Finding minimum norms in lobbying regulations : a comparative analysis

Finding minimum norms in

lobbying regulations

A comparative analysis

Lucía Sánchez Pérez – 10752420

June 2015

Master Thesis Political Science: Specialisation in International Relations

Supervisor: Jeannette Mak

Finding minimum norms in lobbying regulations:

A comparative analysis

SUMMARY

Lobbying is an issue that is becoming a key aspect in democratic political dynamics. Some consider the role of lobbyists as essential, as a channel of communication between public authorities and society. However, it is argued that lobbying only benefits special interests, creating corruption and a lack of transparency. Given this, the regulation of lobbying is becoming increasingly important in academic and public debate. Generally, it is believed that lobbying regulation can foster lobbying transparency and accountability.

This research conducts a most-dissimilar cases comparison of lobbying regulations. The principal objective is to find out which minimum norms can be distilled from the comparison of lobbying regulations in European and Western democracies. Lobbying regulations can be classified in ‘lowly’, ‘medium’ and ‘highly’ regulated systems. For lowly regulated systems Germany, the UK and Poland will be analysed. The EU Joint Transparency Register, Lithuania and Canada are the case studies selected for medium regulated systems. The only state with a highly regulated system that falls in the scope of this research is the USA, and although a comparison is not possible it will be studied to see the evolution of the regulations.

This thesis has established eight variables that will be analysed in every case, namely: Transparency; Definition, target and scope of the regulation; Register of lobbyists; Publicity of the lobbying information; Surveillance and evaluation mechanisms; Offences and sanctions; Cooling-off periods and revolving door provisions; and Codes of Conduct. An evolution can be observed when the lobbying regulations analysed are compared. The main common aspects in lowly regulated systems are the establishment of public registers and the existence of external Codes of Conduct. In medium regulated systems the minimum norms are: the explicit mention of 'transparency'; a clear definition of lobbying; the creation of a public register; the establishment of monitoring mechanisms and sanctions; and

references to Codes of Conduct. In highly regulated systems most of the above variables appear and revolving door provisions and cooling-off periods are included in an Act closely related to the lobbying law.

In order to have an efficient regulation, it is essential to establish a clear and wide scope for the regulation, which needs to include a definition of lobbying that aims to include all the lobbyists in the political system. This thesis further recommends including evaluation mechanisms to improve the regulation and make it more robust in the future. The inclusion of Codes of Conduct would promote not only control over lobbyists but also an ethical performance of lobbying. More attention needs to be paid to the role of the public authorities, along with the inclusion of revolving door provisions to stop collateral problems related to lobbying from the beginning. Finally, it should be noted that it is not necessary to start implementing the stricter form of regulation immediately, as the norms should be adapted to each political system and its lobbying activity.

Key words: Lobby; Lobbying regulations; Comparative analysis; Minimum norms;

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. UNDERSTANDING LOBBYING

2.1. What is lobbying?

2.2. The role of interest groups in policy-making

2.3. Lobbying regulation: countries and classification

2.4. Relevant aspects of lobbying regulation

a. Variables………..…22

b. Regulations to be analysed………...………..29

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. Measuring the variables

3. 2. Case studies

a. Lowly regulated systems………...39

b. Medium regulated systems………...39

c. Highly regulated systems………...40

4. FROM THE INDIVIDUAL ANALYSIS TO THE COMPARISON

4.1. Lowly Regulated Systems

b. The United Kingdom: Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and

Trade Union Administration Act………....45

c. Poland: Act on Lobbying Activity in the Law-Making Process………49

d. Compared conclusions……….…….…53

4.2. Medium Regulated Systems

a. The European Union: Agreement between the European Parliament and the European Commission on the Transparency Register………..…55

b. Lithuania: Law on Lobbying Activities………...………..…60

c. Canada: Lobbying Act………....…64

d. Compared conclusions………..…67

4.3. Highly Regulated Systems:

4.4. Findings at a glance

5. KEY ASPECTS TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION

5.1. Minimum norms

a. Lowly regulated systems………...……77

b. Medium regulated systems………...78

c. Highly regulated systems………...79

d. Common aspects in all the regulations………80

6. CONCLUSIONS

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: Abbreviations

APPENDIX 2: Methodology in the theoretical framework

APPENDIX 3: Operationalisation of the variables

APPENDIX 4: Minimum variables present in the lobbying regulations

according to the minimum norms

Finding minimum norms in lobbying regulations:

A comparative analysis

1. INTRODUCTION

Lobbying in modern democratic systems

The role of lobbying in democratic systems has been controversial for many years, in both the public and the political debate (Von Alemann & Eckert 2012, pp. 21-22). In a wider sense, lobbies or pressure groups are those associations that try to influence public officers and policy-makers in order to achieve outcomes that benefit their interests (Lachmann 2012, p. 5). However, some believe that organized interests represent special interests that are against the public benefit (Lowery & Brasher 2003, p. 4). Hence, lobbies are considered as not completely legitimate or legal in democratic political systems (Pascual & de Uribe-Salazar 2012, p. 10), as they could “manipulate the State” and impose their will over the interest of the majority (Lachmann 2012, p. 6-7). On the other hand, there are those who argue that individuals by themselves are not capable of really influencing the political decisions (Lachmann 2012, p. 6) and therefore lobbies will be the way to connect people’s interests with public policies. In addition, it is considered that the existence of organized interests and the competition among them is relevant to allow those interests to be expressed in both society and the political system (Lowery & Brasher 2003, p. 4). Arguing further, for some the policy-makers do not always have the necessary expertise on every topic and lobbies can contribute their knowledge (Pascual & de Uribe-Salazar 2012, p. 11). Despite this, lobbying does not always has to be categorized as positive or negative, there is a middle ground (Von Alemann & Eckert 2012, p. 22), but it would be necessary to find a balance between the representation of organized interests and the avoidance of public officers benefitting only special causes (Lowery & Brasher 2003, p. 4). Apparently, the range of activities performed by lobbies and pressure groups seem to be an unchangeable part of the political life of indirect democracies (Lachmann 2012, p. 5). Thus, in order to control those groups and to find a balance, it would be recommendable to develop a regulatory framework for their influence.

Lobbying and its regulation is an issue that is becoming more relevant. Over the last few centuries, professional lobbying has been an activity typical to American politics (Lachmann 2012, p. 5). While in Europe interest groups had a different form of interaction with the policy-makers, in recent years a more professionalized form of lobbying has begun to develop in Europe, achieving great importance with the European Union (Speth 2012, p. 49-51). It should be noted that “Lobbying is a multi-billion dollar business. (…) Concerns over lobbying practices (…) have led to countries increasingly discussing lobbying in the political and policy arena” (OECD 2013, p. 1). Moreover, it could be said that nowadays there is a general trend towards establishing lobbying regulation (Dinan & Miller 2012). Before 2000 only four countries had regulation in this area but since the beginning of the 21st century more than ten states have already implemented some form of regulation, while others are planning to do it as well (Chari, Hogan & Murphy 2010).

The regulation of lobbying and transparency

Apparently, one of the strongest reasons behind the interest in regulating lobbying, or in some cases in making the existent regulations stricter, are the corruption scandals and the belief that lobbying regulation will improve transparency (Holman & Luneburg 2012). For example in the European Union the regulation of lobbying is embedded in the European Transparency Initiative (Greenwood 2011, p. 2). It is remarkable that most of the lobbyists seem to share this view. According to a 2013 OECD survey “there is a consensus among lobbyists, as well as legislators that transparency of lobbying would help alleviate actual or perceived problems of inappropriate influence (…)” (OECD 2013, p.1).

Furthermore, it should be noted that the corruption problems related to lobbying could escalate with the phenomenon of the ‘revolving door’, in which a public officer “has held, or currently holds, a professional position in the private sector where they can reasonably be expected to influence, or be seeking to influence, public policy decisions” (Opensecrets.org 2015). In the event they are not part of the government anymore, it can create suspicious about their influences during their term in office (Opensecrets.org 2015), having had a biased position and favouring the companies or organisations that offered them employment. The problem of the revolving door is not only the existence of direct

inappropriate influence, such as bribery or gifts, but also an indirect undue pressure that makes the public authority make some decisions to benefit certain interests because in the future that conduct can generate a profit for the public official too.

Consequently, provided that lobbies are essential in today’s democratic dynamics and that they could determine political relations, along with the policy-making process in future years, lobbying needs to be regulated very carefully. As has been mentioned, the regulation of lobbying is being fostered within the measures to increase transparency, but this paper argues that lobbying has to be regulated according to its own importance in the political system. This should be done not only to attempt an increase in transparency rates, but also in the same way that other important political actors are regulated, such as political parties. Recently, some institutions and academics have been focusing more on lobbying regulation. In particular Chari, Hogan & Murphy (2010) did a comprehensive comparison of the lobbying regulations that are already implemented but from the standpoint of increasing transparency.

However, this thesis would like to go a step further. Although it seems clear that there is no perfect way of regulating lobbying which is suitable for every political system (IPA 2005) as “social systems of governance (…) generate different policy-making patterns and (…) different ways of thinking about and judging matters of governance” (Burns & Carson 2002, p. 161), the objective of this paper is to discover which key issues have to be addressed in every regulation based on comparative analysis of most-dissimilar cases.

Scope of the research

The research question is as follows: What minimum norms for lobbying regulations can be distilled from a comparative analysis of the regulations in Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom for lowly regulated systems; in the European Union, Lithuania and Canada for medium regulated systems; and the single case of the United States of America for highly regulated systems? During this research, other sub-questions will be answered such as whether existing lobbying regulations are trying to avoid subsequent problems such as the revolving door or what is the role of the public in those regulations, regarding the existence or absence of mechanisms to grant people the access to lobbying information. Furthermore,

it should be noted that this research will be focused in European and Western democracies with regulations only at the national level.

In order to conduct this research the next chapter will be focused on the literature and theory about lobbying regulation, intending to explain where there is a lacuna. Major concepts such as the definition of lobbying, the interest groups’ dichotomy between pluralist and neo-corporatist systems and the different types of lobbying regulation will be explained. According to the literature reviewed, the main variables and the case studies will be introduced within the theoretical framework. After that, the research will move on into the methodology and the operationalisation of the variables. In the analysis, a comparison of most-dissimilar cases will take place and in a second analytical chapter minimum norms existent in all the regulations will be exposed. This thesis will pinpoint some key aspects that need to be taken into consideration by a state when it is creating its lobbying regulation and some recommendations for efficient lobbying regulation will be proposed. Finally, the paper will conclude by expressing the main findings and recommending further research.

2. UNDERSTANDING LOBBYING

State of the art

Lobbying is an issue that is becoming increasingly important due to both the influence exercised by the pressure groups and the rise in the number of lobbyists, which can be seen in the large number of registrations in those countries with lobby registers (OECD 2009, p. 3). Consequently, more attention is given to lobbies’ activities and several voices are rising against their power (OECD 2009, p. 3).Most of the literature about lobbies is focused on them as interest groups, trying to explain their role in democracy, how they organize themselves or their population or density (see Lowery & Brasher 2003). However due to public pressure for more control on lobbies, in recent years several authors and international institutions have started to focus on lobbying regulation. In general, most studies on the regulation of lobbying seem to frame their analysis in terms of the efforts for enhancing transparency and accountability.

The OECD and EU’s institutional reports are part of the most comprehensive literature about lobbying and its regulation In 2009 the OECD presented its first volume on ‘Lobbyists, Government and Public Trust’, called “Increasing Transparency through Regulation”, followed by other two volumes: “Promoting Integrity through Self-Regulation” and “Implementing the OECD Principles for Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying” in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Moreover, the European Union (hereinafter the EU) 1 created the ‘Joint Transparency Register’ in 2008 for lobbies and interest groups, and the European Commission for Democracy through Law (known as the Venice Commission) has presented several reports on the role of lobbying and its regulation in the democratic system.

Among the academic literature, the book published in 2010 by Chari, Murphy and Hogan, “Regulating lobbying: A global comparison” is, according to Baumgartner: “The first and only book of its kind, this comprehensive assessment of lobbying regulations around the globe. (…). (…) the single best resource for anyone interested in the topic of the regulation

of lobbying or political transparency” (Regulatelobbying.com 2011). Nevertheless, it should be remarked that the book needs to be updated, given that since its publication several countries have passed lobbying regulations (OECD.org 2015).

The necessity of lobbying regulation

It can be argued that a comprehensive legislation is necessary in every country, as the existence of voluntary registers alone or provisions regarding single aspects such as spending disclosures seem insufficient. Usually, the law is behind the social necessities (Barak 2006) and it is implemented to regulate an existing social reality or to improve a former regulation. Many countries have had a strong lobbying tradition for many years (Regulatelobbying.com 2011) and given the explosion of lobbyists, along with the importance that lobbying regulation is acquiring, this might be the right moment to implement lobbying legislation. Such regulation would help to consolidate the role of lobbies as key political actors, it would legitimise lobbying activity by regulating it in a text emanated from the Legislative, which is supposed to be the legitimate voice of the people (Dahl 2014) and it would clarify the legal situation of the lobbyists and their performance. The position of this paper is to join the recent debate about lobbying regulation but from a different perspective. This thesis wants to stay apart from simple efforts to foster transparency and is willing to focus on the relevance of lobbies. The role of lobbying in current democracies is of utmost importance for the functioning of political systems, as it can hinder or boost democratic principles. Hence, lobbying is a topic that matters by itself and should be regulated as the key aspect in political life that it is. However, it should be noted that it seems that lobbying regulation is an important part of measures to improve transparency, thus this needs to be taken into account when lobbying regulation is being shaped. Besides, this thesis aspires to find relevant aspects that are included in the existing regulation in order to be able to make some recommendations for future legislators. Related to this, it should be pointed out that having an evaluation and a surveillance process is essential, because it is necessary to make sure that the regulation is effective and that it is being carried out (Weiss 1999).

Despite the fact that this paper will not approach further theoretical debates about lobbying, before entering into the main analysis it is necessary to explain and to comprehend what lobbies are, what traditional theories say about interest groups and their relation with public policies and the policy-making process, and finally the different forms that the lobbying regulation can adopt.

2.1. What is lobbying?

Non-state actors and interest groups

To understand what lobbies are and how relevant their role is in today’s politics, it is necessary to place them in the political and international arena. First of all, it is important to acknowledge that the lobbies are regarded as non-state actors, a term that “implies any entity that is not actually a state” (Clapham 2009, p. 200). These entities have increased dramatically their quantity and their networks all over the world in recent years (Weiss, Seyle & Coolidge 2013, p. 4) and in the same way that non-state actors are relevant globally, they are important at the national level too (Maloney, Jordan & McLaughlin 1994). Hence, even though the states are one of the main international actors, the international arena cannot be understood only through their performance (Weiss, Seyle & Coolidge 2013, p. 11) The term ‘non-state actors’ includes an extensive variety of organisms such as “[the] private sector; economic and social partners, including trade union organisations; civil society (…)” (Clapham 2009, p. 206).

Within the wide variety of non-state actors, it is especially relevant to take into consideration the interest groups, as due to their main characteristics they can be confused with lobbies and even some scholars refer to both concepts interchangeably (Crepaz & Chari 2014, p. 72). In fact, consider whether both terms refer to the same entities or not depends on the definition of lobbying and interest group that is being chosen. Nevertheless, this paper considers that it is important to point out the differences between them, because lobbying can be used by other organisms that are not interest groups.

Interest groups are created by people that get together due to their common interest about a certain issue, creating organisations to defend them in front of public opinion (Lowery &

Brasher 2003, p. 4). Thus, they are organized, with specific demands and eventually they attempt to influence the authorities to achieve benefits for the entire group (Jordan, Halpin & Maloney 2004). Besides, the most important point is that they “pursue their collective objectives mainly through institutionalized means, such as lobbying (…)” (Snow, Soule & Kriesi 2004, p. 7).

Lobbying as a tactic

Hence, it is important to remark that several pressure groups, organisations or companies may try to influence policies and legislation, but not all of them are going to use lobbying, because it is just one tactic among a whole range of different strategies.2 Given the great impact of this tactic, along with its regularity in politics, when interest groups or any other entities are using it, they are known as lobbies. Consequently, “Interest groups is the generic term used today to designate groups whether or not they are politically active but which have the potential to engage in politics”, while lobbying is “The interaction of a group or interest with policy makers (…), with a view to (…) shaping future policy to the benefit of that group or interest” (Thomas & Hrebenar 2008, p. 4). Therefore, even if lobbying is especially common among interest groups it can be used also by other entities.

Attempts to define lobbying and lobbyist

Regarding the term ‘lobbying’, it is contested whether it appeared first in the United Kingdom (hereinafter the UK) or in the United States of America (hereinafter the USA). Some authors argue that the concept originated in the British Parliament because interest groups used to meet the parliamentarians in the Parliament’s Lobby (Lachmann 2012, p. 5), while others suggest that it could have appeared in the USA (Zetter 2008, p. 34). It is said that the American President Ulysses Grant used to drink at the lounge of a hotel in Washington and that “those wishing to catch a minute or two with the President to petition their causes would collect in the hotel lobby to corner Grant as he went to and from the

2

In contrast with the institutional means used by interest groups, such as lobbying, there are also non-institutional means used for example by social movements “as conducting marches, boycotts and sit-ins” (Snow, Soule & Kriesi 2004, p. 7).

lounge. Frustrated by the ever-growing crowd of petitioners, Grant frequently complained of the ‘lobbyists’ who would get in his way” (Holman 2006, p. 2).

Lobbying is a difficult concept to define (OECD 2009, p. 51). Each author has a different understanding of lobbying, although the influence exercised by lobbies is a common point among them. Due to the terminological confusion, some authors like Jordan, Halpin and Maloney tried to propose new categories like pressure participants or policy participants (Jordan, Halpin & Maloney 2004, p. 205). However, introducing new terms is probably going to increase the confusion, thus it is better to choose a wide and simple definition in which all the different entities performing lobbying can fit.

Besides the academic debates, each lobbying regulation has a different definition of lobbying. Normally, although those definitions have common basis, each one approaches the issue in a different way to match better with their political system. This point is important because the definition of lobbying is one of the essential aspects of every regulation as it will determine who is going to be under the scope of the legislation. Having a too narrow definition could result in important groups being left out, creating an inefficient legislation.

Furthermore, ‘lobbyist’ could be defined as “A person designated (…) to facilitate influencing public policy in that group’s favour (…)” (Thomas & Hrebenar 2008, p. 4) or the entity that engages in the activity of lobbying. Nevertheless, not all lobbyists are the same, as there are in-house lobbyists and consultant lobbyists. This difference is essential when lobbying regulation is being analysed, as some legislations only target one of those categories. On the one hand, ‘in-house lobbyists’ are employees of a company, organization or other entity that lobby on behalf of their employer, at the same time that they are regular employees (OECD 2009, p. 51). On the other hand, a ‘consultant lobbyist’ is a person or entity that is contracted with the single purpose of lobbying on behalf of the contractor, but they are not his employees and they are paid only for lobbying (OECD 2009, p. 51).

2.2. The role of interest groups in policy-making

The pluralist – neo-corporatism dichotomy

Once it is clear what lobbies and interest groups are, as well as its close relation, it is relevant to establish the position of the interest groups in the policy-making process. The pluralist and neo-corporatist theories are the most helpful in doing this. In corporatist systems the most important aspect is the “advocacy of an institutional relationship between systems of authoritative decision making and interest representation” (Molina & Rhodes 2002, p. 307), while in pluralist systems lobbying has to be limited, as there is an immense separation between those groups and the public authority (Streeck & Kenworthy 2004, p. 441-445). This difference is relevant because each approach assesses in a different way who should participate, the amount of participants and the conditions for that participation (Burns & Carson 2002). Moreover, some literature considers that there is a linkage between neo-corporatist or pluralist systems and the form of regulation, as the role of the interest groups and their relationship with the policy-making process is different (OECD 2009).

Influencing lobbying regulation

In pluralist systems there are a lot of decentralized and diverse groups that are constantly competing amongst themselves to obtain influence (Balme & Chabanet 2008, pp. 30-32). Hence, due to the large number of entities, it seems more difficult to control them, which traditionally led pluralist systems to have some sort of regulation or lobby registers (OECD 2009, p. 43). In contrast, in neo-corporatist systems the groups are bigger and more concentrated, usually with a ‘representational monopoly’ and higher cooperation with the policy-makers (Streeck & Kenworthy 2004). As entities are generally more integrated in the policy-making process, with a privileged position over other pressure groups (e.g. being part of consultative bodies), the public authorities know who participates and the existence of regulation seems less necessary (OECD 2009, p.43).

The aforementioned systems are the traditional formulations of the theories about interest groups and their role in policy-making, in which typically the Anglo-Saxon countries would be pluralists whereas the Scandinavian and Western European countries would be

neo-corporatists. However, new combined forms are appearing, the most paradigmatic one being the European Union which has characteristics from both pluralism and corporatism (Burns & Carson 2002). Given all of this, the pluralist and neo-corporatist theories are going to be part of the theoretical background of this thesis, but at the same time this paper has to take into account that those traditional theories are evolving and mixing.

2.3. Lobbying regulation: countries and classification

What is lobbying regulation?

To fully understand the issue that is being addressed in this paper, it is relevant to define what is lobbying regulation and the different forms of regulation that exist. It should be noted that in some cases the regulation is weakly formulated and a voluntary register barely exists, while in other situations the norms are quite rigid (Venice Commission 2013, pp. 16-18). Given this, it is not advisable to try to find minimum norms for all the countries alike. As the norms would be minimum (hence, the least possible), they would be similar to the ones in the less regulated systems, while some countries could be willing to establish stricter regulated systems. Therefore, for the sake of the research it is better to explain the different forms of regulation, in order to find minimum norms for each type.

This paper considers that the definition that best expresses the idea of lobbying regulation is: “a State-made legal framework of codified, formal rules that are passed by Parliament and which are enforced (…). Regulation in that sense is not mere self-regulation of interest groups (…)” (Venice Commission 2013, p. 13). Currently, most of the states do not have any legislation, while a few have some form of lobbying regulation (Greenwood & Dreger 2013, p. 159) that can be sub-classified as ‘lowly’, ‘medium’ and ‘highly’ regulated systems3 (Chari & Murphy 2006, p. 64). Additionally, there is the possibility of implementing self-regulation in the form of a Code of Conduct for lobbyists, “Considered as the least coercive means of regulating lobbying, (…) constitute a valuable instrument in

3

The literature uses both ‘low’ and ‘lowly' regulated systems. Principally, his thesis will use the expression ‘lowly’, although in some cases (for example in tables) the term ‘low’ will be preferred. The same is applicable to the case of ‘high’ and ‘highly’ regulated systems.

providing meaningful and concrete guidance on how to conduct lobbying without unwittingly falling into unethical situations” (OECD 2012, p. 51). It should be noted that Codes of Conduct can be created by the states or by political associations. They can also be implemented alone or combined them with stricter lobbying regulation (OECD 2012). Regarding the position of lobbyists, in general they are not against the regulation of lobbying because it would imply more legitimacy for them, as in theory it will mean more reliable information for the population and the policy-makers (OECD 2012). Although some lobbyists still prefer not to have regulation or to comply with self-regulation (OECD 2012, p. 67), it seems that the absence of regulation is usually due to the fact that it is deemed unnecessary by the public authorities (Chari & Murphy 2006, p. 79). Moreover, the principal argument against regulating lobbying is that it would be costly, both for the society and the political system, because the new rules would make it necessary to spend a lot of money on their implementation (Venice Commission 2013, p. 15).

Regulated systems

The main theoretical sources of this paper, namely Chari, Murphy and Hogan (Regulatelobbying.org 2011),4 the EU (Venice Commission 2013)5 and the OECD (OECD.org 2015),6 differ in their reports in which political organisations or states have lobbying regulation. The reasons behind that divergence are the date of the last information

4 _{According to the information currently presented in the Chari, Hogan and Murphy’s website the countries}

with lobbying regulation are: Australia, Canada, the EU Parliament, the EU Commission, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Israel, Poland, Slovenia, Taiwan, and the United States (Regulatelobbying.com 2011).

5

The last report of the Venice Commission, released in 2013, says: “So far, within the Council of Europe member States, (…): Austria in 2012; France in 2009; Georgia in 1998; Germany through rules of procedure of the Bundestag in 1951, amended in 1975 and 1980; Hungary in 2006, repealed in 2011; Italy at the regional level in the Consiglio regionale della Toscana and in Regione Molise in 2004; Lithuania in 2001; Poland in 2005, Slovenia in 2010; ‘The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ in 2008. (…) the United States sees regulation in all of its 50 States, while Canada has regulation in six of its ten provinces. Israel has established rules in 2008. In the EU itself, the institutions which have rules are the EP since 1996 and the Commission, which went from a model of self-regulation to a voluntary register of interest representations in 2008” (Venice Commission 2013, p. 16).

6 _{The OECD establishes that the countries with lobbying regulation are: United States (1946), Germany}

(1951), Australia (1983), Canada (1989), Poland (2005), Hungary (2006), Israel (2008), France (2009), Mexico (2010), Slovenia (2010), Austria (2012), Italy (2012), Netherlands (2012), Chile (2014), United Kingdom (2014) (OECD.org 2015).

update, the concept of lobbying regulation or the difference in the membership of the EU and the OECD. (See Table 1)

Therefore, according to this information, the political systems that have some form of lobbying regulation would be the USA, Germany, the EU Parliament, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Poland, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Taiwan, the EU Commission, France, Mexico, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, The Netherlands, Chile and the United Kingdom. In addition, it should be noted that Ireland passed its ‘Lobbying Act’ in March 2015, although the register was not launched until May 2015 and the Act will not commence until September 2015 (Per.gov.ie 2015). Moreover, the system in the European Union has changed since 2011 when both the European Commission (hereinafter the EC) and the European Parliament (hereinafter the EP) signed an agreement to establish a ‘Joint Transparency Register’ (hereinafter JTR) (European Union 2011) and make their lobbying regulation more robust (Crepaz & Chari 2014, p. 81). This paper will contemplate the lobbying regulation of the European Union as a whole, according to the JTR, and not separately for the EU Parliament and the EU Commission. However, some aspects should be remarked upon, because not all those regulations fall into the scope of this research. Firstly, independently of the existence of a regional or

sub-national regulation of lobbying, this paper is focusing only on regulations at the sub-national level, which do not exist in Italy where there is only regulation in some regions (Transparency.org 2015). Secondly, in order to deem whether a state or an institution has lobbying regulation it is necessary that they have some form of statutory rules or legal framework, which is not the case in The Netherlands where there is a register but it is “not regulated by law” (European Commission 2014, p. 5). Thirdly, this thesis is only analysing countries or institutions that have lobbying regulation in force right now, therefore Hungary do not meet this standard as its lobbying regulation was repealed in 2011 (Regulatelobbying.com 2011) and the recent Irish one will not commence until September 2015 (Per.gov.ie 2015). Consequently, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary and Ireland are not going to be taken into consideration in this paper. This shows the relevance of what is accepted as lobbying regulation, as well as the political, geographical or timeline scope of the research when a regulation is being studied.

In addition, this paper intends to produce some useful recommendations for countries willing to regulate lobbying or improve their regulations but the scope of this research is limited to Western and European democracies. Hence, not all the countries mentioned are considered as entirely democratic or free according to the reports of Freedom House. For this reason they will also be excluded from this analysis. Regarding the last reports of the ‘Freedom in the World in 2015’,7 Georgia, Macedonia and Mexico are only partly free, which means that they are not entirely democratic and they will be ruled out of this paper (Freedomhouse.org 2015). Moreover, some countries with lobbying regulation are not part of the traditional Western democracies or European countries, namely Chile, Taiwan and Israel, and so they are not going to be analysed in this paper.

Consequently, the countries or forms of political organization with lobbying regulation, that are at the same time European or Western democracies and that fall into the scope of this paper are the USA, Germany, Australia, Canada, the EU JTR, Lithuania, Poland, France, Slovenia, Austria and the UK.

7

“Freedom in the World is an annual global report on political rights and civil liberties (…). (…). The report’s methodology is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (Freedomhouse.org 2015).

Forms of lobbying regulation

In 2006 Chari and Murphy established the guidelines to classify lobbying regulation in lowly, medium and highly regulated systems, using a method that was followed later in most of the literature, including the OECD (2009) and the Venice Commission (2013). Chari and Murphy employed the ‘CPI scores’ based on “the method of analysis that was developed by the Centre for Public Integrity (CPI) in the United States” (Chari & Murphy 2006, p.60), studying eight key variables8 (Chari & Murphy 2006, p.61). A summary of their findings is presented in Table 2.

Chari and Murphy updated their analysis in 2010.9 According to their last analysis, regulations can be classified in ‘lowly regulated systems’ with a CPI score between 1 and

8 _{The eight variables analysed by Chari and Murphy (2006) were: “Definition of Lobbyist, Individual}

Registration; Individual Spending Disclosure; Employer Spending Disclosure; Electronic Filing ; Public Access; Enforcement; and Revolving Door Provisions” (Chari & Murphy 2006, p.61).

9

According to their 2006 analysis, regulations can be classified in ‘lowly regulated systems’ with a CPI score between 1 and 19; ‘medium regulated systems’ with a CPI score between 20 and 59; and ‘highly regulated system’ with a CPI score between 60 and 100 (Chari & Murphy 2006, pp. 64-66).

29; ‘medium regulated systems’ with a CPI score between 30 and 59; and ‘highly regulated systems’ with a CPI score between 60 and 100 (Chari & Murphy 2010, p. 20).

Classification of the countries with lobbying regulation

According to Chari & Murphy’s findings, it is claimed that Germany, both the EU Parliament and the EU Commission, as well as Poland had low CPI scores; while Canada, Lithuania and Australia had medium regulated systems; and the USA was the only one with a highly regulated system (Chari & Murphy 2010, p. 19). However, some countries were still missing from this classification and according to the current literature all the other countries with regulation that fall into the scope of this research have medium regulated systems, except the UK and France which have lowly regulated systems (see Venice Commission 2013; Crepaz & Chari 2014). (See Table 3)

2.4. Relevant aspects of lobbying regulation

a) Variables

It is essential to take into account some features of lobbying, both when the activity is being performed and when the regulation is being shaped, and those key aspects are going to determine the variables of this research. Firstly, general aspects like the importance of

transparency, the definitions and the target of the regulation, along with the role of public authorities. Secondly, informational aspects related to the access to information, such as the existence of registers, the publicity of the registered information and public hearings. Thirdly, control aspects, like the existence of monitoring and evaluation processes, as well as the inclusion of offences and sanctions. Finally, collateral aspects, namely the existence of cooling-off periods and revolving door provisions, along with the references to Codes of Conduct for lobbyists (hereinafter CoC). (See Table 4)

1. Transparency

Both the people and public institutions are calling for higher degrees of transparency and accountability due to the rising number of corruption scandals in recent years (Holman & Luneburg 2012). Moreover, most of the literature agrees that lobbying regulation could foster transparency, because it would provide more information about the relations between private interests and public activities (OECD 2009). Consequently, transparency is something that needs to be taken into account in this analysis as it seems to be the main aim underpinning lobbying regulation (Holman & Luneburg 2012).

It is difficult to define transparency in relation to political activities and lobbying. In its broader sense it means to “open up arenas of governmental decision-making to accountability to formal institutions such as Parliaments and Courts of Audit, but also to horizontal accountability to civil society organizations, stakeholders, the media, and the people at large” (Meijer 2014, p. 507). Furthermore, despite the difficulty of measuring such an abstract concept, some actions can enhance transparency, such as giving

information on when “The minutes of the meetings of popular representatives are published and people can attend those meetings” or when “Government documents are published or available on request (…)” (Meijer 2014, p. 1).

The principal interest in transparency for this analysis is to find out if the regulations mention explicitly transparency as an essential component. Therefore, this thesis will look for any specific references to transparency or openness in the regulations. Additionally, this paper is also going to ascertain whether any measures to foster transparency are included, such as public access to a register of lobbyists, information about the interest groups' hearings, the registration of public authorities’ private interest or revolving door provisions.

2. Definition, target and scope

Establishing the scope of the regulation is relevant for both the regulatory document itself and this analysis. The definition of lobbying, lobby and lobbyist is one of the most important aspects of lobbying regulation. Depending on what is considered as lobbying, the entire regulation can change and if some relevant activities are not included it could be ineffective. In addition, lobbying regulation should attempt to include all the people and organisations that exercise that activity (OECD 2009), as excluding relevant entities can create inefficient regulations. The role of the public authorities is important too, being necessary in the first place to determine if lobbying is directed at the Legislative Branch, to the Legislative Process10 or to the Executive Branch (Lachmann 2012, p. 5).

Moreover, it is worth finding out if the regulation is only targeting the actions of the lobbyists or also the reaction of the public officers. Lobbying is a bidirectional relation that would be advisable to regulate as a whole, as it affects both those who lobby and those who are being lobbied (OECD 2009) because although lobbyists should not perform undue influence, public officers are an essential part in rejecting corruption.

10

The principal difference between the Legislative Branch and Process is that the former refers usually to the Parliament, while the latter refers to everybody involved in the regulatory process. This means that the latter is more focused on the process of making laws or regulations, rather than on the institutional aspect.

In order to analyse this variable, first of all it is important to see if there is a definition and then whether it defines lobby, lobbyist, lobbying or all of them, as well as whether it differentiates between in-house and consultant lobbying. Next, it is interesting to find which key concepts are present in the different definitions, such as ‘influence’, ‘payment’, ‘public authorities’ or ‘individuals’. Additionally, this paper will analyse whether the definition focuses on the Executive Branch (principally the Government), on the Legislative Branch (principally the Parliament) or on the Legislative Process. Moreover, as it is a regulation for lobbying it is clear that it targets lobbies, but it is worth seeing if it also targets the public officers’ activities. Hence, this thesis is going to look for explicit mentions or provisions about applicability to public authorities, or whether their role is taken into consideration to some extent. Finally, this paper will analyse briefly whether other relevant concepts are defined in the regulation, taking into account the key expressions already included in this variable.

3. Register of lobbyists

Establishing a register seems to be one of the first steps towards a regulation of lobbying (Venice Commission 2013) and in fact some countries have a register of lobbyists even if they do not have lobbying regulation, such as The Netherlands (Tweedekamer.nl 2015). Hence, a register is an important aspect in a lobbying regulatory system and this research has to take it into account, despite the fact that the scope of this paper is not an in-depth analysis of existing lobbying registers but the entire legislation. Moreover, it should be noted that the definition of lobbyist or lobbying is essential in this point, as it would determine who should register. This is important because a regulation may establish a mandatory register but it does not mean that all the existent lobbies in that political system would have to register, given that some lobbyists might not fall into the scope of the regulation.

Therefore, this thesis will look into the regulations if a register of lobbyists is created, but it is not going to analyse the requirements of registration. Then, it is going to find out whether the register is mandatory or voluntary. In order to do so, this paper will look for key

expressions regarding the register, such as ‘mandatory’, ‘voluntary’ or ‘sanctions for unregistered lobbyists’.

4. Publicity

This variable is related to the idea of finding out if the people have access to the lobbying and policy-making information, thus this variable helps to see whether the lobbying regulation takes notice of the role of the people too. Firstly, regarding the aforementioned register of lobbyists, this paper wants to see if everybody can access to the register or only registered entities, as well as whether it is published and how. Secondly, it is relevant to find out whether there is information about public hearings and its publicity. This is especially important in countries which have a neo-corporatist tradition and where it is normal for interest groups to participate in the policy-making process (Streeck & Kenworthy 2004). Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is difficult to establish whether public hearings are lobbying or not, as some form of influence is exercised. However, it depends on the regulations to decide if that influence is lobbying or if it is simply a regular part of the policy-making process. Thirdly, it is worth seeing whether there is a section specifically about information, to discover the importance given to this issue by the regulation.

This paper will look at the regulations to see if there are any provisions regarding public access to the information in the register. Then, it is going to find out if everybody can access the register and how, whether via internet or by other means. Moreover, it is going to look for key expressions such as ‘publicity’, ‘online’ or ‘accessible’. Next, the analysis will investigate if there are any references to public hearings and whether they are considered as lobbying. Thus it is going to look for key words such as ‘activities excluded’, ‘notify interest’ or ‘publish draft legislation/policies’. Finally, this will examine if there are any explicit provisions or sections regarding information.

5. Surveillance and evaluation

Having surveillance and evaluation processes is relevant not only in the case of lobbying regulation but in all public policy processes (Weiss 1998). In general the objective is to

avoid errors and to increase efficiency (Powell 2006, p. 101-104) and it also shows an engagement on the part of the public authorities with the regulation, as they are worried about its proper enforcement (Powell 2006, p. 104). On the one hand it is important to know to what extent the laws and the policies are being followed, through a monitoring process. On the other hand, assessment is essential in order adopt measures to improve the regulation and to ensure the accomplishment of its aims. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the analysis of this variable is not going to be looking in-depth for concrete measures, as it is more relevant for this research to have a broad idea of the entire regulation.

To see whether this variable is included in the regulations, this thesis will find out if there are specific provisions regarding monitoring actions and assessment measures. Moreover, this paper wants to determine whether surveillance or evaluation is directed at the whole regulation or only to some elements such as the register or the Code of Conduct. To establish this, the analysis will look for key expressions such as ‘control’ or ‘report’.

6. Offences and sanctions

Furthermore, it is important to see if the regulation establishes offences for those that do not respect the norms, along with punishments for the offenders, because the inclusion of sanctions may discourage the exercise of undue influence. Moreover, it needs to be noted that several legal codes in democratic countries already establish sanctions for situations such as bribery. Nevertheless, this paper wants to find out if the lobbying regulations analysed establish their own sanctions, although it would be taken into account if they refer to such external provisions.

In order to analyse this variable this research will look whether offences are defined or not, as well as whether they depend on breaking the requirements of registration, the rules of the CoC or any other provisions of the regulation, and who can be an offender. Additionally, this paper will try to determine if sanctions are established and the nature of those punishments, namely whether they are fines, imprisonment or other punishments. Finally, this thesis will look for key terms that can help to explain the aforementioned aspects, such as ‘criminal law’, ‘offence’ or ‘penalty’.

7. Cooling-off periods and revolving door provisions

Lobbying is related to other problems such as the revolving door,11 which can be stopped at the outset including revolving door provisions and cooling-off periods in the lobbying regulations (Chari & Murphy 2006). Therefore, it is important to see if the regulations take this into account. The cooling-off period is an extent of time during which public authorities cannot register as lobbyists or cannot practise lobbying (Chari and Murphy 2006, pp. 64-65). Apart from that, there are other measures to discourage the revolving door, like establishing periods in which public officers cannot join the boards or assume important positions in entities that lobbied them while they were in office. Nevertheless these are not very common in the regulations (OECD 2012).

This paper will attempt to find out whether the regulations explicitly refer to the revolving door and if there are measures to stop it, apart from cooling-off periods. Moreover, this analysis will look for the existence of clauses regulating cooling-off periods and their duration in the different regulations. Additionally, this thesis will look for key phrases such as ‘prohibition of registration’, ‘wait’ or ‘years’.

8. Codes of Conduct

Another option to establish some type of lobbying regulation is through the Codes of Conduct of Lobbyists. They can provide useful advice on how to exercise lobbying in an ethical and efficient manner (OECD 2012, p. 51). As these Codes can exist independently of lobbying regulations, it is interesting to see whether they are taken into consideration in the lobbying rules analysed. Moreover, it is worth seeing if there are other CoC’s in the countries, created by political associations or other similar organisations.

In order to measure this, this thesis will look for the term ‘Code of Conduct’ or ‘self-regulation’ in the lobbying laws, as well as key words such as ‘voluntary’ or’ mandatory’,

11 _{As it was already mentioned in the Introduction of this thesis (page 5): <<The phenomenon of the}

“revolving door”, in which a public officer “has held, or currently holds, a professional position in the private sector where they can reasonably be expected to influence, or be seeking to influence, public policy decisions” (Opensecrets.org 2015)>>.

to discover the legal force of the CoC. Furthermore, this paper will research beyond the regulations12 for this variable in order to find out if there are other relevant CoC’s.

b) Regulations to be analysed

Case studies selection

As previously mentioned, this thesis performs a comparison of most-dissimilar cases, thus it is relevant to understand the choice of case studies that will be analysed. For this purpose several aspects should be taken into account, the principal one being that the cases have to be different, having contrasting lobbying traditions and distinct political cultures.

Therefore, the pluralist – neo-corporatist dichotomy is quite relevant, although it should be noted that none of the regulations available can be considered as completely neo-corporatist, because as aforementioned in those systems regulations are less common. Germany is the only one with a system close to neo-corporatism, while the UK, Canada and Australia are pluralist and the rest of cases remain undefined (Magone 2011, p. 500). Hence, the absence of neo-corporatist systems among the countries that fall into the scope of this research verifies the traditional theory that argues that pluralist countries are more likely to have some form of regulation.

The moment of the creation of the regulation is non-essential, but this paper considers more interesting to study cases that implemented regulations in different periods.13 Thus, there are going to be cases with both old regulation and more recent legislation too. Other aspects such as the political culture, the political organisation or their historical characteristics are going to be taken into consideration too and the case selection will include states and also other forms of political organisation, such as the EU. Moreover, this paper will attempt to cover federal and unitary systems, republics and monarchies, countries with bicameral and unicameral Parliaments, as well as recent and old democracies.

12 _{This thesis will look for the existence of external CoC. However, this research is not going to be in-depth}

but rather superficial in order to find out whether it is easy to find those CoC’s or not.

13 _{Having regulations from different periods might be interesting because it can provide more variety.}

Likewise, the distinction between lowly, medium and highly regulated systems is an essential point shaping the selection, as for each category three case studies are chosen. There is an exception in the case of highly regulated system because the only existing case that falls into the scope of this research is the United States, and the same variables will be analysed in order to discover which ones are present in the highly regulated systems. Given that part of the literature claims that lobbying regulations need to be stronger (Crepaz & Chari 2014), the latter case is relevant as it can provide guidance for more robust regulations. In addition, the CPI score is going to be taken into account to choose countries with different CPI scores within the same category.

Lowly regulated systems: Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland

Among the lowly regulated systems the countries that fall into the scope of this research are very few: Germany (17 CPI), France (25 CPI), the UK (26 CPI) and Poland (27 CPI). Poland is chosen as the country with the highest CPI score among the lowly regulated systems. It is a state that became democratic quite recently, less than thirty years ago, and that is considered as a country with Eastern European culture (Lipton 2002). Polish lobbying tradition is very recent as there were no lobbying activities until the democratisation of the country, which started in the 1990’s (Jasiecki 2006). Moreover, whether Poland is pluralist or neo-corporatist is not clearly defined yet and its regulation came into being in 2006.

Germany will be analysed because it is the country with the lowest CPI score. It is a state that has been a Western democracy for several decades (Ronit & Schneider 1998), becoming one of the founding members of the EU (Europa.eu 2015a). Germany has a neo-corporatist lobbying tradition, that currently has some pluralist aspects (Ronit & Schneider 1998, p. 1) and it was the first country that established some form of lobbying regulation in 1951 (Chari & Murphy 2006).

Finally, this thesis has to choose between France and the United Kingdom, both being Western democracies and part of the European Union for a long time (Europa.eu 2015a). They also have implemented their lobbying regulation quite recently, in 2008 and 2014 respectively (Crepaz & Chari 2014). However, it is more interesting to study the British case, as its political culture provides a greater contrast with the already selected cases, due to its Anglo-Saxon tradition. In addition, although the French interest groups’ system was never clearly defined, it seems to be closer to the European neo-corporatism than the UK, which is pluralist (Magone 2011, p. 500).

Consequently, although all the countries with lowly regulated systems are European, the cases have different characteristics. While the UK is an Anglo-Saxon country, Poland has Eastern European tradition and Germany is Western European. Moreover, this case selection encompasses a pluralist system, a situation close to neo-corporatist and an undefined system, as well as some states which implemented their regulations long time ago, while others created it very recently.

Medium regulated systems: The European Union, Lithuania and Canada

The possible cases with medium regulated systems that are still within the scope of this research are the EU JTR (31 CPI), Austria (32 CPI), Australia (33 CPI), Lithuania (44 CPI), Slovenia (49 CPI) and Canada (50 CPI).

Firstly, the European Union is going to be selected because is the one with the lowest CPI score and although its lobbying tradition is recent, according to authors like Burns and Carson (2002) the role of interest groups in policy-making is explained as a combination of pluralism and neo-corporatism. In addition, it is a new form of political organization with really unique political characteristics (Burns & Carson 2002, p. 138).

Among the other options, Canada and Australia can be considered as similar cases because both have a comparable Anglo-Saxon pluralist tradition (Thomas 2004, p. 300) and they are non-European states. Then, Austria would be the only Western European state, whereas Lithuania and Slovenia would be Eastern European with recently established democracies.

In the first category all the states were European, but in this case it is possible to choose a non-European country, which is a valuable opportunity to have a different case. Canada and Australia have related political systems, a pluralist lobbying system (Thomas 2004, p. 300) and both started their attempt to regulate lobbying in the 1980’s, despite the fact that their last amendments were made less than ten years ago (OECD.org 2015). However, given that Canada is the country with the highest CPI, while the Australia scores almost the same as the EU, the former is chosen. Furthermore, given that the Austrian CPI score is very close to the EU score and bearing in mind that it is an old Western democracy like Canada, its regulation is not going to be chosen as it does not provide a sufficient margin of differentiation.

Therefore, the last choice is between Slovenia and Lithuania. Although they are really different countries, their current lobbying systems both started to develop after their democratisation processes in the 1990’s (Hrebenar, McBeth & Morgan 2008). Moreover, in both states the classification as pluralist or neo-corporatist is still undefined (Magone 2011, p. 500) and their regulations entered into force in the 21st century. Nevertheless, Lithuania is going to be selected because its CPI score is more in the middle of all the available options, while the Slovenian one is closer to the highest one that has already been selected. Hence, in this category there are once more pluralist systems and mixed or undefined cases, as well as cases with quite different CPI scores. Moreover, in the case selection there is also a completely different form of political organisation, an American country and a European state, being all of them cases with distinct lobbying cultures and different political systems.

Highly regulated systems: The United States of America

As previously explained, the USA is the only option with a highly regulated system at the national level and its lobbying tradition is really different from the European one, being the most paradigmatic example of a pluralist system (Thomas 2004, p. 300). In addition, its professional lobbying tradition is very old and it was one of first states to attempt to regulate lobbying (Chari & Murphy 2006).

Consequently, regarding all the former explanations in this sub-chapter, it is clear that the chosen case studies are significantly different in terms of their socio-political system and lobbying activity. The final case studies selected are presented in the following Table 5:

3. METHODOLOGY

Position into the methodological theory

From a theoretical point of view, the ontological and epistemological approach adopted in this thesis is social constructivism, considering that it is possible to know the social reality “but not as a separate from human subjectivity” and that the form of knowledge is “contextual” (Della Porta & Keating 2008, p. 23). Moreover, methodologically this will be a positivist research, trying to find “causal explanations, on the assumption of a cause-effect relationship between variables. (…) allowing generalization (…)” (Della Porta & Keating 2008, p. 26), as the idea is to find minimum norms distilled from the comparison of different case studies in a deductive form with a qualitative method (Della Porta & Keating 2008, p. 26-28).

Given that the existence of lobbying regulation is rare, a comparative method is the best choice. This method is the most suitable “When the number of cases is too low for statistical manipulation” as the “investigator approximates it (…) ‘by systematic comparative illustration’ (Smelser 1976, p. 157). The comparative method supplements with ‘logical reasoning’ the lack of a sufficient number of cases for systematic tests via partial correlations” (Della Porta 2008, p. 201). In addition, this method is also favoured by social scientists to study macro political phenomena like institutions or countries (Della Porta 2008, p. 201), as in the case in this paper in which the regulation of political organisations such as traditional states and the EU are analysed.

Moreover, this comparative analysis is going to be a case-oriented research, rather than variable-oriented. According to this method, the concepts have been “constructed during the research”, the cases are taken as “complex units”, trying to be “paradigmatic cases” but keeping the number of cases low, having only three cases for lowly and medium regulated systems and a single one for highly regulated systems (Della Porta 2008, p. 208). Furthermore, this study is composed of eight variables which is a considerable amount “in order to make the description thicker” and the diversity is utilised to understand the situation through the differences (Della Porta 2008, p. 208). In fact, this thesis is conducting a most-different cases comparison as it is looking “for general statements that

are universally true” (Della Porta 2008, p. 215), because when something is valid for the most-dissimilar cases, it is reasonable to assume it is going to be valid for all of them. Hence, this research attempts to discover minimum norms distilled from the current regulations that could be applied to all the Western and European democracies.

Acknowledging this, the analysis conducted in this thesis is going to be qualitative with the objective of producing normative knowledge. For this purpose, both primary resources (namely actual lobbying regulations) and secondary resources (like academic writings and institutional reports) are going to be used. Furthermore, the research technique is content analysis, which is used “for making replicable and valid inferences from data to their concept” (Krippendorff 1989, p. 403), as this paper wants to come up with relevant conclusions from the analysis of documents. The thesis will use a deductive reasoning, trying to infer the conclusions from a set of observations and propositions (Della Porta & Keating 2008).14

Methodology in the actual analysis

Primary resources will be essential in the analysis, using the current lobbying regulations of Germany, the UK, Poland, the EU, Lithuania, Canada and the USA. These regulations will be used in a comparative most-dissimilar case study analysis with those contrasting cases, according to the distinction into lowly, medium and highly regulated systems, choosing three contrasting cases for each category. In order to execute the analysis, this paper will examine the regulations of those countries in their original languages in the case the UK, Canada, the EU, Canada and the USA, while translations for the German, Polish and Lithuanian regulations will be used.

To find these regulations official governmental websites will be consulted, as well as former literature that already compared lobbying regulations and contained relevant documents in English or indications of how to find them. As for some regulations translations are going to be used, this paper will rely on the information provided by the literature dealing with the specific cases of those countries. Moreover, these secondary