Determinants of Firm‐Level Lobbying and Government Responsiveness in Agricultural Biotechnology in China

Understanding what stimulates agribusiness firms to lobby the government and what makes the government responsive to lobbying are the two issues that have been discussed extensively in the debates concerning determinants of biotechnology policy. This paper examines the factors influencing agribusiness firms' lobbying and government response using econometric modeling on a new data set of 160 leading agribusiness firms in the food, feed, chemical, and seed industries in China. The results show that approximately 10% of agribusiness firms lobbied the government about biotechnology policy and regulations and over half of those that lobbied received a verbal or written acknowledgment from government agencies. Seed and feed companies are more likely to engage in lobbying than chemical companies. Owning GM patents not only has a positive impact on firms' lobbying activities, but firms with these patents are more likely to receive a government response to their lobbying efforts. The experience of selling GM products does not significantly influence lobbying activities or response from the government.     

Autonomy or Privilege? Lobbying Intensity of Local Business Associations in China

This article examines the relationship between the state and society in contemporary China by analyzing the lobbying behavior of business associations. Particularly, it asks whether and how autonomy and/or privileged access exert/s influence on their lobbying frequency. A formal model is developed that focuses on the trade-off between lobbying intensity and the private provision of collective goods. The hypotheses are tested against the original survey data from Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces. The research finds that self-established associations lobby less, and those with consultant status assigned by the government lobby the government more often. In contrast, the impact of “autonomy” in a narrow sense is weaker than is commonly claimed in the Chinese lobbying literature.     

How multinational civil society organisations and non‐governmental organisations lobby policy for human rights in Africa

In recent years, the number of international non‐governmental organisations (INGOs) and international civil society organisations (ICSOs) trying to influence policy processes in Africa has increased considerably. These players increasingly play an important role in socio‐political and life of many African countries. To achieve certain political results, INGOs and ICSOs often lobby governments, using a variety of techniques. Though lobbying as a public relations (PR) technique is widely discussed in academic spheres, the debate on the relationship between transnational advocacy and lobbying as a PR practice is still marginal. This paper explores how INGOs and ICSOs lobby governments in Africa and examines via a case the effectiveness of activist lobbying in the continent.     

The instrumental power of transnational private governance: Interest representation and lobbying by private rule‐makers

While scholars have researched transnational private governance for over two decades, we still know little about some of the specific political activities in which private rulemaking schemes engage. This article addresses this topic by bringing together hitherto separate literatures on private governance and interest groups. I argue that examining private governance's instrumental power, and interest representation and lobbying specifically, complements the literature's dominant focus on the structural and discursive power of private governance. The article makes three contributions. First, it conceptualizes private governance schemes as interest organizations by analyzing similarities and differences with traditional interest groups. Second, the article examines instrumental power empirically by assessing the participation of 48 transnational private governance schemes in the European Union's lobby register and variation among private governance schemes in this respect. Finally, the article contributes to developing a new research agenda to continue bridging the gap between the private governance and interest group literatures.     

Constitutional Prohibitions in a Rent Seeking Model

I extend the standard rent seeking model to allow lobbying fora constitutional prohibition on wealth transfers. I examinetwo issues: (1) the ability of special interests withsignificant political capacity to block constitutional change;and (2) the effect of adding a constitutional stage on totallobbying expenditures. Defeating a prohibition on wealthtransfers is a public good for rent seekers; success inconstitutional politics merely allows them to lobby for wealthtransfers. The resulting collective action problem for rentseekers in constitutional politics offsets the generalinterest's free rider problems, reducing the probability oftransfers and expected total lobbying expenditures compared tothe traditional rent seeking contest. Introduction of aconstitutional stage also reverses several comparative staticsresults from the rent seeking game. An increase in the numberof rent seekers or the general interest's (consumers') abilityto organize increase lobbying in the rent seeking game butgenerally reduce expected lobbying in the constitutionalprohibition game.     

Policy Reform and the Free-Rider Problem

We investigate policy reform in a modelwith both lobbying, which involves afree-rider problem, and ordinary rentseeking, which does not. These activitiesinvolve similar skills, so a reform whichreduces rents shifts labor into lobbying.Also, because of the free-rider problem,the marginal return to the industry fromlobbying may greatly exceed an individualfirm's return to lobbying. Thus, the shiftinto lobbying caused by rent reduction maylead to large increases in transfers to thelobbying industry. Under somecircumstances, a reform which reducesavailable rents increases total rents plustransfers to the industry.     

Persuasive Lobbying with Allied Legislators

Why do interest groups lobby allied legislators if they already agree? One possibility is that allies are intermediaries who help persuade unconvinced legislators. To study the role and value of intermediaries, I develop a formal model of persuasive lobbying where interest groups use public cheap talk and provide verifiable information to a strategically selected coalition of legislators. Interest groups face a trade-off: Lobbying aligned legislators is advantageous as they are more willing to endorse the group's preferred policy, but those who are too aligned cannot persuade a majority of their peers. The model illustrates how intermediaries are especially valuable if interest groups cannot persuade a majority themselves. Counter to previous work, the results demonstrate how a legislature's ideological composition determines the use of intermediaries. Groups may lobby intermediaries even if access to legislators is free and unrestricted.     

Congressional certification: How firms use former Congress members to lobby on their behalf

This paper models the effect of firm-level profitability (earnings before interest and taxes and return on sales) against certification by former members of the U.S. Congress. Although some scholars have studied certification, none have studied certification in the public policy market as is done in the current work. Likewise, although scholars have studied the effects of lobbying and political connections on firms' outcomes, none have studied lobbying through former Congress members specifically. The findings confirm that, after controlling for numerous factors, firms can use former Congress members to effectively lobby and certify their intentions. Both firm-level earnings before interest and taxes and return on sales were significantly associated with prior lobbying efforts by these former elected federal officials in several different estimation techniques employed in the study.     

Social heterogeneity and wasteful lobbying

Using a general equilibrium model with endogenous policy, we explore how heterogeneity affects wasteful lobbying by sectoral interest groups. With the help of a simulation approach, we first investigate the impact of information heterogeneity on how lobbies react to a shift from a soft to a strict government budget constraint. Next, we examine how lobbying is influenced by heterogenous perception of the general equilibrium implications of lobbying effort. Finally, we explore the consequences of heterogenous specialization in households' asset portfolios. We conclude that social heterogeneity in information, perceptions, and portfolio compositions increases incentives to lobby.     

Commercial Lobbying in Australia: Exploring the Australian Lobby Register

Politicians and policy makers routinely engage with lobbyists and see them as crucial agents in the political process. But how much do we really know about the Australian lobby system? Although there are a range of reviews of lobby regulation schemes and discussions about the work of lobbyists, a comprehensive contemporary picture of the commercial lobbying system in Australia is missing. Using data from the ‘federal lobby register’, this article sets out to map the commercial lobbying scene at the national level. Using this as a backdrop, the article goes on to discuss what questions this raises and how we might develop a deeper understanding of the commercial lobbying system in Australia.     

Lobbying by Law Firms: A Study of Lobbying by National Law Firms in Canberra1

This article examines the way in which national law firms lobby the federal government from their Canberra offices. It is based on extensive interviews with lobbyists from those law firms, other commercial lobbyists in Canberra and legal professional bodies. The article begins by establishing the unique nature of law firm lobbying. In particular, it looks at the technical skills law firm lobbyists possess, their access to specialist legal knowledge and their preference for administrative, over political, lobbying. The development of law firm lobbying is then discussed. This centres around changes to the legal profession, federal business laws and federal government decision-making. The article concludes by suggesting that law firm lobbying both reflects and stimulates changes in government decision-making and will grow in importance as the legal profession in Canberra grows.     

Consumer resistance and monopoly behavior under franchise contestability

The probability of a deregulation under anti-monopoly consumer lobby is generated at the Cournot-Nash equilibrium of a lobbying game which depends on the monopoly rent and the deadweight loss. This probability is increasing and convex in monopoly price. When the deregulation probability constraint is binding, the monopolist's price rises with the number of consumers, the competitive price and the given ceiling probability. The social cost of a monopoly under franchise contestability differs from the Posner measure.     

Russian lobbying in the United States: stages of evolution

The article examines Russian lobbying in the US. The endogenous and exogenous factors of Russian lobbying are analyzed as well as its qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The article depicts stages of Russian lobbying development: (i) from government to private entities; (ii) nongovernmental lobbying; and (iii) a return to government. Additionally, occasional attempts by Russian entities to secure funding from the US budget are mentioned. Two case studies are studied to show the nature of current Russian lobbying in the US: lobbying campaigns by Techsnabexport, state‐owned corporation, and GML, a private business concern. The article concludes that Russian lobbying in the US is weak. At the beginning, it was mostly about investment consulting, and with the rise in oil prices and the decrease in political freedom, the need for and availability of lobbying diminished. Some private corporations were nationalized under President Putin and, as a result, lost control over their international expansion strategies, with the remaining private corporations being afraid of independent lobbying campaigns abroad. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Kyoto Protocol cooperation: Does government corruption facilitate environmental lobbying?

Does environmental lobbying affect the probability of environmental treaty ratification? Does the level of government corruption play a role for the success of such lobbying? In this paper, we propose that a more corruptible government may be more responsive to the demands of the environmental lobby. We use several stratified hazard models and panel data from 170 countries on the timing of Kyoto Protocol ratification to test this hypothesis. We find that increased environmental lobby group activity raises the probability of ratification, and the effect rises with the degree of corruption.     

How Pollution Taxes may Increase Pollution and Reduce Net Revenues

This paper develops a positive theory of pollution taxation by a federal authority when pollution abatement subsidies are used by local governments. Environmental and industry lobby groups influence governments with campaign contributions. First, pollution may increase in the pollution tax because the abatement subsidy increases (decreases) with the tax, and pollution increases (decreases) in the abatement subsidy. This occurs because the lobbying incentives change at a pollution tax reform. Second, pollution taxes may reduce net revenues because subsidy expenditures rise. Third, pollution may increase simultaneously as net revenues fall. Finally, the welfare effect of a pollution tax may be negative.     

Collusion, Collective Action and Protection: Theory and Evidence

This paper provides a novel explanation forthe formation of protectionist lobby groupsin imperfectly competitive sectors. Thelevel of collusion is shown to be a crucialdeterminant of the ability of firms tosustain lobbying. We show that greatercollusion reduces firm contributionsto tariff lobbying, when the governmentvalues welfare sufficiently and thecross-price elasticity between the domesticand foreign goods is sufficiently high. The empirical evidence from the U.S.supports the theory. Greater collusionreduces the level of PAC contributions.     

Who Lobbies Whom? Special Interest Politics under Alternative Electoral Systems

Why do some interest groups lobby politicians and others lobby bureaucrats? We theorize lobbying venue choices and intensity as a function of contract enforceability with policy makers, politicians, or bureaucrats. We argue that organizational structures of interest groups, in particular, whether they are centralized or decentralized, substantially affect their lobbying strategies because they are associated with different ability to monitor and enforce contracts with policy makers and punish them when they fail. We further demonstrate that the effect of centralized versus decentralized structure on venue choices is conditional on the types of electoral system: majoritarian, semiproportional (single, nontransferable vote: SNTV), or proportional representation systems. We test this argument using longitudinal survey data on lobbying which span two decades and cover around 250 interest groups in various sectors and issue areas in Japan. The results lend strong support to our argument about contract enforceability under alternative electoral systems.     

PACs,lobbies and political conflict: The case of gun control

Previous research has shown that PAC contributions from the National Rifle Association as well as letters and lobbying by Handgun Control, Inc. significantly affected Congressional voting on the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, holding constant ideology, party, constituency characteristics, and a proxy for prior position on the issue. Using data from that study, this paper shows that contributions have a somewhat different effect than lobbying. Contributions from NRA were primarily targeted at NRA supporters and had the net effect of making the progunners even more so. Contributions from Handgun Control, while they did not significantly reinforce the proclivities of the gun controllers, were directed only at that group. At least in this case, money appears to exacerbate conflict. By contrast, the police lobby directed its attention at both gun controllers and pro-gunners; the lobby effectively induced pro-gunners to moderate their position. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that PACs associated with membership groups, which seek to retain members whose primary reason for joining is self-expression, are likely to allocate monies in such a way as to exacerbate policy conflict and to allocate lobbying activities so as to induce moderation. Nonetheless, because the gun issue is unidimensional, the finding that money fosters conflict implies only that Congress will be noisy, but not in disequilibrium.     

Pressure or Information? Lobbying for Binding Renewable Energy Targets in the European Union

This article analyzes the European renewable energy industry's capacity for pressure‐based and information‐based lobbying and its strategies in two lobbying efforts: for a legally binding target of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020 (a proposal adopted by the European Council in March 2007) and for binding interim targets as a means to secure effective implementation of the 2020 target (a proposal that was not adopted). It finds that the industry has the capacity for information‐based lobbying but very limited capacity for pressure‐based lobbying. The article also discusses the effectiveness of the two lobbying types. It argues that information‐based lobbying is particularly effective early in the decision‐making process, and hypothesizes that early information‐based lobbying may compensate for limited capacity for pressure‐based lobbying and for information‐based lobbying that takes place later in the decision‐making process, but concludes that this strategy would have been unlikely to be effective in the second case.     

Mobilising support when the stakes are high: Mass emails affect constituent-to-legislator lobbying

Mass emails are frequently used by advocacy groups to mobilise supporters to lobby legislators. But how effective are they at inducing constituent-to-legislator lobbying when the stakes are high? We test the efficacy of a large-scale email campaign conducted by the UK's main anti-Brexit organisation. In 2019, the group prominently displayed a ‘Write to your MP’ tool on their website and assigned 119,362 supporters represented by legislators with incongruent views to one of four email messages encouraging them to write to their MP or a control condition (no email). Messages varied across two factors: whether the MP's incongruent position was highlighted, and if urgency was emphasised. We find that 3.4 per cent of treatment subjects contacted their representative, compared to 0.1 per cent of those in the control, representing an additional 3,344 emails sent to MPs. We show that there was no substitution away from the most frequently used online legislator contact platform in the United Kingdom. While, on average, position and urgency cues had no marginal effects above the standard email, the most engaged supporters were more mobilised when informed that their MP held incongruent views. This study shows that advocacy groups can use low-cost communication techniques to mobilise supporters to lobby representatives when the stakes are high.