When is grassroots lobbying effective? The case of the e-petitions at the national level in the UK

Abstract

The article examines the effectiveness of one technique of grassroots lobbying (e-petitions) in the UK through the prism of: (1) the claim that the goal of lobbying activity (the change versus protection of the status quo policy) is a great predictor of lobbying’s outcome; (2) the signalling theory; (3) the amended version of the economic theory of political information. In the paper, I studied the petitions signed by at least 10,000 citizens submitted to the House of Commons during the 57th Parliament of the UK (2017–2019) and analysed their effectiveness. I also measured the petitions’ issue salience for the ruling party (the Conservative Party) from the perspective of the analysed theories. The research results indicate the following: (1) e-petitions aiming to defend the status quo policy were considerably more effective than the ones striving to change it; (2) the scale of e-petition’s endorsement was not a crucial factor in determining the authorities’ decision, contradicting the assumption of the signalling theory; (3) moderately and highly popular lower salience issue e-petitions showed equal ineffectiveness. On the other hand, greatly popular higher salience issue e-petitions supported by the ruling party were less effective than their less popular counterparts. Conversely, e-petitions on higher salience issues opposed by the ruling party, whether moderately or widely endorsed by the public, exhibited equal ineffectiveness. These results mean that the economic theory of political information only partially explains the effectiveness of grassroots lobbying (i.e. in the last case). In conclusion, e-petitions represent a relatively efficient grassroots lobbying technique for influencing authorities in the UK, with approximately one in five being considered effective.

Introduction

While many studies on grassroots lobbying have been conducted (Baumgartner et al. 2009; Bergan 2009; Cluverius 2017, 2021; Godwin et al. 2012; Hojnacki and Kimball 1999; Kollman 1998; Olejnik 2023), academics still struggle with at least one fundamental question related to this phenomenon: when is grassroots lobbying effective? Grassroots lobbying actions are carried out by ‘non-lobbyist citizens directly contacting government officials’ (Cluverius 2021, p. 137). They combine an issue position with a recommended legislative action (Cluverius 2017) and aim to influence legislators’ political decisions, such as supporting a specific bill (Bergan 2009; Cluverius 2017, 2021). There is no minimum number of people required for this method of lobbying; ‘both a single contact by a constituent and an organized, thousand plus contact campaign are forms of grassroots lobbying’ (Cluverius 2021, p. 138). Grassroots lobbying actions are not limited to specific types of lobbyists (Kollman 1998; Nownes and Freman 1998). On the contrary, research by Cluverius (2021) and Kollman (1998) indicates that all types of interest groups engage in grassroots lobbying campaigns, including non-governmental organizations and corporations.¹ The research carried out at the state level in the USA revealed that grassroots lobbying is more often applied by people with higher level of trust in the government and the political system in general (the so-called diffuse political trust) than with the lower level of trust (Cluverius and Banda 2018). Therefore, it can be argued that grassroots lobbying might impede the authorities from determining the state’s fundamental problems. As Cluverius and Banda pointed out (2018), it seems that the legislators ‘receive less information from people who felt distrustful of the government and who may, in fact, be most in need of policy solutions to address their concerns’ (p. 1016). Thus, the authorities just might not be aware of the challenges those constituents face and will not introduce the necessary policies.

Among the most common techniques of grassroots lobbying, one can differentiate: pressuring authorities through media and online campaigns, staging demonstrations and protests as well as submitting petitions and e-petitions (Olejnik 2023; Weiler and Brändli 2015). In this paper, I examined in which circumstances the latter technique, i.e. submitting e-petitions to the House of Commons through the UK Parliament and Government e-petition system during the 57th Parliament of the UK (2017–2019), was effective in terms of influencing the authorities’ political decisions.

The academics indicated that affecting the policy-makers should be considered the most important function of the e-petitions systems (Hough 2012). However, it borders on impossible to establish whether and to what degree e-petitions influence the legislators. The policy-making process often lasts many months or years, and it is hard to tell a direct link between the e-petition and the political decision has developed. Furthermore, the interest groups sometimes use other techniques of lobbying (e.g. they organize demonstrations) in their campaign. When the petitioners’ demand is fulfilled, it is exceptionally difficult to establish which technique played a key role (Wright 2016). In addition, academics maintained that some e-petitions might be irrelevant because they refer to the policies that are in line with the ruling party’s program and the government is already planning to introduce them (Matthews 2021). Contrarily, in the UK many e-petitions were not carried out although their content was coherent with the government’s agenda.² We can also find a few e-petitions, which were fulfilled despite having been opposed to by the ruling party, e.g. introduction of the sugar tax (Leston-Bandeira 2019). What about the e-petitions devoted to the matters left out from the ruling party’s manifesto? When does the government follow the petitioners’ demands in such cases? Are the e-petitions with higher number of signatures more likely to be fulfilled? Does the nature of the e-petition (the protection versus change of the status quo policy) impact its effectiveness? While it is necessary to acknowledge that there are some challenges in studying the effectiveness of e-petitions (particularly, that the petitions might not be the only technique of lobbying used in the campaign), these research questions still seem valid and should be answered. The findings, revealing which group of petitions is more likely to be fulfilled, could enhance our understanding of the policy-making processes in the UK.

This article covers a research gap as it attempts to answer those research questions in the case of the UK Parliament and Government e-petition system with the use of the theories on the effectiveness of lobbying: the signalling theory (also known as the costly-signalling theory) (Bergan 2009; Cluverius 2017; Olejnik 2023), the economic theory of political information (Cluverious, 2017, 2021) and the claim that the goal of lobbying activity (the change versus protection of the status quo policy) is one of the best predictors of lobbying’s success or failure (Baumgartner’s et al. 2009). These theories have not yet been used in the case of the e-petition systems, which makes this paper exceptional. However, they have been applied in the similar context, i.e. to examine the effectiveness of lobbying (including grassroots lobbying) at the state (i.e. among the members of the Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Utah, and Virginia assemblies) and federal level (e.g. among various government officials) in the USA (Baumgartner’s et al. 2009; Bergan 2009; Cluverious 2017, 2021). Each theory examines the efficacy of lobbying from a different angle. From the perspective of the costly-signalling theory, the effectiveness of grassroots lobbying depends on the scale of the citizens’ engagement in the lobbying campaign (Kollman 1998; Cluverius 2017; Olejnik 2023). Conversely, the economic theory of political information indicates that the trust in the information provided to the authorities by the authors of grassroots lobbying actions has become a crucial factor in lobbying practice (Cluverius 2017, 2021). On the other hand, the Baumgartner et al.’s theory (2009) assumes that the outcome of lobbying is determined by the type of the lobbyist’s objective. The campaigns aimed at defending the status quo policy were reportedly far more successful than the ones aimed at shifting it (Baumgartner’s et al. 2009). The application of those three theories allowed us to determine when the e-petitions are more likely to be carried out. Therefore, this paper clarifies which approach to the research on the effectiveness of lobbying has the best explanatory power regarding the UK Government and Parliament petition system’s performance. Furthermore, the article might be also a good starting point for the similar research in the other countries with the e-petition system (e.g. in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal).

The paper is devoted to the UK Parliament and Government e-petition system launched on 20 July 2015. The system allows British citizens and UK residents to submit petitions to the House of Commons, which is the lower house of the UK’s bicameral parliament, through the special website (https://petition.parliament.uk). The major role in considering e-petitions was granted to the Petitions Committee (Bandeira 2019). This body, which is made up of 11 backbench MPs³ chaired by the representative of the opposition party, is responsible for reviewing all petitions published at the e-petition system’s website.⁴ Then, it selects and examines petitions of interest, in particular the ones with at least 10,000 signatures. The Petitions Committee has the power to ask for more information concerning the issues raised in the e-petition from its authors, the government and other relevant entities. Furthermore, the committee can exert an influence on the government and other public institutions to take actions on the e-petition as well as ask another parliamentary committee to consider it (see the Committee’s website https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/326/petitions-committee/role/). The British government is obliged to provide a written response to every petition signed by at least 10,000 people within a deadline of 21 days (Bandeira 2019; Clark et al. 2017). The response is prepared by the government department responsible for the specific policy discussed in the e-petition and published at the petition system’s website. If the Petitions Committee finds the government’s answer unsatisfactory and incomplete, it can ask it to review the response. Moreover, petitions supported by at least 100,000 people are also considered for a debate in the parliament by the Petitions Committee.⁵ Taking into consideration the high level of the committee’s involvement in analysing and investigating e-petitions, I assumed that its members were able to recognize which demands did not truly enjoy the public’s support and were instrumentally used by the interest groups. The economic theory of political information, in contrast to the other analysed theories, emphasizes the crucial role of the MPs’ trust in the information they receive. Therefore, it appeared to be best suited for analysing the performance of the UK Parliament and Government e-petition system. This assumption was subsequently verified in the further part of the article.

Various ways of measuring the e-petition systems’ performance

There are two types of e-petition systems. Firstly, one can distinguish nationwide/worldwide petition platforms, which are completely independent and unrelated to the state’s institutions, such as ‘change.org’. We can differentiate many papers, which focus on the non-governmental e-petition systems and examine the process of their development in various countries (e.g. Halpin et al. 2018), study the platforms’ users (Huang et al. 2015; Minocher 2019) and analyse the factors determining the petitions’ chance for success (Elnoshokaty et al. 2016). However, the UK authorities are not obliged by law to consider this type of e-petitions no matter how many citizens supported them. Therefore, the e-petitions ‘in the wild’ were not the subject of this study.

The second type of e-petition systems refers to those embedded in the governmental structures. Sometimes they are run by the government, as it was in the case of the ‘10 Downing Street system’ (2006–2011) or the ‘Coalition government e-petition system’ (2011–2015) (Bochel 2013, 2016). Nevertheless, the majority of the e-petition systems is integrated and led by the institutions of the parliament. For instance, there are more than twenty national parliaments with petition systems in the European Union (Tiburcio 2015). These petition systems operate in compliance with the law established by the national legislatures. They can effectively work if the following legal and institutional frameworks are settled: (1) who is allowed to submit a petition (residents or citizens alone)? (2) are there any regulations compelling the parliament/government to provide a formal response to the petitions (which ones)? (3) what type of issues can be raised in the e-petitions (all issues or only those the government/parliament is directly responsible for)? (4) does the parliament hold debates/hearings on the e-petitions (which ones)? (5) in what way the e-petitions are submitted (through the special website/via email)? (6) Is the e-petition text and the government’s response open to the public (e.g. at the parliament’s website)? (Andeweg 2016; Saalfeld and Dobmeier 2012; Tiburcio 2015) As shown in the previous part of the article, all these matters were regulated in the case of the UK Parliament and Government e-petition system. Furthermore, the academics proved that progress has been made regarding the quality of the institutional frameworks in the UK (Bochel 2016). The UK Parliament and Government e-petition system functions in a more open and transparent way than its predecessor, the ‘Coalition government e-petition system’ (Bochel 2016). Nowadays, through the petition system’s website, the citizens are systematically informed about the debates and decisions on the petitions. This information was not available on a daily basis to the public when the ‘Coalition government e-petition system’ existed (Bochel 2016).

Looking at democracy from the normative perspective, one can maintain that the e-petition systems embedded in the governmental structures constitute a relatively important instrument, which reinforces the democratic regime. As Bowman (2022) indicated, the aim of the normative theory of democracy is to obtain clarity about what norms and values should be respected and upheld in the country. The ‘effective participation’ of the citizens is considered as one of them. It is about providing all constituents with equal opportunity to make their beliefs well known to the authorities and the public (Dahl 2020). One can argue that this norm is fulfilled by the e-petition systems. They were created ‘in response to a perceived crisis of democracy’ (Wright 2016, p. 843) as they allow all constituents to participate in the political process via new technologies. However, it is the younger, well-educated and wealthier citizens, who more often sign online petitions than the other members of the society (Lee et al. 2014; Vidgen and Yasseri 2020). The so-called digital divide (Friemel 2016) is perceived as a major cause of this phenomenon.⁶ Thus, it can be said that the e-petition systems only ostensibly guarantee the equal access to the authorities. In reality, the e-petitions have been mainly submitted by the already privileged citizens. In the political science literature devoted to the normative approach to democracy, other values specific to this system were also mentioned, e.g. protecting various freedoms (for instance, freedom of speech, freedom of association) (Dahl 2020), undermining ‘the corrosive effects of social hierarchies’ (Shapiro 1996, p. 126), preserving minority rights (Stojanović 2017) or the income inequality reduction (Sabl 2015). It seems that e-petition systems, even if only to a small extent, can be helpful in fulfilling those values, depending on their effectiveness. It would happen if the petitions related to these values were carried out by the authorities.⁷

The term the ‘e-petition system effectiveness’ was defined by Tiburcio (2015) as ‘achievement of the aims/goals of e-petition systems’ (p. 39). The most frequently mentioned aims include: enabling political participation (Yassari et al. 2017), facilitating public mobilization (Rosenberger et al. 2022), reinforcing civic mindedness (Yasseri et al. 2017), providing a link between the citizens and the parliament (Hough 2012; Puschmann et al. 2017; Rosenberger et al. 2022), contributing to the parliamentary agenda (Matthews 2021), obtaining legitimacy for the political decisions (Leston-Bandeira 2019; Lindner and Riehm 2011; Melo and Stockemer 2014), educating the citizens about the democratic system and various social problems (Bochel and Bochel 2017), strengthening the identity of the groups and helping them recruit more members (Leston-Bandeira 2019), and influencing policies (Hough 2012; Matthews 2021; Puschmann et al. 2017; Escher and Riehm 2017).

There are at least three different ways of measuring the performance of e-petition systems. One of them is strictly connected to the petitioners’ attitude towards the system (i.e. whether they are satisfied with it). In the case of such study, researchers might conduct semi-structured interviews and/or surveys among the petitioners as well as the representatives of various interest groups. This type of research was carried out by Wright (2016). He examined what is perceived as a success by the e-petitions’ supporters in the UK and established that it is defined diversely (Wright 2016). When the goal of e-petition is immediately fulfilled, the petition is deemed successful. However, some citizens also consider submitted e-petitions as effective, if they lead to other results, e.g. raising awareness about an issue, increasing the publicity and allowing the petitioners to gain access to the politicians (Wright 2016). On the other hand, Escher and Riehm (2017) asserted that the petitioners’ attitude towards the e-petition system is highly dependent on whether their demand was met. They indicated that, in Germany, ‘satisfaction is significantly higher in the group of petitioners whose petitions are (partially) settled in their favour’ (Escher and Riehm 2017, p. 18). However, a few respondents saw positive elements of the e-petition system even if their political goal was not satisfied. They argued that the system enabled them to recruit supporters and publicize the content of the petition (Escher and Riehm 2017).

Against this backdrop, there are studies which raised the issue of the effectiveness of petition systems from the legislators’ perspective (Matthews 2021). For instance, Matthews (2021) conducted semi-structured interviews and surveys among the UK’s Members of Parliament to get familiar with their attitudes towards the e-petition system. She established that their attitudes were at least ambiguous. The MPs found the e-petition system very effective in terms of providing a link between the citizens and the parliament. The e-petitions allowed them to gain supplementary information about the voters’ anxieties. However, her study also demonstrated MPs’ concerns that ‘e-petitions risk undermining the relationship between MPs and their constituents; inundating the parliamentary agenda with immediate, but not necessarily important, issues; and exacerbating misunderstandings of the parliamentary process’ (Matthews 2021, p. 426). Other scholars also maintained that politicians have mixed feelings towards political participation of the citizens. They welcome their public input because it connects them with the rank-and-file constituents (Hendriks and Lees-Marshment 2019). However, it does not mean that the politicians value it so much that they are willing to fulfil the citizens’ requests. They are not ready to share power with them either (Hendriks and Lees-Marshment 2019). The information presented in this paragraph showed that, according to the legislators, the e-petition systems were primarily efficacious with regard to enhancing the quality of democracy in the country. Their existence mobilized some citizens to get involved in the public affairs and improved relations between them and the legislators.

Conversely, there is a study on the effectiveness of the e-petition systems conducted in a different manner. Tiburcio (2015) determined criteria that allowed him to carry out empirical research on the petition systems’ effectiveness in the various EU countries based on the publicly available data. The criteria reflected the major characteristics of the examined e-petition systems, i.e. their legal and institutional frameworks and the key actors’ behaviour (i.e. the government, parliament and citizens). In his study, Tiburcio (2015) analysed whether the key features of the e-petition systems led to the achievement of their goals. The research results revealed that the e-petitions systems’ institutional and legal framework enabled accomplishing some of those aims (the ones which referred to the ‘transparency’ ‘feedback’ and ‘accountability’ of the authorities) in the several EU member states, for example, in Lithuania, Luxemburg, Portugal and Germany (Tiburcio 2015). For instance, by granting constituents the right to receive a formal response from the parliament to their petition and allowing them to participate in public hearings devoted to the matters raised in their petition, a link is established between citizens and the legislature, thereby enabling political participation. On the other hand, not enough data was available to establish whether the remaining functions and aims of the e-petition systems were achieved, including influencing policies (Tiburcio 2015).

In this paper, I made use of the last approach to the research on the effectiveness of e-petitions systems and studied various publicly available data to find out whether, when and why e-petitions affect the authorities’ political decisions in the case of the UK Parliament and Government e-petition system.

Theories on the effectiveness of lobbying

Baumgartner et al.’s work (2009) is one of the most relevant research projects on the effectiveness of lobbying in the USA. They concluded more than 300 interviews with lobbyists and government officials conducted between 1998 and 2002, about 98 policy issues. The authors also monitored political decisions taken by the USA authorities up to four years after initial interviews to find out which interest groups indeed met their political objectives. The research results revealed that ‘the most consistent finding throughout our book is that defenders of the status quo usually get what they want: No change’ (Baumgartner et al. 2009, p. 241). The interest groups aiming to defend the existing legislations in the USA were successful in the case of 58 out of 98 policy issues. Conversely, the study demonstrated that the policy change is sometimes possible, and, when it happens, it has a rather fundamental than symbolic character. Only 13 out of 40 remaining policy regulations were marginally modified, while twice as much (27) were substantially altered (Baumgartner et al. 2009). It should be noted that direct lobbying was the major focus of Baumgartner et al.’s research (2009). Nonetheless, I chose to replicate this approach to ascertain if comparable outcomes could be obtained in relation to grassroots lobbying.

One might argue that the effectiveness of grassroot actions aimed at protecting the status quo policy is higher than the ones directed at shifting it because the citizens are particularly motivated to engage in a political activity ‘when persons face a threat to their livelihood or to rights they already enjoy’ (Walker 1991, p. 93). Walker (1991) pointed out that in the USA various interest groups (e.g. the pro-choice movement or employers’ organizations) have mobilized hundreds of thousands of citizens and have undertaken many grassroot actions (for instance, staged marches) to defend the existing laws. There is no reason to believe that similar practices would not be applied by the interest groups pursuing to protect the current public policies in the UK. It can be argued that nowadays, those groups might be especially keen on using e-petitions. Persuading citizens to sign the e-petition is usually easier than convincing them to show up at the demonstration taking into consideration the households’ growing access to the Internet.

On the other hand, one might question the point of analysing the effectiveness of the ‘maintenance of the status quo policy’ petitions, arguing that they should not be considered as completed just because the government did nothing about them. However, this line of reasoning seems to be flawed. Baumgartner et al. (2009) insisted that nearly always at least two sides, both of which consist of strong and weak interest groups, compete for the same political good. The government can either satisfy the demands of the supporters of new policies and introduce a new legislation or fulfil the status quo policy defenders’ wishes and refuse to take any political action. Inaction is a political decision worth exploring (McConnell and Hart 2019).⁸

Based on Baumgartner et al.’s work (2009), I formulated the hypothesis concerning the e-petitions submitted to the UK parliament:

Hypothesis 1

The petitions aiming to defend the status quo policy are more likely to be successful in influencing the policy-makers than the ones striving to change it.

Against this backdrop, the signalling theory also tries to explain why particular grassroots actions are effective and others are not. According to it, two groups of actors are involved in the process of policy-making: senders (lobbyists) and receivers (decision-makers) (Kollman 1998). The theory is based on the idea that there is an imbalance in the distribution of information, known as ‘information asymmetry’. The sender is in a possession of the information, which is desired by the receiver. Therefore, the latter actor is open to cooperation with the lobbyist (Kollman 1998). The message contains information about the scale of the citizens’ support for a specific political demand. It ‘informs legislators about the salience of an issue, as citizen contacts to legislators indicate that constituents are willing to take a costly action to inform their legislators about their preferences on an issue’ (Bergan 2009, p. 329). The signalling theory indicates that the salience of the political project increases with more constituents participating in the grassroots action in support of it. The decision-makers are more inclined to carry out the projects backed by a high number of citizens. Their behaviour is hinged on their fear of not getting re-elected should they reject too many popular political demands. The results of Bergan’s field experiment (2009) conducted among members of the New Hampshire state legislature corroborated the signalling theory and demonstrated that the legislators’ voting behaviour is highly impacted by grassroots lobbying. In this paper, I assessed the validity of this theory in the context of e-petitions submitted to the UK parliament. From the perspective of the signalling theory, I considered the petitions signed by at least 100,000 people as having higher salience [HS] than the ones with fewer signatures. Once the petition reaches this threshold, it gains a special status. The petition not only has to be addressed by the government, but also put forward for the debate in the UK parliament. Thus, the constituents can get acquainted with views all parliament-represented parties have on their demands. On the other hand, the petitions with 10,000–99,999 signatures are recognized as having lower salience [LS] since only one political actor—the government—is obliged to consider their content. Comparative analysis of the effectiveness of e-petitions with at least 100,000 citizens’ signatures and the ones endorsed by 10,000–99,999 people enabled us to establish the significance of the debate in the House of Commons for the outcome of the political process (the e-petition fulfilled/unfulfilled). The debate publicizes the issue raised in the petition. When the demand reaches new constituents, some of them become more interested in the matter and get engaged in fighting for it. However, no research measuring the influence of holding debates on the e-petitions in the House of Commons on the authorities’ political decisions has been conducted to date. In order to do so, I operationalized the signalling theory to a specific context, namely the UK’s conditions. Table 1 represents the classification of petitions, which has been adjusted according to this theory.

Table 1 Types of petitions (the signalling theory’s perspective)

For the purpose of this article, I formulated the following hypothesis related to the e-petition system in the UK:

Hypothesis 2

The ‘higher salience issue petitions’ are more likely to be fulfilled by the policy-makers than the ‘lower salience issue petitions.’

Critiques of the signalling theory argue that the number of signatures under the petition no longer informs politicians about the salience of an issue (Cluverius 2017). Advances in new technologies, particularly, the Internet and social media, considerably flatten the costs of producing information. Nowadays, similar political resources are needed to gather 10,000 and 100,000 signatures under the e-petition. Therefore, Cluverious maintained that ‘cost of producing information is no longer a reliable measure of issue salience’ (Cluverius 2017, p. 280).

Against this backdrop, Witko (2013) argued that issue salience is currently assessed differently. According to him, a political party considers an issue to be of higher salience when it is coherent with party’s ideology and its electorate’s preferences (politicians maintain that they know their voters’ opinions on the most contentious issues, e.g. death penalty) and is included in the party’s program (Witko 2013). The constituents usually have the possibility to get familiar with the party’s approach to the higher salience issues before the elections. The party publishes its manifesto and discusses its stance on the higher salience issues during the electoral campaign. Alternatively, the politicians deem issues to be of lower salience when they are excluded from their party’s program and are not linked to its ideology (Witko 2013). This way of measuring the issue salience was adopted as part of the economic theory of political information (Cluverius 2017).

The theory assumes that trust has become a crucial factor in the decision-making engagement with lobbying efforts (Cluverius 2017, 2021). The e-petitions on lower salience issues are rendered less trustworthy for the decision-makers when highly endorsed. The politicians do not believe that many constituents are interested and willing to engage in the lower salience issue cases. Therefore, they assume that the petitions with high number of signatures are not reflective of the public, but rather the interest groups’ views. On the contrary, lower salience issue petitions signed by fewer constituents seem to be more credible for the politicians, because they ‘represent, in the mind of legislators, a genuine sense of the policy preferences of some constituents (but not too many)’ (Cluverius 2017, p. 283).⁹ Thus, according to the economic theory of political information, the decision-makers are more inclined to endorse petitions with a smaller number of signatures if the issue is of lower salience for the party. From the perspective of this theory, I assumed that at least 100,000 signatures constitute the higher number, whereas I identify the lesser ones in the range between 10,000 and 99,999 signatures. This distinction is caused by the different treatment the petitions from both groups receive from the UK institutions (dissimilarities were discussed in the previous part).

According to the theory, politicians are not susceptible to the level of the citizens’ support (neither high, nor low) for the higher salience issues. (Cluverius 2017, 2021). Their prospective decision is rooted in their party’s program and ideology. If a demand is coherent with it, they will support it, whereas if it is contradictory to their party’s agenda, they will reject it. The economic theory of political information was confirmed by Cluverious’ research carried out among the members of the various US state legislatures (i.e. the Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Utah, and Virginia assemblies) (Cluverius 2017, 2021). Furthermore, the field experiment conducted by Wynes et al. (2021) among the members of the Canadian Parliament, to some extent, corroborated the theory. The academics analysed the effectiveness of one technique of grassroots lobbying (i.e. mailing) on the MPs’ political decisions concerning the climate change policy (i.e. posting ‘pro-climate’ tweets). From the perspective of the economic theory of political information, the climate change policy should be considered as a higher salience issue for all Canadian parties as it was broadly discussed in each of their program (Wynes et al. 2021). The research results revealed that the MPs’ political behaviour was only marginally affected by the rising volume of messages received from the citizens (i.e. to the very small extent they were more willing to satisfy the constituents’ demand) (Wynes et al. 2021). Therefore, it can be said that the outcome was partially consistent with the results of Cluverius’ research.¹⁰

However, to be able to comprehensively analyse the effectiveness of e-petitions submitted to the House of Commons during the 57th Parliament of the UK (2017–2019) through the prism of the economic theory of political information, I had to undertake some additional steps, which were not accounted for by the theory.

First of all, any comparative analysis between the petitions on higher salience issue, which are highly and moderately supported by the citizens, should be preceded by the study of the political party’s attitude towards these issues. The party might be supporting or rejecting a particular demand in advance. Simple comparison of the party’s response to the very popular and less favoured grassroots lobbying actions might guide academics to the misleading conclusions. This situation will take place if there is a significantly higher ratio of petitions coherent with the party’s ideology in one of these groups. For example, if the party supported 80% of moderately popular e-petitions (10,000–99,999 signatures) and only 40% of highly endorsed petitions (more than 100,000 signatures). It is obvious that the party reacts more enthusiastically to the demands included in its program than to the ones, the party officially objects to. Therefore, academics should first distinguish higher salience issues supported by the party from the ones it opposes before conducting further comparative research.

In order to determine the ruling party’s (the Conservative Party) attitude to the higher salience issue petitions submitted to the House of Commons during the 57th parliament of the UK (June 2017-November 2019), we had to study its manifesto for the election held on 8 June 2017.¹¹ The manifesto set out the Conservative Party’s specific program projecting the UK’s future. Thus, it allowed us to recognize in what way the party perceived each higher salience issue raised in the e-petitions submitted after the 2017 parliamentary election until November 2019 (two answers were distinguished: support/oppose). On the other hand, this type of study could not be conducted in the case of the lower salience issue petitions since the matters they referred to were not included in the party manifesto.¹²

However, we had the possibility to get familiar with the ruling party’s attitude towards the lower salience issues when it (as the government) officially responded to the relevant petitions. For the purpose of this paper, I examined the government’s response to every petition with at least 10,000 signatures submitted during the 57th Parliament of the UK. Three types of responses were distinguished: government supports/opposes to the petition, or has an ambiguous approach to it.¹³ Furthermore, this part of the research brought some additional benefits. I was able to establish whether the Conservative Party changed the attitude to the higher salience issue e-petitions or remained coherent with the party’s manifesto.

Finally, I found Baumgartner et al.’s (2009) idea to examine the effectiveness of lobbying in the USA by monitoring the authorities’ political decisions up to 4 years after completing interviews with the officials to be relevant for my research. I needed to find out whether the government’s policies were consistent or contradictory to its responses to the e-petitions. There was always the risk that the government might have promised one thing in the response to the e-petition and then made a completely different political decision.¹⁴ Thus, in order to gain a full knowledge about the fate of the e-petitions submitted between 2017 and 2019, I could not solely focus on monitoring the UK’s parliament and government political decisions from this period of time. I also examined the policies implemented by these entities, since the 2019 general election was won again by the Conservative Party (Prosser 2021), until the end of 2022. It seemed to me that the period of 3 up to 5 years (depending on the specific date of the e-petition’s submission) is sufficient for the party in power to fulfil the e-petition, especially having a majority of seats in the House of Commons for about three years.¹⁵ Unless the government satisfied the petitioners’ demand, I considered the e-petition as unsuccessful (for the purpose of the research two answers were differentiated: the petition fulfilled/unfulfilled).

Based on the economic theory of political information and the observations related to it, I created a new classification of petitions. It is presented in Table 2.

Table 2 Types of petitions from the perspective of the economic theory of political information

I formulated four hypotheses concerning the e-petition system in the UK, which refer to the economic theory of political information.

Hypothesis 3

There is no measurable difference between the higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party and later by the government (‘HSSS petitions’) with higher (at least 100,000) and lower number of signatures (between 10,000 and 99,999) on the probability of them being fulfilled by the policy-makers.

Hypothesis 4

There is no measurable difference between the higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party, but then opposed to by the government (‘HSSO petitions’) with higher and lower number of signatures on the probability of them being fulfilled by the policy-makers.

Hypothesis 5

There is no measurable difference between the higher salience issue petitions opposed to by the ruling party and then by the government (‘HSOO petitions’) with higher and lower number of signatures on the probability of them being fulfilled by the policy-makers.

Hypothesis 6

The lower salience issue petitions opposed to by the government (‘LSO petitions’) with higher number of signatures are less likely to be fulfilled by the policy-makers than the ‘LSO petitions’ with fewer signatures.

Data extracted from Table 2 indicated that we can distinguish also other types of e-petitions: the higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party, to which the government had an ambiguous attitude (‘HSSA petitions’); the higher salience issue petitions opposed to by the ruling party but then supported by the government (‘HSOS petitions’); the higher salience issue petitions opposed to by the ruling party, to which then the government had an ambiguous attitude (‘HSOA petitions’); the lower salience issue petitions supported by the government (‘LSS petitions’); and the lower salience issue petitions to which the government had an ambiguous attitude (‘LSA petitions’). However, a comparative analysis of highly and moderately supported petitions from each of these groups could not be conducted due to insufficient sample sizes (see Tables 5 and 6). Thus, I did not discuss the research results of those types of e-petitions in the paper.

Methodology

For the purpose of this paper, the following material was examined: (1) all e-petitions submitted during the 57th Parliament of the United Kingdom (June 2017-November 2019) with at least 10,000 signatures; (2) the Conservative Party’s manifesto for the 2017 parliamentary elections to measure the petitions’ salience for the organization; (3) the government’s official response to every petition; (4) the Conservative Party’s political actions regarding the e-petitions (I analysed whether they were coherent with the government’s formal responses). As a result, a special database was created. It consisted of the aforementioned e-petitions categorized according to the following criteria: (a) the petitions’ goal (protection vs change of the status quo policy); (b) their salience from the perspective of the signalling theory (higher/lower salience issue); (c) their salience from the standpoint of the economic theory of political information (higher salience issue supported/opposed to by the ruling party or lower salience issue); (d) the type of the government’s response to the e-petition (support/oppose/ambiguous); (e) their effectiveness (petitions fulfilled/unfulfilled). The database is available in the supplementary materials (‘Appendix’).

The author of the article—the head of the project—and three team members (PhD students specializing in social sciences and humanities) participated in the process of the e-petitions’ classification. The process consisted of five phases. At the beginning, we established the rules of classifying data to ensure accuracy and consistency at work.¹⁶ Then, the texts of e-petitions with at least 10,000 signatures (460 altogether) were redistributed among the team members. They were also provided with the government’s official responses to those petitions as well as with the 2017 Conservative Party’s manifesto. During the third phase of the research, the academics independently classified e-petitions assigned to them at the previous stage. For instance, the team members had to detect the government’s political decisions and the House of Commons’ legislation concerning the e-petitions as well as analyse the public institutions’ reports and various journalistic articles to assess whether the e-petitions’ goals were achieved.¹⁷ Furthermore, the academics compared the texts of e-petitions with the Conservative Party’s manifesto to measure the issue salience. In the fourth phase, the team members provided their research results including all the data sources and notes to another academic. This person’s task was to repeat the activities taken in the previous stage and verify the research outcome of the team member. She/he was obliged to prepare additional material which would validate or undermine the remarks of the first academic. The one file including two opinions on all e-petitions was created and made available to the whole research group. That way everyone could get familiar with all cases. Finally, during the research group’s meetings each case was discussed one by one. In the end, the decision how every e-petition would be classified was reached unanimously. Then, a comparative analysis of the research outcomes specific for every hypothesis was carried out.

I also used logistic regression analysis on the obtained data and ran three models to further explore the determinants of the e-petition system’s effectiveness. In each model, a different number of petitions were examined. The outcome of the policy-making process was a dependent variable in all those models. It took one of two values: the petitions fulfilled = 1, the petitions unfulfilled = 0.

The first model analysed all 460 petitions. It focused on the significance of issue salience for the ruling party and its impact on the effectiveness of e-petitions. It also considered the importance of the government’s response. The results in this model (Table 7) pertain to the following independent variables: the first one represents the salience of the petitions. Lower salience issue e-petitions were coded as 1, while higher salience ones were coded as 0. The second variable reflects the government’s support for the petitions. Petitions endorsed by the government received a code of 1, while those either opposed by the authorities or approached ambiguously were coded as 0. Another variable represents the government’s ambiguity toward the petitions. Petitions to which the government maintained a neutral stance were coded as 1, while those supported or opposed by the government received a code of 0.¹⁸ It's worth noting that some caution may be warranted concerning the last variable. The concern arises from the fact that fewer than 10% of e-petitions of this type (specifically, 35 or less than 8%) were submitted to the House of Commons. While some scholars, as per Hair et al. (2009), might perceive this sample size too small, certain studies in the academic literature suggest that the traditional ‘one in ten rule’ might be outdated, and even smaller samples can be deemed acceptable for logistic regression analysis (see Riley et al. 2019).

In the second model, I investigated whether higher salience issue petitions, advocating demands aligned with the party's manifesto or coherent with its ideology, exhibited greater efficacy compared to those articulating requests officially opposed to by the organization. In this context, the party’s attitude toward citizens’ demands served as an independent variable. A value of 1 was assigned to the group of higher salience issue petitions supported by the party, while the group of petitions opposed to by the association received a code of 0. For this model, I specifically focused on higher salience issue e-petitions totalling up to 265 submissions to the House of Commons between 2017 and 2019.

Finally, seeing the low level of efficiency of the e-petitions aiming to change the status quo policy (see the further part of the paper), I ran a model to examine how much more effective the e-petitions of this type were when aligned with the ruling party’s ideology. Here, the e-petitions directed at shifting the status quo policy were an independent variable. The higher salience issue e-petitions supported by the ruling party were coded as 1. On the other hand, the remaining e-petitions aimed at changing the status quo policy were coded as 0. As part of this model, I studied only the e-petitions directed at shifting the status quo policy (altogether 427 cases).

As a part of this study, I also conducted multiple models incorporating the number of signatories under the e-petition as an independent variable. However, in each instance, the research outcomes proved to be statistically insignificant.¹⁹ Consequently, these results were omitted from the paper’s discussion.

The results

The change versus protection of the status quo policy

In this paper, two groups of e-petitions were discriminated: the ones aiming to protect and the ones striving to change the status quo policy. Then, I compared the data on the effectiveness of e-petitions from each of these groups to establish whether any trend is noticeable. I also analysed whether e-petitions with higher number of signatures (100,000 or more) were more likely to be carried out than those with fewer signatures (10,000–99,999) within both groups. Table 3 presents the results of this research.

Table 3 The effectiveness of petitions classified by their goal (the change vs protection of the status quo policy)

The data from Table 3 indicate that e-petitions were by far more often used to pressure the authorities to change the status quo policy than to defend it (427 versus 33 e-petitions). Nevertheless, the latter type of e-petitions was considerably more effective than the former one. Nearly 52% of e-petitions aiming to protect the current policy, whereas about 19% of the ones directed at shifting it achieved their objectives. Furthermore, when both types of e-petitions were submitted in the same matter (e.g. ‘Don’t ban Grouse Shooting’ and ‘Ban Driven Grouse Shooting’ or ‘No referendum on the final deal for the UK to remain in the European Union’ and ‘Hold a second referendum on EU membership’²⁰), the ones supporting the status quo policy were predominantly completed. Therefore, it can be argued that the outcome of the research corroborated the hypothesis 1. The defenders of the status quo policy are overwhelmingly more efficient in influencing decision-makers than the supporters of changes to the law.

In this context, it turned out that the efficacy of e-petitions targeted to undermine the current policy is not shaped by the scale of the citizens’ endorsement for them. In this case, e-petitions signed by the higher number of constituents (at least 100,000) were only slightly less effective (about 2 percentage points) than the ones signed by fewer constituents (between 10,000 and 99,999). Conversely, as it can be inferred from Table 3, it seems that the e-petitions defending the status quo policy with higher number of signatures are materially less effective (around 18 percentage points) than the less popular ones. However, I maintain that any conclusive statement regarding this case cannot be made because the sample of e-petitions supported by higher number of citizens is too small (eight petitions only).

Finally, the data from Table 3 prove that the studies on the lobbying’s objective might be very advantageous in the research on its effectiveness. It transpired that the petition’s goal was a good predictor of lobbying’s outcome, especially in the case of the petitions aiming to change the status quo policy (81% of them were unsuccessful).

The signalling theory

Based on the signalling theory, I divided e-petitions into the ones having higher (100,000 signatures and more) and lower salience (10,000–99,999 signatures), i.e. the ‘higher salience issue petitions (HS)’ and the ‘lower salience issue petitions (LS)’. Then, I investigated whether one group of e-petitions was more effective than the other. Table 4 shows the research results.

Table 4 The effectiveness of the ‘HS’ and ‘LS petitions’ (the signalling theory’s perspective)

Data from Table 4 point out that the UK parliament received five times more lower salience issue petitions (‘LS petitions’) than higher salience issue ones (‘HS petitions’). Only 76 e-petitions signed by 100,000 or more constituents, whereas 384 e-petitions endorsed by 10,000–99,999 citizens were submitted to this institution. Using the signalling theory, this difference can be accounted for by the fact that it is essentially easier to collect tens than hundreds of thousands of signatures under e-petition.

The data from Table 4 indicate that e-petition is a relatively efficient technique of grassroots lobbying. About 22% of e-petitions were fulfilled, while 78% were rejected by the decision-makers. On the contrary, I found no support for the hypothesis 2 that the higher salience issue petitions (i.e. with at least 100,000 signatures) are more likely to be satisfied than the lower salience issue ones (10,000–99,999 signatures). The study indicated that the effectiveness of both types of petitions was nearly at the same level (22% of the ‘LS petitions’, whereas 20% of the ‘HS petitions’ were fulfilled) (see Table 4). Additionally, when the lower and higher salience issue petitions raised the same political problem—e.g. ‘New law that cats injured/killed by a vehicle are checked for a chip: Round 2’ (the ‘LS petition’) and ‘New law that cats killed/injured by a vehicle are checked for a chip: Round 3’ (the ‘HS petition’)—they met with identical response from the decision-makers. The authorities nearly always opposed to the e-petition if it contained requests from the previously submitted ones, no matter whether it was signed by considerably more or fewer constituents. Therefore, it can be argued that the scale of the citizens’ support does not affect the authorities’ policies.

The research outcome shows that we should not overestimate the influence of the debate in the House of Commons on the legislators’ decisions concerning the e-petition’s fate. It turned out that the fact that the specific e-petitions were debated in the UK parliament (the ones with at least 100,000 signatures) does not increase the decision-makers eagerness to carry out the petitioners’ requests. Their effectiveness was almost identical to the non-debated e-petitions (10,000–99,999 signatures). Thus, it can be argued that the explanatory power of the research on the e-petitions’ debates is rather marginal with regard to the e-petitions’ completion. Undoubtedly, it can be stated that the signalling theory is not a practical tool to understand the ruling party’s political decisions in the UK.

The economic theory of political information

Based on the assumptions of the economic theory of political information, I categorized the petitions into two types: higher salience (issues relevant to the party’s ideology and discussed in its program) and lower salience issue ones (issues not important for the party from its ideological stance and not mentioned in its program). Additionally, I analysed the Conservative Party’s attitude towards the higher salience issues (whether they were supported or opposed) before the 2017 parliamentary election. Furthermore, I examined the Conservative government’s responses to all e-petitions (petitions supported, opposed to, or to which the government had an ambiguous attitude). The following types of petitions were identified: the higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party and then by the government (the ‘HSSS petitions’); the higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party, but then opposed to by the government (the ‘HSSO petitions’); the higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party, to which the government had an ambiguous attitude (the ‘HSSA petitions’); the higher salience issue petitions opposed to by the ruling party but then supported by the government (the ‘HSOS petitions’); the higher salience issue petitions opposed to the ruling party and then by the government (the ‘HSOO petitions’); the higher salience issue petitions opposed to by the ruling party, to which then the government had an ambiguous attitude (the ‘HSOA petitions’) (Table 5); the lower salience issue petitions supported by the government (the ‘LSS petitions’); the lower salience issue petitions opposed to by the government (the ‘LSO petitions’); and the lower salience issue petitions to which the government had an ambiguous attitude (the ‘LSA petitions’) (Table 6).

Table 5 The effectiveness of higher salience issue e-petitions (the economic theory of political information)

Table 6 The effectiveness of lower salience issue e-petitions (the economic theory of political information)

While we presented the outcome of the research for all types of petitions, only the results of four of them were discussed—the ‘HSSS,’ ‘HSSO,’ ‘HSOO,’ and ‘LSO’ petitions—as their samples were representative.

The data from Table 5 indicate that the vast majority of the higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party and then by the government (the ‘HSSS e-petitions’) were carried out by the decision-makers. However, they did not confirm the hypothesis 3. The widely endorsed ‘HSSS petitions’ (100,000 and more constituents) were less effective (around 15 percentage points) than the ones advocated by fewer citizens (10,000–99,999). Around 64% of petitions from the former (e.g. ‘Recognise animal sentience & require that animal welfare has full regard in law’), whereas around 79% of petitions from the latter group (e.g. ‘Introduce voter id for all elections’) were successful. Therefore, it can be stated that the high level of support for the ‘HSSS petitions’ does not increase the probability of their completion.

Some scientists question the effectiveness of this type of petitions arguing that the ruling party would satisfy their demands regardless of the petitions as these issues were incorporated in the government’s agenda (Wright 2016). Nevertheless, the data from Table 5 undermine this statement by showing that even though the ruling party promised to adopt the requests before and after the 2017 general elections, still many ‘HSSS petitions’ were not carried out (e.g. ‘Stop the detention of people with autism & learning disabilities in ATUs’). Thus, it can be argued that the ‘HSSS petitions’ signal to the government that the citizens care about its agenda. What is more, they mobilize the authorities to complete some of it.

Against this backdrop, we can notice a meaningful difference in the effectiveness of the most popular higher salience issue petitions supported by the ruling party, but then opposed to by the government (the ‘HSSO petitions’) and their counterparts with lower number of signatures (10,000–99,999). Therefore, it can be argued that the data extracted from Table 5 did not validate the hypothesis 4. They showed that the ‘HSSO petitions’ from the latter group were usually ineffective, but still about 21% of them were carried out (e.g. ‘For all Suicides by Veterans to be recorded as Veterans by all UK Coroners’). On the contrary, none of the ‘HSSO petitions’ endorsed by at least 100,000 constituents were fulfilled. The research results suggest that the high level of advocacy of the ‘HSSO petitions’ does not help their authors with achieving their political goals.

Alternatively, in the case of the higher salience issue petitions opposed to by the ruling party and then by the government (the ‘HSOO petitions’), we can draw three conclusions. Firstly, the outcome of the research corroborated the hypothesis 5. The ‘HSOO petitions’ endorsed by at least 100,000 constituents were as effective as the ones with fewer supporters. In both cases, around 7–8% of the petitions (e.g. ‘Re-instate nursing bursaries’ or ‘Stop Fracking in the UK’) were fulfilled (see Table 5). Unquestionably, the ‘HSOO petition’ should be perceived as an unsuccessful technique of grassroots lobbying in terms of policy change. It turned out that the ruling party rejected the overwhelming majority of petitions (more than 92% of them) contradictory to the party’s program and ideology irrespective of the number of their advocates. Eventually, the ‘HSOO petitions’ seem to be very prominent among the public despite their minimal impact on the authorities’ decisions. However, I argue that the ‘HSOO petitions’ have other important functions making them partially useful: they facilitate public mobilization and strengthen the interest groups’ identity.

In this regard, the data derived from Table 6 demonstrate that out of all lower salience issue e-petitions, the ones, the Conservative government opposed to (‘LSO’), accounted for the vast majority of them. It turned out that no ‘LSO petitions’ with 100,000 or more signatures were satisfied (0 out of 20), whereas only 2% (3 out of 141) of less frequently endorsed ones (e.g. ‘Repeal the EU Copyright Directive, when the UK leaves the EU’) met their goals (see Table 6). Unquestionably, the ‘LSO petition’ is a highly inefficient technique of grassroots lobbying in terms of a policy change. The research results demonstrate that the scale of petition’s endorsement was rather irrelevant when it came to influencing the decision-makers. The Conservative government was unwilling to change its policy and follow the petitioners’ demands in the case of more and less popular ‘LSO petitions.’ These conclusions are contradictory to the hypothesis 6, which asserted that the petitions of this type (‘LSO petitions’) with higher number of signatures are less likely to be fulfilled by the policy-makers than the ‘LSO petitions’ with fewer signatures.

The determinants of the e-petition system’s effectiveness

The research findings revealed that a comparative analysis of the relative frequencies of the e-petitions’ effectiveness did not fully cover the research area explored in this paper. Therefore, I used the logistic regression to explore the factors determining the e-petition system’s effectiveness. For this purpose, I ran three models to examine how the issue salience for the political party and the type of the government’s response affected the outcome of the policy-making process (see Table 7). Considering the low level of efficiency of the e-petitions aiming to change the status quo, I also explored whether they were more successful when aligned with the ruling party's ideology (see Table 7).

Table 7 Logistic regression analysis of lobbying effectiveness across three models

In the model 1 (see Table 7), I focused²¹ on the importance of issue salience itself, comparing lower and higher salience issues²² in relation to the performance of e-petitions. Additionally, I explored the influence of various types of government responses to e-petitions on their outcomes. The research results (coefficient = − 1.137, p < 0.001) indicated that the lower salience issue e-petitions were less effective than the e-petitions on higher salience issues. This negative coefficient is reflected in the odds ratio of 0.321, which means that the e-petitions from the first group are around three times less likely to be effective as those from the second group. Moreover, it turned out that two types of answers: (1) the government’s support to the petitioners’ demands (coefficient = 3.550, p < 0.001) and (2) the government’s ambiguous approach to the issues raised in the e-petition (coefficient = 2.433, p < 0.001), had a significantly positive impact on the e-petitions’ effectiveness. However, it has to be underlined that the first type of response to the e-petitions was meaningfully more effective than the latter one (comparing the results from Table 7). This research results were also reflected in the odds ratio of both types of petitions. In the case of the petitions officially endorsed by the government the odds ratio was 34.816, which means that these petitions are about 34 times more likely to be fulfilled than the petitions opposed to by the government. On the other hand, the odds ratio of the petitions to which the government had an ambiguous attitude was 11.394. These e-petitions appear to be roughly 11 times more effective than the ones that faced government’s opposition.

In the model 2 (see Table 7), I examined whether the party’s attitude (support or oppose to the policy) to the issues raised in the e-petitions submitted to the House of Commons determined the e-petitions’ effectiveness. This model focused solely on higher salience issue e-petitions (the economic theory of political information’s perspective) since these were dedicated to the matters analysed in the party’s manifesto (totalling 265 e-petitions). Thus, unlike in the case of the lower salience issue e-petitions, in the case of the higher salience issue ones it was possible to establish the party’s stance on the citizens’ demands immediately after they were submitted. Data extracted from Table 7 indicated that the type of party’s view on the issue had a significant impact on the effectiveness of the e-petitions. The e-petitions devoted to the matters supported by the ruling party were considerably more effective than the ones the party opposed to (coefficient = 2.711, p < 0.001). Even more notable is the odds ratio (OR) of 15.042, which suggests that e-petitions that address issues supported by the governing party are about 15 times more likely to be effective than those opposed to by it.

In the previous part of the paper, it was revealed that the e-petitions aiming to change the status quo policy did not enjoy the high level of efficiency. Only about 19% of them were fulfilled (see Table 3). However, for the purpose of the paper, I also analysed whether the party’s support to the issues addressed in those e-petitions determined their effectiveness (model 3). Data extracted from Table 7 showed that the higher salience issue e-petitions aimed at shifting current laws in line with the party’s manifesto were significantly more effective (coefficient = 2.717, p < 0.001) than the remaining e-petitions aiming to change the status quo policy. Even more striking is the odds ratio of 15.135, which means that the e-petitions from the first group are about 15 times more likely to be fulfilled than the ones from the second group.

Conclusions

This paper contributes to the research on the effectiveness of grassroots lobbying as it allowed us to distinguish some specific circumstances determining when it is and when it is not successful. Firstly, it turned out that grassroots lobbying was very effective in the case of the e-petitions aimed at defending the status quo policy. Furthermore, these petitions were substantially more probable to be fulfilled than the ones directed at shifting the current legislation. These findings were consistent with the Baumgartner et al.’s (2009) research results on the effectiveness of lobbying in the USA. It can be argued that the Walker (1991) and Baumgartner et al.’s (2009) claims explaining the higher efficiency of the actions aiming to protect the status quo policy in comparison with the ones aiming to change it were useful in the UK’s case. It seems that the citizens are particularly engaged in the grassroots actions to defend the policies they have already benefited from. Thus, they might be more efficacious in persuading the decision-makers to carry out their requests (Walker 1991). Moreover, the authorities must simultaneously address many political initiatives directed at introduction of the new legislation. The supporters of the specific policy change project have to not only compete with its opponents for the government’s attention and be more effective than them. They also should be more successful in convincing the authorities that their demand is more relevant and should be fulfilled instead of the other political proposals aimed at changing the status quo policy. The policy-makers have limited time to pass the laws (the electoral terms). Thus, many ‘policy improvement initiatives’ are not introduced because the politicians do not have enough time to get familiar with them and ‘due to scarcity of space on the public agenda’ (Baumgartner’s et al. 2009, p. 22). The high level of effectiveness of the grassroots activities directed at protection of the status quo policy may also arise from the fact that the petitioners’ demands reflect the distribution of power from the time the legislation was settled (Baumgartner’s et al. 2009). Unless some relevant changes in the political system have occurred since this law was passed in the first place, the supporters of the current status quo policy should be still rich in political resources (Baumgartner’s et al. 2009). Thus, they again might be able to effectively influence the decision-makers. On the other hand, the research results revealed that the probability of the e-petitions aimed at changing the status quo policy being fulfilled substantially increases in the case of the ones devoted to the demands aligned with the ruling party’s ideology. Therefore, it can be claimed that it is in the best interest of the citizens and the interest groups to intensify their grassroots actions when the party sharing their values comes to the power in the country.

Apart from that, grassroots actions are often efficacious when the following conditions are met: the issue championed by the petitioners is relevant for the ruling party. The ruling party’s attitude to the demand is favourable (the organization support it in its manifesto). Moreover, the government’s response to the appeal is positive or, at least, ambivalent. Here, the grassroots lobbying action informs the authorities that their agenda is popular among the citizens, and it mobilizes them to fulfil it. On the other hand, the e-petitions containing demands opposed by the ruling party (in its political program and in the form of the government’s response) are completely ineffective in terms of influencing the policies, no matter whether they are highly (more than 100,000 signatures) or only moderately (10,000–99,999 signatures) supported by the citizens. In this paper, I also distinguished e-petitions raising the matters not discussed in the party manifesto and connected with its ideology. They were included in the group of lower salience issue petitions (the economic theory of political information’s perspective). The government objected to the absolute majority of those grassroots actions in the official responses. Furthermore, it turned out that highly and moderately popular e-petitions from this group are equally ineffective in terms of influencing the policies.

These research results mean that the economic theory of political information does not have the explanatory power in case of all types of examined grassroots activities. The theory asserts that, in the case of the higher salience issues, the authorities’ policies do not depend on the scale of their support among the citizens. Their decisions are rather coherent with the party’s program and ideology. If the petitioners’ demand is consistent with them, the policy-makers will endorse it. On the other hand, they will be against it if it is contradictory to their party’s program.

It seems that the economic theory of political information explains to the full extent the equally low level of effectiveness of the moderately and greatly supported higher salience issue e-petitions opposed to by the authorities. During the political campaign, the ruling party announces in its manifesto that it does not endorse the issues desired by the petitioners. Then, the party refuses to fulfil the majority of these demands raised in the petitions to encourage its voters to support it in the next elections. The level of the citizens’ support (moderate or high) of those e-petitions is irrelevant and does not change the authorities’ positions.

Conversely, the theory does not explain why higher salience issue petitions endorsed by the party, which enjoyed a moderate support of the citizens (10,000–99,999 signatures), were more effective than their highly popular (more than 100,000 signatures) counterparts. It could be argued that the most popular e-petitions might be more divisive and can entail higher cost and thus may meet with stronger opposition from the powerful interest groups (for instance, from the fossil fuel industry or the agricultural companies). Thus, it can be said those e-petitions, although still effective, are less probable to be fulfilled than the ones with fewer signatures.

On the other hand, according to the economic theory of political information, the decision-makers do not believe that the lower salience issue e-petitions can enjoy a huge support from the citizens. They rather suspect that instead of the public, the interest groups get behind the most popular lower salience issue e-petitions. Thus, they are less willing to carry them out than the moderately endorsed counterparts. However, it seems that the theory did not work in case of these e-petitions either, because the probability of both types of e-petitions (moderately and highly popular ones) being completed turned out to be nearly the same (very low). Here, the theory might not take into consideration the broad agenda of the ruling party. When the party does not consider the issue as relevant, it can be unwilling to include it into its agenda even if the public proves that it is interested in the matter via submitting e-petition. The research results showed that the ruling party prioritizes the matters considered in its program (higher salience issues) and it is very difficult (but, as this paper proves, still possible, see Table 6) to persuade it to pass the legislation concerning the lower salience issues.

Against this backdrop, I believe that this paper contributes to the development of the research on the effectiveness of grassroots lobbying as it suggests amendments to the economic theory of political information. The article proves that it is essential to establish the political actor’s approach (support/oppose) to the higher salience issues before comparing the effectiveness of highly and moderately popular grassroots campaigns. Unless such analysis is carried out, there is a risk that the academics might try to conduct a comparative analysis of the performance of the incomparable cases. It would occur if there were a significantly greater ratio of petitions related to higher salience issues supported by the party in one of the examined groups.

Furthermore, the results of the study allowed me to state that the signalling theory seems to be an outdated concept, which is no longer useful in the research on the effectiveness of grassroots lobbying. Unlike the signalling theory assumes, it turned out that the most popular petitions are not more often fulfilled in contrast to the ones enjoying a moderate support from the citizens. The fact that, unlike the less popular petitions, the ones from the first group are always debated in the House of Commons allowed me to argue that a debate has a rather irrelevant role regarding the petitions’ fulfilment. This paper indicates that the scale of petition’s endorsement is not a crucial factor determining the authorities’ decision and the scholars should try to identify new factors, which would facilitate understanding of the politicians’ behaviour.

While I believe that this system allowed us to avoid mistakes with regard to petitions’ classification, it can be argued that this research should be repeated in a couple of years. In the paper I followed the Baumgartner et al.’s work (2009) and monitored the decision-making process up to 3–5 years since the petition’s submission date. However, the question emerges whether this timeline was sufficient. How should we treat the e-petitions, which were not fulfilled during the 57th and 58th Parliament of the UK, but will be carried out by the next parliament, in which another party might have majority of seats? Perhaps it will turn out that the level of e-petitions’ effectiveness considerably increases with the time passing by. This article only opens a discussion on the e-petition systems’ performance through the prism of the theories on the effectiveness of lobbying.

In the wake of this research, some new questions emerged, e.g. (1) Is the structure of the government (one party versus multi-party government) a factor determining the effectiveness of grassroots lobbying? (2) Are higher and lower salience issue e-petitions more effective in other European countries with e-petition system (e.g. Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal)? (3) Are e-petitions aiming to protect the status quo policy materially more effective than the ones aiming to change it in those countries? These questions still remain unanswered.