TY - JOUR

T1 - Competitive lobbying in the influence production process and the use of spatial econometrics in lobbying research

AU - Egerod, Benjamin C.K.

AU - Junk, Wiebke Marie

N1 - Funding Information: The authors are grateful for comments and suggestions they have received from Marcel Hanegraaf, Thomas Holyoke, Torben Iversen, Jennifer Victor, Christoffer Pfeiffer Cappelen and Florian Weiler. Previous versions of this manuscript were presented at annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the Danish Political Science Association, and the European Consortium for Political Research. The authors also thank Professor William Shughart II, and the four anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, and Kelley Friel for excellent copy-editing. Any remaining errors are the authors’ own. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2022/4

Y1 - 2022/4

N2 - Much of the lobbying process is inherently competitive: when lobbyists with opposing goals attempt to move outcomes in their preferred direction, successful lobbying by one actor will disadvantage opposing actors. This article theorizes and quantifies the indirect form of influence that competing lobbying actors exert on each other. While existing theories of competitive lobbying have focused on legislation, we argue that all stages of the lobbying process involve competition. Our findings make two contributions to the study of lobbying influence. First, using spatial econometrics, we present the first estimates of how the success of one lobbying actor is shaped by the lobbying activities of opposing actors. Second, we study competition in three diverse empirical settings that capture three different stages of the lobbying process: (1) lobbying camps favoring opposite legislative outcomes in five European countries, (2) US lobbying firms competing over client resources, and (3) corporations competing for administrative trade barriers in 19 World Trade Organization member countries. The results reveal important insights about how interdependence among lobbyists conditions their effectiveness. Our application of spatial techniques to model interdependence between actors is useful for all scholars who want to take competitive or collaborative diffusion mechanisms into account in studies of lobbying and public policy.

AB - Much of the lobbying process is inherently competitive: when lobbyists with opposing goals attempt to move outcomes in their preferred direction, successful lobbying by one actor will disadvantage opposing actors. This article theorizes and quantifies the indirect form of influence that competing lobbying actors exert on each other. While existing theories of competitive lobbying have focused on legislation, we argue that all stages of the lobbying process involve competition. Our findings make two contributions to the study of lobbying influence. First, using spatial econometrics, we present the first estimates of how the success of one lobbying actor is shaped by the lobbying activities of opposing actors. Second, we study competition in three diverse empirical settings that capture three different stages of the lobbying process: (1) lobbying camps favoring opposite legislative outcomes in five European countries, (2) US lobbying firms competing over client resources, and (3) corporations competing for administrative trade barriers in 19 World Trade Organization member countries. The results reveal important insights about how interdependence among lobbyists conditions their effectiveness. Our application of spatial techniques to model interdependence between actors is useful for all scholars who want to take competitive or collaborative diffusion mechanisms into account in studies of lobbying and public policy.

KW - Competitive lobbying

KW - Diffusion

KW - Lobbying the bureaucracy

KW - Political influence

KW - Spatial econometrics

U2 - 10.1007/s11127-022-00962-w

DO - 10.1007/s11127-022-00962-w

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85127268051

VL - 191

SP - 193

EP - 215

JO - Public Choice

JF - Public Choice

SN - 0048-5829

IS - 1-2

ER -