Abstract
The regulation of lobbying activities nowadays represents an internationally recognized standard of good governance. Such measures usually consist of mandatory public registers of lobbyists, meant to increase scrutiny and account-holding over the activities of lobbyists in the political and policy arena. In parallel to public regulation, industry-led initiatives have proliferated in recent years, in the form of private codes of conduct sponsored by professional lobbyists’ associations. However, existing research on lobbying regulation has largely ignored these developments. The article addresses this research gap. It proposes that codes of conduct developed by practitioners’ associations should be assessed through a professional ethics framework and tests this approach in a case study of the European Union (EU). Findings shows that, although the relationship between professionals and the beneficiaries of their services is central to the ethics of any profession, the codes of conduct developed by the EU associations neglect lobbyists’ obligations towards those whose interests they represent. Having been created in response to the threat of public regulation, these private codes sought to reassure the EU institutions of lobbyists’ integrity, leading to a narrow interpretation of ‘ethical’ lobbying as not exercising a corrupting influence over public officials or the public decision-making process.
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Notes
By comparison, most organizations that are part of the Public Affairs Community of Europe (PACE), a platform open to lobbyists’ associations in Europe, with members in 16 European countries (PACE 2018), were established after 2010.
This is not restricted to parties affected by externalities—it may also concern third parties with which the professional is contractually engaged, such as insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the case of doctors (Latham 2001). The ethical implication is still the same, i.e., that such contractual obligations may clash with professionals’ duties towards their clients.
The association was founded in 1979 as the American League of Lobbyists. It changed its name to AGRP in 2013 and wound down operations in 2017, due to a legal dispute, after over 35 years of existence.
All these codes are elaborated by associations who are active in consolidated representative democracies where lobbying is a (fairly) well developed as an occupation.
All interviews made use of broad open questions clustered around a few core topics. Interviewees were encouraged to bring up any new issues which they considered important but had not been covered by the topic guide. The interviews with SEAP and EPACA representatives covered the following topics: the interviewees’ experience in the EU public affairs sector and within SEAP/EPACA; the establishment and evolution of SEAP/ EPACA (circumstances that led to these associations being created, key debates and actors, criteria for admitting new members and membership fluctuation over time, core functions of the associations and their perceived importance); the code of conduct of SEAP/EPACA (when, why and how the codes were created, subsequent changes and the impetus behind them, dissemination and training activities around the codes, complaints received and their follow-up) and, finally, the public regulation of lobbying (SEAP/EPACA advocacy positions and actions regarding the TR and its predecessors, perceived impact on the development of the EU lobby registers, relationship with the JTRS). The two interviews with JTRS officials followed a different set of questions. The following topics were covered: the interviewees’ experience with the JTRS and in the European Institutions more generally; the relationship between JTRS and SEAP and EPACA (frequency and type of contact, changes in these aspects over time, future outlook); the importance of SEAP and EPACA as stakeholders in the broader environment around the TR (perceived influence of SEAP and EPACA advocacy, their promotion of the TR to the community of EU public affairs practitioners).
It is telling, in this regard, that the SEAP code did not have a disciplinary body attached to it until 2003 (SEAP 2016).
This is because both the ROIR and the TR target groups were wider than the constituencies represented by EPACA and SEAP. Specifically, the ROIR comprised three categories of registrants—(1) professional consultancies and law firms involved in lobbying, (2) in-house lobbyists and trade associations and (3) NGOs and think-tanks—while the TR added academic institutions, organizations representing churches and religious communities, and organizations representing local, regional and municipal authorities, as well as other public or mixed entities.
Nowadays, it is impossible for unregistered lobbyists to meet with European Commissioners and their cabinet members, or with senior civil servants in the EC. Access to EP buildings, participation in EP hearings and in EC expert groups are similarly conditional on registration. For a full description of the conditionality linked to TR registration please see: http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/staticPage/displayStaticPage.do;TRPUBLICID-prod=Y0cwyr9SgOVgDg1BCTV_qJNl-nHV458ne9-9H5gdeChU5zYYvhqp!-1297884402?locale=en&reference=WHOS_IS_EXPECTED_TO_REGISTER.
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I would like to thank Michelle Cini for her close involvement with earlier versions of this work, and for her very helpful input throughout. I am also grateful to Esther Versluis, who thoughtfully reviewed an advanced draft, and to the two anonymous reviewers as well as the editor for their constructive comments.
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Năstase, A. An ethics for the lobbying profession? The role of private associations in defining and codifying behavioural standards for lobbyists in the EU. Int Groups Adv 9, 495–519 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-020-00107-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-020-00107-8