Seeking Access to Policy Stakeholders: Business ‘Lobbying’ vs Others

This chapter primarily analyzes the differences in strategies for inside lobbying (i.e. direct interactions with policy-makers or participation in policy consultations) between business and non-business organizations in the studied countries in a comparative perspective. The existing research on Western Democracies concludes that interest organizations can pursue their political goals in multiple institutional venues and that business groups rely to a higher degree on inside lobbying, while citizens groups spend more time on outside lobbying (e.g. public campaigns, media interactions). The argument is that this is caused by business groups’ larger resources (staff and budget) and technical knowledge, which is favourably received by policy-makers. This chapter explores if this is the case in the post-Communist environment in three CEE countries as exemplary case studies. We begin, first, with a data-driven snapshot view of interest group venue shopping in the studied CEE countries, then follow with a more detailed look into the differences in strategies for inside lobbying and finally conclude with the analysis of access goods that help interest groups to reach decision-makers and to influence public policy. The results indicate that lobbying is mostly concentrated on the government and national ministries, whereas parliamentary actors are usually bypassed by both types of organizations, interestingly omitting interactions with directly elected representatives.