Excluded or Embraced: How Do Multinationals Lobby in Eastern Europe?

Abstract

The paper investigates the lobbying strategies of multinational corporations’ subsidiaries in Hungary. Previous research has shown that the unique lobbying style of post-socialist interest groups and firms is not compatible with the EU’s multi-level lobbying system. However much less attention has been devoted to the question of how multinationals lobby in Eastern Europe. To understand how institutional complexity in a post-socialist context affects MNE strategy development, it is necessary to examine how the institutional context of the host country and the internal institutional pressures of the parent company affect subsidiaries’ lobbying activities. The article makes a theoretical connection between the literatures on corporate lobbying, institutional duality and organizational capability in order to reveal how political capabilities are organized in an emerging host country context.