Citizens and the public perception of lobbying: do regulation and trust in political institutions make a difference?","authors":"Alberto Bitonti, Giulia Mugellini, Claudia Mariotti, Mary Francoli, Jean-Patrick Villeneuve","doi":"10.1057/s41309-025-00237-x","DOIUrl":"10.1057/s41309-025-00237-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"14 3","pages":"270-297"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12416409/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145030886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Race, Rights, and Rifles by Alexandra Filindra","authors":"Matthew J. Lacombe","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00200-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00200-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"14 7","pages":"1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139451008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Searching for avenues of influence: multi-branch and multi-level lobbying in Washington, D.C. and the States","authors":"Adam J. Newmark, Anthony J. Nownes","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00198-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00198-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136104362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The online affiliations of interest groups","authors":"Laura M. Moses","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00196-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00196-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"6 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135512541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From rhetoric to regulation: inferring lobbying influence on EU efforts to regulate $$text {CO}_2$$ emissions of cars using network analysis","authors":"Harald Sick","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00195-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00195-2","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study shows how the automotive industry was able to influence the final legislation of the Community Strategy to reduce $${CO}_{2}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>CO</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> emissions from passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles , even though the European Commission’s introductory comments were supported by a competing interest group coalition: environmentalist NGOs. To operationalize and analyze the influence of lobbying on the EU policy formulation process, I utilize an approach not yet widely used in interest group research: discourse network analysis and inferential network analysis with exponential random graph models. This methodological combination allows me to parse the political debate within different phases of the EU policy process to gain insights into how automotive lobbyists were able to shape the final legislation in accordance with their interests and which political decision-makers empowered them to do so. Surprisingly, the party affiliation of Members of the European Parliament played only a subordinate role, whereas the origin of the MEPs was a significant predictor of whether they supported the proposals of environmentalist NGOs or the automotive industry. The latter’s proposals were adopted in the European Commission’s proposal and subsequently in the final regulation. Since the method can be easily applied to case studies from different policy areas, it provides a promising framework for the analysis of EU lobbying in general. Moreover, the network approach is easily extendable, allowing future research to integrate different strands of EU lobbying research that go beyond influence analysis.","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135537553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Party people? Measuring interest groups’ proximity to political parties","authors":"Amy D. Meli","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00193-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00193-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135060914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The rise of political action committees: interest group electioneering and the transformation of American politics by Emily J. Charnock (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, ISBN: 978-0-19-007551-4)","authors":"Boris Heersink","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00194-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00194-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135742172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coping with a crisis: business interest group coalitions in the wake of the financial crisis","authors":"Laura Gatto","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00191-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00191-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"12 1","pages":"297 - 321"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49002654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What motivates business to donate to politics? A framework and an empirical application","authors":"I. McMenamin, S. Power","doi":"10.1057/s41309-023-00189-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-023-00189-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45513,"journal":{"name":"Interest Groups & Advocacy","volume":"12 1","pages":"272 - 296"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44854162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}