Comparative lobbying research: advances, shortcomings and recommendations

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1527
• Published date: 01 February 2015
• Date: 01 February 2015

■Commentary

Comparative lobbying research: advances,

shortcomings and recommendations

Direnç Kanol*

CIRCaP, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

This review article suggests that there is a new school of comparative lobbying emerging. However, this development

is taking place only gradually.Unlike the earlier studies, which studied corporatism/pluralism, outside lobbying and

lobbying regulations, the new comparativists are mainly focusing on inside lobbying strategies and success as a func-

tion of country-level factors. Yet, the literature still suffers from underdeveloped theories. I stress that our knowledge

can be improved with better theorizing. Better theories, in turn, can be formulated by improving the use of quantita-

tive data gathering, qualitative research, formal models and better communication between researchers working with

different methodologies in different disciplines. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: Comparative Lobbying, Lobbying, Advocacy, Interest Groups

Until the 21st century, interest group research was

mainly an endeavour for the Americanists. Since

the 21st century, however, various articles have

appeared that studythe interest groups and lobbying

in the European Union (EU). This was followed by

examinations of interest groups and lobbying in

developing countries thanks to the special issues

published in the Journal of Public Affairs (Thomas &

Hrebenar, 2008; Thomas & Klimovich, 2013; Millar

& Köppl, 2014). An American political scientist could

easily suggest that thisdevelopment shows the surge

in the studies on comparative lobbying. However,

this I argue, would be a problematic suggestion.

Unlike what is currently accepted in the USA, com-

parative lobbying should not be understood as

studying lobbying in countries other than the USA.

Sartori once wrote that: ‘A scholar who studies

American presidents is an Americanist,whereas a scholar

who studies only French presidents isa comparativist.Do

not ask me how this makes sense –it does not’(Sartori,

1991: 243). The exact same puzzle applies in the field

of interest group research. My contention in this paper

is that there is, so far, scarce yet a growing amount of

research on comparative lobbying. I make an attempt

to make a substantive discussion in line with Thomas

and Hrebenar (2009) who provided a foundation for

the comparative study of lobbying. After reviewing

the comparative lobbying studies in the literature, I

argue that our knowledge can be improved with

better theorizing. Better theories, in turn, can be

formulated by improving the use of quantitative data

gathering, qualitative research, formal models and

better communication between researchers working

with different methodologies in different disciplines.

WHAT IS COMPARATIVE LOBBYING? (OR

WHAT IT SHOULD BE)

One necessary condition for any study to be classi-

fied under comparative lobbying research is that it

should study phenomena related to interest groups

and lobbying in more than one country or more

than one region within a country. I should stress

that by studying phenomena related to interest

groups and lobbying, I do not mean to suggest that

dependent variables should be necessarily related to

such phenomena. Phenomena related to interest

*Correspondence to: Direnç Kanol, CIRCaP, University of Siena,

Siena, Italy.

E-mail: direda@yahoo.co.uk

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 15 Number 1 pp 110–115 (2015)

Published online 20 May 2014 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1527

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.