Lobbying: What Framework for Enhancing Transparency?

Abstract

This article highlights the key fi ndings of a recent OECD survey on existing legislation and government regulations to shed light upon the "mystery" of lobbying. It also presents building blocks, based on acknowledged good practice, for developing governance arrangements to enhance transparency, accountability and integrity in lobbying. Setting standards and rules for enhancing transparency in lobbying, however, has proved to be very diffi cult because it can also be a politically sensitive issue. The article highlights approaches, models and examples of existing legislation and government regulations and offers insights on the evolution of lobby legislation in their particular socio-political and administrative contexts, as rules on lobbying have developed incrementally as part of a political learning process. Lobbying: Welche Rahmenbedingungen ermöglichen mehr Transparenz?Zusammenfassung: Lobbying ist mittlerweile eine Realität in weiten Teilen der Welt und wird sowohl von politischen Entscheidern mittlerweile als ein wichtiger Bestandteil der politischen Entscheidungsfi ndung als auch von Unternehmen, Interessenverbänden und Nichtregierungsorganisationen als wichtiges Vehikel der Interessenartikulation angesehen. Dessen ungeachtet wird Lobbying auch zunehmend als eine Aushebelung demokratischer Entscheidungsfi ndung verstanden. Der vorliegende Artikel diskutiert auf Basis einer Umfrage der OECD in ihren 30 Mitgliedsländern und "Best Practice"-Beispielen, wie durch Modelle von "Good Governance" Interessen artikuliert werden können, ohne demokratische Entscheidungsfi ndung zu unterwandern.

Morality of Lobbying for Tax Benefits: A Kantian Perspective

“…To keep these advantages and at the same time address freeriding behaviour, several scholars advocate for more transparency around tax lobbying (Brosens & Bossuyt, 2020;Christians, 2017). Such transparency has been associated with ethical and democratic traditions (Ostas, 2007), good governance (Bertók, 2009;Brosens & Bossuyt, 2020;Christians, 2017), and corporate social responsibility (Anastasiadis et al, 2018;Bauer, 2014;Gribnau & Jallai, 2017). However, references to ethical behaviour as a normative basis for transparency remain vague and, consequently, leave room for doubt and counterarguments.…”

“…Thirdly, previous research has noted that so far transparency in lobbying is poorly specified and that it remains unclear what should be transparent (Anastasiadis et al, 2018). Literature suggests disclosure legislation according to which lobbyists have to register and lobbying activities have to be reported (Bertók, 2009;Crepaz, 2017;Rival & Major, 2018). Several countries have introduced such legislation.…”

Publicity and Transparency

“…More pointedly, the lack of transparency in public discourse is viewed as a central political problem of our time. Recent scholarly studies of fake news (Albright, 2017; Blanding, 2018), front groups (Bertók, 2009; Lyon & Maxwell, 2004; Palenchar & Fitzpatrick, 2009), and social media bots (Ford et al, 2016) have echoed this premise, lauding transparency as a means for taming the runaway force of promotional actors.…”