Week 8- Pressure Groups and Lobbying Flashcards
Define lobbying
The activity of trying to influence public policy
Who are the actors engaged in lobbying?
Pressure groups and commercial lobbyists
What is a pressure group?
Collective organisations with voluntary members or supporters (individuals or organisations) for whom efforts to influence and shape public policy constitutes a core reason for their existence
How do pressure groups differ from parties?
- Unlike parties, groups do not seek to win elections or form governments
- Instead groups engage in strategies to influence parliaments, government ministers, public servants, party platforms and public opinion such that public policies change in the desired direction (or remain unchanged as desired)
What are pressure groups also known as?
Interest groups
Define institutions
Organisations for which advocacy is a marginal concern and something in which they only intermittently engage
Why are some organisations not considered pressure groups?
Some organisations are collective (have affiliates) but are not policy oriented, as politics does not form a core part of their reason for being, and are therefore not considered pressure groups
What 2 core components are required to be considered a pressure group?
- Policy advocacy as part of an organisation’s reason for being
- It is a collective organisation
What is the primary source of political power?
The parliamentary system
What does the asserted prominence of parties in the Australian political system rest on?
- Being real competition between party agendas such that changes in govt usher in major changes in public policy
What system is it argued that Australian politics is drifting towards? Describe this
- A ‘cartel system’
- Within which parties compete electorally over the same broad on the basis of their relative managerial competence
- Suggests party organisations are increasingly less likely to be a focus for citizen participation and agenda setting
What does most policy work involve?
- Relatively low level engagement between group officials and bureaucrats
- Parties broadly align, both direct and indirect ways, with societal or economic interests
- More Australian groups are likely to increasingly pursue bipartisan agendas
Outline insider strategies
- About achieving the possible- providing reasoned, well researched argument in a constructive manner without attempting to win an argument by embarrassing government
- Groups accept they will not ‘win’ on every issue
- Strategies can be high or low profile in nature depending on media coverage
Outline outsider strategies
- Notable for their pursuit of attention grabbing stunts that are designed to (re)set the policy agenda, and to embarrass and cajole the government into action
- May move to insider approach over time
- Some are outsiders by necessity (skills and resources)
Define ideological outsiders
Aims are too radical to be accommodated by governments
Define zero sum game
Groups as agents of political influence characterises groups and state as zero sum game
List questions to assess the capacities of groups themselves
- Can they speak authoritatively for their members?
- Do they have good representative coverage of their constituency?
- Do they have valuable in-house expertise?
- Can they provide resources that the state does not possess, yet needs?
Outline the other roles groups have
- Deliver services
- Regulate professions
- Bargain on wages and conditions for members
- Formulate self-regulatory regimes or codes of practice
Outline the role of professional groups
Professional groups have been granted important functions regarding accreditation and regulation of professions on behalf of the state
What do pressure groups do more than ever?
Engage in private governance regimes as a way to address issues of concern
List questions to assess how representative groups are
- For whom does a group work?
- In whose interests is it advocating?
- Who can it be said to represent?
Why are pressure groups important in Australian politics and what is an issue with this?
- They may represent the interests of those that are marginal, practically unpalatable and would be unlikely to gain traction in election campaigns, party manifestos etc
- However, many groups advocating for marginalised groups do not involve members of the group in their advocacy
What causes some groups to criticise the legitimacy of other groups?
- The issue of representativeness
- Some suggest groups lack internal democratic processes
- They have members remote from decision making
- Members are really supporters
Outline one approach to the representativeness issue
- A conflict between authenticity and political inclusion
- If we want the voices of the marginalised to be heard, we may have to accept that their interests have to be articulated by those who are showing solidarity with such constituencies, not the constituency members themselves
Outline evidence for this approach to the issue of representativeness
Debate as to whether groups should be able to combine a mission to service a ‘client group’ with political advocacy
- Many organisations are partly funded by the state
- Recently, service contracts offered by the govt have sought to preclude policy advocacy explicitly, or have only funded specific projects, not core organisation funding
- Opposition pursued by raising tax related issues. Organisations are charities, with a tax reduced status
Broadly define lobbying
- Term to indicate influence seeking activity by political organisations and individuals
- Also refers to individuals who make their professional living as a paid or commercial lobbyist
What background may lobbyists have?
- As a politician
- As a senior public servant
- May have professional expertise in areas such as public and commercial law, public relations or public opinion research
Who do lobbyists target?
- Public servants
- Seek to engage directly with politicians
List (4) skills lobbyists have
- Providing inside knowledge or what the key decision makers are within government
- What the likely agenda is
- The timing of policy formulation and decision making
- Those with skills in policy will provide research to support campaigns on current policy issues
Define commercial lobbyist
- Paid professionals engaged by clients on a fee-for-service basis
- The services of professional lobbying firms are engaged by pressure groups, individual corporations or other institutions, who see the need for an inside track to decision making
Summarise the Combe-Ivanov affair
- Combe was a long standing lobbyist and member of the labour party
- Formed a close friendship with a Russian senior diplomat
- Was considered a security risk and lost his job
Outline the Lobbying Registration Scheme established in 1983
- Only included commercial lobbyists engaged by a client
- Did not cover ‘dealings’ with back benchers
- Register created under scheme was not made public
Outline WA’s Contact with Lobbyists Code
- Burke scandal reopened debate about Australian lobbying regulations
- Coverage was narrow
- Did not include ‘in-house’ staff of companies and large pressure groups
Outline the federal government’s 2008 Lobbying Code of Conduct
- Aims to include all definitions of lobbyists
- Requires those defined as lobbyists and engaging with govts to register with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Register made public on website
- Must list business name, members of their firm that lobby, and the names of their clients
- Govts will not engage lobbyist without registration
- Deals with targets of lobbying: politicians and public servants
- Does not include all senators, but does include all public servants, irrespective of rank
What is the ‘revolving door’ and how does the Lobbying Code of Conduct address this?
- Refers to the way ministers and senior public officials move swiftly between lobbying and public office
- Code sets 18 month period between public office and registration as a lobbyist for all ministers and parliamentary secretaries, and 12 months for ministerial staff
Describe the strength of Australia’s response to lobbying concerns
Australia has a growing number of lobbying registers, but response to concerns over lobbying in Australian politics is comparatively weak
