Balancing inside and outside lobbying: The political strategies of lobbyists at global diplomatic conferences

Abstract

This article seeks to explain the use of inside and outside lobbying by organised interests at global diplomatic conferences. At first sight, the lobbying at these venues is puzzling as it does not seem to be a very fruitful way to acquire influence. The use of outside strategies especially is perplexing because most aspects of international negotiations fall outside of the purview of national constituencies. It is argued in this article, however, that the presence of outside lobbying is not so puzzling if lobbying is seen both as a way to attain influence and as a way to pursue organisational maintenance goals. Empirically, the article draws on interview data with 232 interest group representatives that participated at either the 2012 session of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Geneva, or the 2011 (Durban) and 2012 (Doha) United Nations Climate Conferences. The analysis demonstrates that organisational needs, and especially the competition actors face in obtaining resources, significantly affects the relative focus of organised interests on inside and outside lobbying.

Advocacy Strategies in Global Governance: Inside versus Outside Lobbying

“…Recent research on NGOs in other global governance settings indicates that this pattern holds beyond UN as well (Hadden, 2015;Tallberg et al, 2015;Hanegraaff et al, 2016).…”

“…NGOs' choice of lobbying strategies vis-à-vis IOs is a topic which so far has received limited systematic attention (Guldbrandsen and Andresen, 2004;Hadden, 2015;Hanegraaff et al, 2016). While there is a rich body of research on NGO advocacy in IR (e.g., Keck and Sikkink, 1998;O'Brien et al, 2000;Bob, 2009;Prakash and Gugerty, 2010;Carpenter, 2011; for overviews, see Risse, 2012;Stroup and Murdie, 2012), this literature has yet to explore the patterns and causes of lobbying strategies in interactions with IOs.…”

The paradox of collective action: Linking interest aggregation and interest articulation in EU legislative lobbying

“…Value-based citizen interests are less constrained in this way because they generally adopt positions that enjoy broad support among the public and the media and are more familiar to public lobbying activities (Hanegraaff et al, 2016;Kollman, 1998;Rasmussen et al, 2017). This argument results in the following hypothesis:…”

Whose Side Are You On? Explaining the Extent to which National Interest Groups Support States in Global Politics

“…Hereby the argument is that support for states across business groups and NGOs is conditional on the salience of issues, and a country's level of development and democracy. Recent studies show that business groups and NGOs make strategic decisions differently in relation to similar contextual influences (Binderkrantz and Rasmussen, 2015;De Bruycker, 2016;Dür et al, 2015;Dür and Mateo, 2014;Hanegraaff et al, 2016;Weiler and Brändli, 2015). With this in mind, I argue that business groups are more critical of their country's positions at global venues when an issue is more salient or when the groups stem from a less developed country.…”