Where it all starts: Lobbying, democracy and the Public Interest

• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Alberto Bitonti
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2001
• Date: 01 May 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

Where it all starts: Lobbying, democracy and the Public

Interest

Alberto Bitonti

Faculty of Communication, Università della

Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

Correspondence

Alberto Bitonti, Università della Svizzera

Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland.

Email: alberto.bitonti@usi.ch

Abstract

The article is a theoretical and semantic analysis of the concept of Public Interest. It

starts with a focus on the ambiguity of the concepts of interest and public, whose

different interpretations directly impact the understanding of the expression “Public

Interest.”An examination follows of the most important contributions in the litera-

ture on the idea of Public Interest. A distinction is then drawn between the concept

and different conceptions of it. In particular, I propose a typology of five ideal–typical

conceptions of the Public Interest: formal, substantive, realist, aggregative, and

procedural. For each conception, I highlight the constitutive elements and the

relevant consequences in their respective visions of democracy and of lobbying.

Some expectations are finally advanced on the uses of the various conceptions in

actual policymaking contexts.

1|ASTORYANDSOMEQUESTIONS

On December 2, 1948, a press conference was held at the White

House in Washington DC. President Harry S. Truman was lashing out

against the special interests and the lobbyists operating in the city. A

journalist then asked him: “Mr. President, would you be against

lobbyists who are working for your program?”Truman stopped and

answered, half-smiling: “Well, we probably wouldn't call those people

lobbyists. We would call them citizens appearing in the Public Inter-

est.”Everybody laughed. “Of course, I am not going to ask for

anything that is not in the interests of the whole people”, Truman

concluded.

Now, this story is a perfect example of the wonderful theoretical

problem lying at the heart of the discussion on the relationship

between lobbying and democracy and at the center of this issue of

the Journal of Public Affairs. What is the Public Interest? Do we have

an empirical criterion to distinguish those who advocate for a special

interest from those who advocate for the Public Interest (in addition

to placing only those who share our own opinion on the Public

Interest side of course)? And is there only one Public Interest? Does

democracy conceive the decisions of policymakers as taken in an

aseptic environment whose purity has to be defended or instead as

the result of the composition of different actual interests and

pressures? In the end, is lobbying a distortion of the democratic

process or a physiological element of democracy itself? Is it only a

philosophical problem or an actual problem of institutional design?

And eventually, where do all the prejudices and suspicions evoked in

general debates on lobbying come from?

This article aims to tackle these questions, trying to develop the

theoretical framework hidden behind any consideration concerning

the role of lobbying in modern democracy and the meanings of the

concept of Public Interest.

In Section 2, I shortly analyze the ambiguity of the single compo-

nents of the Public Interest, that is, the concepts of interest and public,

whose various meanings and interpretations are largely responsible

for most of the confusion surrounding the idea of Public Interest.

In Section 3, I recall the most important contributions on the con-

cept of Public Interest in the literature and advance a distinction

between the concept of Public Interest and different conceptions of

it; in particular, I propose a typology of five ideal-typical conceptions.

In Section 4, I try to demonstrate that the five different concep-

tions lead to very diverse consequences as concerns the perceived

legitimacy or desirability of lobbying in democracy.

In the conclusions (Section 5), some expectations are advanced on

the actual conceptions of the Public Interest used in real policymaking

processes and in advocacy and lobbying campaigns.

Received: 16 November 2018 Revised: 30 January 2019 Accepted: 11 July 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2001

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