Beyond lobbying regulation: the advantages of a broader approach to implementing and evaluating transparent lobbying rules

Abstract

Transparent lobbying goes beyond enacting a single law: lobbying rules—in any form—enhance transparency in political decision-making. We argue that the issue is much more complex than merely introducing lobbying rules, and focusing only on implementing lobbying laws is not a 'silver bullet' regarding transparency objectives. Firstly, the article advocates the advantages of the broader perspective on implementing and evaluating transparent lobbying rules, which the current literature largely ignores. Therefore, it is necessary to ask what rules should be used to coordinate stakeholders' interactions, including lobbying, in decision-making. For this purpose, we created the Catalogue of Transparent Lobbying Environment as a comprehensive and universally applicable tool for assessing lobbying transparency, and we used it for empirical pilot testing in six Central Eastern European countries. The results show that the Catalogue captures the quality of the lobbying environment more robustly. Secondly, we discuss the varying importance of each measure based on the expert survey to determine which measure in the Catalogue significantly affects the transparency of the decision-making process and the fundamental principles of good governance; these are freedom of information, open government data, legislative footprint, conflict of interest and disclosure of both lobbyist and targets of lobbying.