Lobbying

Abstract

Lobbying describes the effort of organized interests to inform policy makers and to try to persuade them to choose particular policy choices. On one level lobbying is a communications process, whereby group representatives (lobbyists) or group members send messages that give those in government information favorable to the group's cause. At another level, lobbying is the exercise of a fundamental democratic freedom: the right of citizens to organize and to ask those in government to respond to their preferences. This article takes up three related aspects of lobbying. First, the strategies and tactics of interest groups are discussed. Second, the role of money in interest group politics is assessed, though it is noted that it is extremely difficult to measure the impact of interest group resources on the policy-making process. Third, the question of stability vs. change in lobbying is taken up and it is argued that despite the oft-cited potential of high technology to transform the political world, there is much more stability than change in the lobbying process.