As a practice, lobbying is accused of being anti-democratic as it frustrates the “will of the people”, favours the wealthy and consists largely of privileged access to important decision-makers, which has to be paid for. In truth, lobbying plays an essential and legitimate role in the democratic process and forms an integral role in the process of policy formulation. It facilitates two-way communication between decision-makers and all interest groups in civil society. This is not to discount that bias does exist in the interest group system and most academic scholars believe an inherent bias persists, which is likely common to all liberal democracies. In reality, interest groups do not represent all segments of society and resources – mainly money – do matter, while extensive resources mean certain interest groups can exert power out of all proportion to the number of their members. There have been attempts to create legal solutions to these issues through regulation of lobbyists in some settings and laws dealing with the lobbied in others. It is naïve to think that a level-playing field can be created for all interest groups. However, an imperative exists to ensure access is more equitable and that influence faces greater regulation, such that it is not perceived as corrupt.

To date, only a small minority of political systems have opted to enact legislation to regulate lobbying activity [United States of America (federal and state levels, except for Pennsylvania), Australia, Canada (federal level and in several provinces), Hungary, Georgia, Germany (federal and state levels), Lithuania, Poland, and the European Parliament]. Stronger lobbying regulations increase both transparency and accountability (which, most people will agree, are a good thing). Incentives to commit to self-regulatory systems tend not to be very strong and they are usually very weak on enforcement. The European Commission recently conceded that its rules on financial disclosure were not working and has ruled out making sign-up to its ‘lobby register’ mandatory. It is in the interest of both lobbyists and politicians to introduce lobbying regulations to further the goal of good governance. Public confidence can only increase if regulations are introduced (and seen to be effective). And with that increased confidence in our political system we might even witness a greater understanding of the democratic role that lobbying plays.

It’s time for lobbyists to come out of the closet.