Talk:Lobbying

Definition

Here is the definition now: "Lobbying (also lobby) is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in a government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies."

So according to this definition also public protests/demonstrations like this or even riots can be considered "lobbying"?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 07:26, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps add: "...in a method derived from encounters between parties in a hotel lobby." Or something like? John Mark Wagnon (talk) 20:05, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I.E. — Oligarchs 109.245.36.112 (talk) 08:52, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Early discussion

What is lobbyism? Mr. Jones 17:03, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The root of 'ism' is used to imply 'a belief in', just as 'ist' is used to imply 'a person who practices'. Therefore, lobbyism is "a belief in lobbying" and just as lobbyist is "a person who practices lobbying." Kainaw 18:04, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Origin of the term

What is the origin of the term "lobbyist" and its related forms? The article on Ulysses S. Grant suggests he might have coined it with his complaints about lobby-invading pleaders during his stays at the Willard Hotel. Wiktionary has no entry on any variant. Merriam-Webster Online, Dictionary.com, and various pages pointing to the American Heritage Dictionary failed to turn up an appropriate etymology. — Jeff Q 19:17, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some etymology info... "The word 'lobby' dates back at least to the mid-seventeenth century when the large anteroom off the floor of the English House of Commons where members of Parliament could be approached by special pleaders became known as the lobby. It is also more modernly known as a public area in a hotelAccording to H. L. Mencken, in 1829 petitioners for special privileges in Albany, New York, were called 'lobby-agents.' It was not a complimentary term." (p112, War Without Bloodshed by Eleanor Clift & Tom Brazaitis, ISBN: 0-684-80084-5)

This same source (War Without Bloodshed) also mentions the use of "lobbyers" and "lobby members" as precursors to the more-modern term "lobbyist." — Shawn 14:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the "etymology" section until we can get a definitive sourced answer. Hope everyone agrees. Best, Meelar (talk) 15:23, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Lobbying in Brussels

Why is information specific to Brussels included in the article? It has no place unless you're going to include lobbying information from most countries. If there are no objections I will remove this in a few days. Monkeyman 12:49, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I object. This is interesting information and I see no reason to remove it. Better expand the article. Cacycle 17:48, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Cacycle. Perhaps it doesn't deserve its own subsection, but there is no reason to remove the Brussels information entirely. Its presence will encourage the addition of further, more specific material (eg. about lobbying in other centers of government, such as Washington, D.C.) - MichaelWest 12:40, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it should be moved to somewhere about EU, and linked from here? It is important and has to be referenced from here, but not necessarily be located here itself. --Shaddack 13:30, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you want to remove this section then please also remove the section about lobbying in the United States.

I think it all sounds like this people didn't realise that "Brussels" means the EU's goverment. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 145.18.110.165 (talk) 10:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

The percentages given for the proportion of lobbyists in Brussels are very precise, and don't seem to be there in the reference paper, which says In 2000, about 2,600 interest groups had a permanent office downtown Brussels, of which European trade federations comprise about a third, commercial consultants a fifth, companies, European NGOs (e.g., in environment, health care or human rights) and national business or labour associations each about 10%, regional representations and international organisations each about 5%, and, finally, think tanks about 1%.QuakerActivist (talk) 08:19, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

A meaningless paragraph

This has to be one of the most laughable market speak I have ever seen. I am not surprised though at its weakness since its very hard to cover such an open lie, that lobbying isn't bribing.

See, the sentence below try to claim that, since both parties ideologies are the same, the money transfer is irrelevant. Now, if you believe in this argument, tell me where it contradict the meaning of bribe. Do you see why I think this statement is useless. Unaltered, it can define the relationship involved in both bribing and lobbying. I mean, when I give a bribe so that my business is considered for a contract, one party receive a fund and the guy bribing receive money in form of profit after being considered for contract. Both have the same ideology, money

One more thing, if the transfer of money is irrelevant, why would one undertake it then? Just let the guy make the decision. Its going your way anyway. Honestly, can someone be very frank and say if he could tell a difference if I replaced the name bribe with lobby on this page? [1]. WOuld it be wrong to say this lobbying? [2]

Supporters of the system respond that many politicians act in the interests of those who fund them due to common ideologies or shared local interests, and that lobbyists merely support those who agree with their positions.

Unfortunately my friend, the world is more complicated than that. Bribery is the exchange of money for an exemption from a law. Lobbying is trying to influence the writing of laws. It is a necessary evil, because politicians are usually too busy being politicians to learn about issues, so they should probably listen to those citizens of our country who know and care about issues than just what some pollster says. That is Lobbying. When money exchanges hands it depends on the nature of the exchange, whether it is corrupt or not. If there is some understanding that the campaign contribution will lead to increased sway, that is corrupt. It is not bribery, however, because it is not breaking the law. It is still bad, however, and one would have to be pretty naïve to think that this does not happen. But one cannot adequately solve this problem by thinking of all lobbying as simply bribery. A much more subtle understanding is required. Dwinetsk 17:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, also, what paragraph are you referring to?Dwinetsk 17:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It is important to ensure that the economic interests of lobbyists are reflected and compared or contrasted with those of people bribing public officials. In the end, the objective of both is to achieve a more favorable outcome than would otherwise prevail in a "free" exchange. Yet, there seem to a no moral judgment associated with lobbying as there is associated with the individual citizen seeking to alter the outcomes of events confronting her. If we model the cost of the two cases, it may be cheaper for the system if we legalized bribery and shunned lobbying. But we need to run a model to test this, don't we?Vincenzo 00:39, 25 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vincentab (talk • contribs)

inconsistent

so, i've never edited anything here before, but the beginning of this article says that the term can be traced to president Roosevelt's practice of meeting with citizens in the lobby of some hotel, then not 2 paragraphs later it says the term orginated from President Grant's lobby meetings. so out it goes until the real culprit can be identified.

Demographics

What are the largest lobbies in the US, EU, etc..?

The Sierra Club of course! The Sierra Club is a fantastic example to put up at the top of this page, as such environmental groups of course spend millions each year to lobby congress, and have bought nearly every politician!

Yes and what a shame that all that money is going to bringing the attention of our public officials to the public problem of overgrazing of the commons that is the earth's ecosystems. Better that it were going to other enormous lobbies like the food industry (because God knows no one would eat food if the food lobby weren't focusing the efforts of politicians on making it easier for McDonalds and Nabisco to sell us poison as though it were food for our children) or the gun lobby (which of course helps our economy grow, even if at the expense of all those children in West Africa that end up with the small arms that we dump on the global market after every military involvement, right or wrong). Ooh, those evil environmentalists. They're so corrupt! Look at what they're doing to our economy and to our stomachs!! We are so hungry and unarmed and poor! Dwinetsk 17:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism that cannot be deleted

Under the paragraph entitled "ideological" one can read:

"Interest groups can also be created by =your mom= groups of motivated individuals"

The entry "your mom" is clear vandalism but could not be deleted through the edit page.

Merge proposal

The merge to tag has been sat on Interest representation: Academic overview for quite a while but no mirror tag had been set on this page to aid awareness of the proposal - so I've added it. I'm in favour of the merge as I think that, although the page needs a lot of work, it would make a good addition to Lobbying. Madmedea 21:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: actually, digging out my old textbooks this section may be better merged into Interest group Madmedea 09:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that lobbying is a particular sort of advocacy and has merit as an article of its own. PeterEastern (talk) 13:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

publicprivatedialogue.org

This link: Public Private Dialogue A resource for practitioners wishing to promote policy reforms through dialogue (sponsored by World Bank, IFC, OCED, DFID, GTZ)

Was added by an IP address registered to the World Bank Group (publicprivatedialogue.org is a World Bank project). In keeping with our conflict of interest and external links guidelines I've moved it here for consideration by regular editors of this article who are unaffiliated with the site. To me, it doesn't really seem to contain encyclopedic information on lobbying. -- Siobhan Hansa 18:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Poorly-constructed article

Why is etymology the first section of so many articles? It's intensely irritating to have to scroll to the middle of an article to learn anything of practical use about the subject. Etymology is little better than trivia. 71.131.204.2 (talk) 00:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Any reference to Barack Obama?

Any reference on Obama's rule on lobbyism? I don't see that anywhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RanEagle (talk • contribs) 00:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how that would be relevant. Presidents come and go, but lobbying remains, and Obama is not specifically relevant to lobbying itself. 98.154.210.213 (talk) 05:07, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Lobbying and pranks

Is [3] suitably notable to be included in the main article? Jackiespeel (talk) 13:54, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Lobbying affects people worldwide

I'd like to see something in this about "...Lobbying in Washington all by itself reverberates around the world. The aerospace companies like Lockheed Martin shape the entire aviation industry of the world with their clout on defense contracts. Agricultural policy, including who gets food and who does not in the poorer parts of the world, is influenced mightily by heavy-handed lobbyists like Archer Daniels Midland. Health care everywhere is shaped by the hard-bought privileges of the pharmaceutical companies. Because of America's economic size and the reach of its corporations, every soft football of favor seeking and bribery inside the beltway is like an earthquake somewhere in the global south." From John Tirman's book "100 Ways America is Screwing up the World." Stars4change (talk) 05:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Video: How To Lobby - External Link Suggestion

Please view this film from an online youth magazine as I would like to submit it as an external link. Thanks Willsmore (talk) 13:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Viewpoints - Faunce

In the "viewpoints" section, I found this paragraph to be very confusing:

The Australian academic Thomas Alured Faunce has argued that Non-violation nullification of benefits claims, particularly in bilateral trade agreements when associated with constructive ambiguities such as reward of innovation appear designed to facilitate lobbying targeted to achieve changes in domestic health policy; often leading to the process known as regulatory capture of government, with profound implications for democratic sovereignty.

There are a lot of technical terms in that paragraph that a typical reader would be unfamiliar with. Also, the entire paragraph is one long sentence, which makes it hard to parse. I don't think it's even necessary to have such a detailed discussion here, so I think we should simply remove this paragraph. If we want to keep this information in the article, we should rewrite it more clearly. Also, it's worth noting that the username of the person who added this paragraph is "Fauncet", which is very similar to the name of the person mentioned in the paragraph, "Thomas Alured Faunce." So he may be citing himself. But self-citing, alone, isn't a problem. I think the Wikipedia guidelines say that citing oneself is acceptable, as long as a published work is being cited. But we should consider the clarity and whether it is necessary. --Navigatr85 22:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, no one responded with any objections, so I'm going to remove that paragraph from the article. But, as usual, people will probably start posting their objections AFTER the changes are made to the article. :) That's OK, that's what typically happens on Wikipedia. --Navigatr85 01:41, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

References

By your definition, I am a lobbyist. NOT!

"A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest or a member of a lobby."

I try to influence legislation on behalf of peace and justice on a regular basis. Please explain why I am or am not a lobbyist.

This article and the article on "Lobbying in the United States" are essentially useless. Please see my comments on the talk page for that article.

Can somebody please just put out the information on what lobbying actually is?

Dagme (talk) 02:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

EU Lobby Register

THe EU Lobbyregister and its effectiveness should be addressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.138.236.208 (talk) 06:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction

In the first line of the section on lobbying in France, it says, "the political system does not integrate the lobbying practice," but a few lines later it says, "lobbying has always been practiced in France." Which one is it? mrowland92 (talk) 17:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Bribery

Why is there absolutely no mention of how lobbying is considered by many to be akin to bribery? I found it particularly funny that in the section See Also there is a link to the article Bribery but there isn't a section in the article itself about this.

I won't argue in favor or against this view in this comment, I just think it's important that for this article to be balanced that view should be included in its own section.--Grondolf (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Example of "duly defended" lobbying

Am I the only one who thinks that the example isn't the best? Its a hard to believe even a hypothetical argument in which a hospital can afford to go up against a tobacco giant. --75.142.22.210 (talk) 08:27, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

The example refers to organizations such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), or private insurance giants (e.g., Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA)). Maybe some rewording in that spot could make it clearer. I'll take a look. Thanks for noting. — ¾-10 14:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I clarified. The links I included were: "For example, a medical association, or a trade association of health insurance companies, may lobby a legislature in order to counteract the influence of tobacco companies, in which case the lobbying would be viewed by most people as justified (duly defending against others' corruption)." I also included wiktionary links for a couple of words that kids or EFL adults might need help with. (BTW, I realize that one could argue to circumlocute instead, but it's better to link them than to circumlocute, because they are in fact the apt words to use in those spots. Anyone who needs help can simply click through.) — ¾-10 15:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Tone and citations

This article has tone issues all over the place. Pretty much the entire article requires serious editing for neutrality and tone. I've added a cleanup template to mark for this.

In addition, numerous sections are without citations at all and those that have citations are few and far between, so I've added a article citation template at the top of the page as well. Wildgriffin (talk) 18:07, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Where is USA?

I see a list, but USA is not in the list (by country). Now when i hear lobby i picture America. --Inayity (talk) 16:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

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Useful reference for Lobbying in Australia section

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=35699#.VkPKnbcrKUk --Danimations (talk) 23:12, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

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Foreign-funded lobbying

"Foreign-funded lobbying efforts include those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and China lobbies. In 2010 alone, foreign governments spent approximately $460 million on lobbying members of Congress and government officials."

I think it might be more accurate to include the list of top spenders by country and foreign principle:

Doing this by country would give us South Korea, Japan, Israel, Ireland, UAE, Marshall Islands, Saudi Arabia, China, Canada and the Bahamas.

Doing this by foreign principles would give us Government of South Korea, Government of Japan, Government of Bermuda, Government of Ireland, Government of Israel, Government of Marshall Islands, Government of the Bahamas, Government of Saudi Arabia, Government of Qatar, and China Daily of Beijing, China.

The current list seems at best arbitrary and at worst selection bias heavily favoring countries in the Middle East.

References

The Marshall Islands !?! Tiny little islands with annual exports of $50 million and annual imports of $100 million (approx)? Exports include coconuts, pigs, and breadfruit. The SIXTH LARGEST foreign funder of political lobbying in the USA? Is that some offshore banking thing? That's the oddest thing I've heard all week. Please explain.

South Korea and Japan, too, are a surprise. I suppose you might count Israel as a surprise but only because you'd expect them to get their way for free.

Marshall Islands though? Really?

84.71.64.87 (talk) 21:55, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Article Evaluation

While reading this article I found that many of the opinions stated felt as though they came from a place of personal belief rather than an informative mix of unbiased information. The opening section starts with a brief description of what lobbying is, but it quickly diverges and begins to describe why many believe that lobbying takes away power from the people. In order to produce a comprehensive, bias-free article, I believe this information is better put in an entirely new section. In my opinion a new section could be created titled "Controversy" where these opinions could be better explained. Additionally, it would be very useful to add more information as to what benefits lobbying may bring, why it is so prevalent, and why it has not been made illegal if it truly is as awfully viewed as the article seems to suggest. In general, there needs to be more information that focuses on a more neutral standpoint. If not, the article could benefit by explaining both sides of the issue more thoroughly. My last comment would be to add more to the section titled "History," or just omit this section altogether. Citations could be used better as well. Maschristi (talk) 23:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC)Christina Masnyy

404

just FYI, the reference No. 16 leads to 404.

Thanks for the heads-up. A link to an archived version has been added. --bonadea contributions talk 10:39, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Backing both sides and limits

I think what's particularly interesting about US political donations, is how many organisations donate money to both parties. That can't be "support", you can't invest millions into both sides in the hope they'll both win, or, what, a draw? Even viewing donations somewhat cynically, taking away idealism and seeing an organisation donate to a party because that party's policies support it's interests, can't explain that. If both parties support your interests well, the sensible thing would be to donate to neither of them, you're getting that for free. Such donations can only be seen as attempts to win favour, or to do favours that will be paid back later.

Campaign spending in the USA is massively out of proportion to other countries, even taking into account population size. Of course it's a competition, and various studies have shown that each dollar spent gains so many votes, or so much percentage. Each side tries desperately to outspend the others. I think it would serve democracy well to put strict limits on spending. Something in line with an average of other modern democracies. In the UK we have "Party Policial Broadcasts", each party above a certain size (the three main ones, usually) is given a few minutes of time on television to transmit a recorded message. It's free of charge, and no other TV advertising is allowed. Billboards are allowed, but they come from a fixed campaign budget, which must be accurately accounted, and is limited. Rallies come under the same conditions.

The British system is the one I'm familiar with, but other countries likely have something to teach. Otherwise we're going to have to get dictionaries to invent new words past "mockery" to describe what the current system is deteriorating into.

Since you ask, yes, of course British politics is a shitheap too, not getting nationalistic here. But campaign spending limits here are something that are approaching the right direction.

84.71.64.87 (talk) 21:49, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Looking for feedback

Hi! Although I haven't contributed to this article, I did contribute significantly to the banking lobby article. As a new user, I would really appreciate some feedback! Thank you. Peanutbutterisbad (talk) 18:05, 17 March 2023 (UTC)