Self‐interest in new wrapping: “Appeal to the public interest” as a topos in lobbying

• Author: Ketil Raknes,Øyvind Ihlen
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2059

ACADEMIC PAPER

Self-interest in new wrapping: “Appeal to the public

interest”as a topos in lobbying

Ketil Raknes

1

| Øyvind Ihlen

2

1

Department of Communication,

Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway

2

Department of Media and Communication,

University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Correspondence

Ketil Raknes, Department of Communication,

Kristiania University College, Kirkegata

24, 0170 Oslo, Norway.

Email: ketil.raknes@kristiania.no

This article explores public affairs and lobbying strategies that make public appeals

beyond organizational self-interest and instead focus on appeals to the public interest.

While research has highlighted such appeals as a staple for lobbying campaigns, there

is scant research exploring the communicative construction of this notion. Thus, this

article uses the rhetorical concept of topos to explore how lobbyists attempt to fuse

their private interests with a broader appeal to what is best for society. In particular,

we discuss how different types of organizations have different rhetorical opportuni-

ties to ground their arguments. Finally, we discuss the democratic implications of

appeals to the public interest as a standard lobbying strategy.

1|INTRODUCTION

Lobbying could be called a vital subdiscipline of public affairs that

deals with attempts to influence the public policy process. Research

on this subdiscipline has produced several studies that highlight the

importance of, for instance, lobbyists' resources and their various tac-

tics (e.g., Baumgartner & Leech, 1998; Berry, 1977; Binderkrantz,

Christiansen, & Pedersen, 2014; Chari, Hogan, & Murphy, 2010/2012;

Drutman, 2015; Heinz, Laumann, Nelson, & Salisbury, 1993; Nownes,

2006). Some research (e.g., Baumgartner, Berry, Hojnacki, Kimball, &

Leech, 2009; Godwin, Ainsworth, & Godwin, 2013; Rommetvedt,

2011) has also discussed how lobbyists communicate. A crucial finding

is that lobbyists often argue that their proposal will benefit the whole

of society. These arguments build on appeals to shared social goals,

collective goods, community, or appeals to the public interest.

There is, however, little in-depth knowledge about this type of

rhetorical operation and how lobbyists' find and invent public interest

arguments. This, we maintain, is rather strange as the communicative

fusing of private and public interests seems to be the main communi-

cative challenge for lobbyists. The most important job of lobbyists is

to help their organization “get dressed for politics”and “develop their

arguments with consideration of the perspective and preference of

others”(Naurin, 2007, p. 117). Thus, in this article we use rhetorical

theory to explore how lobbyists invent and construct arguments that

appeal to the public interest.

Lobbying communication is influenced both by the type of organi-

zation they represent and institutional characteristics (Baumgartner &

Mahoney, 2008; Boräng & Naurin, 2015). Thus, it seems likely that

the rhetorical possibilities vary among different types of organizations.

A business has a profit motive, a union should work on its members'

behalf, and a nongovernmental organization (NGO) is often organized

around a public interest, such as human rights or the environment.

Indeed, NGOs might often cast themselves off as public interest

groups. Thus, the research question is What forms of appeal to the pub-

lic interest are found in public lobbying campaigns,how do the actors

explain such appeals,and what difference does organizational

type make?

Most studies on the strategic communication of lobbying have

retrieved their empirical examples from the U.S. and the E.U. In this

article, we instead look at lobbying in a small, social democratic state

in Europe: Norway. Norway is an example of a larger subset of

consensus-oriented democracies that can shed light on whether

appeals to the public interest are a staple strategy for lobbyists oper-

ating in Western democracies (Lijphart, 1984).

We selected three recent lobbying campaigns conducted by three

Norwegian organizations: a business, a large union, and an environ-

mental NGO. All three campaigns made use of the mass media to fur-

ther the causes of their respective organizations. Before we present

more details about our approach and the campaigns, we will briefly

discuss the literature on lobbying and communication. This will be

followed by a section discussing the rhetorical concept of topos.

Finally, we will summarize our findings and discuss the democratic

implications of appeals to the public interest as a standard lobbying

strategy.

Received: 15 November 2018 Revised: 25 June 2019 Accepted: 19 November 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2059

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https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2059