Transparent Lobbying and Democracy

by Sïrka Laboutkovï, Vït Simral, Petr Vymetal

Overview

"The authors come up with some innovative tools, namely the “Catalogue of transparent lobbying”. They look at and evaluate the impact on both key stakeholders (lobbyists and targets of lobbying), monitoring of lobbying activities and sanctioning for breaches of rules. This tool holds out benchmarking capacity of sound framework for understanding of lobbying in the context of democracy, legitimacy of decision-making and accountability."David Ondráčka, member of global Board of Transparency International, head of Transparency International, Czech Republic
"Transparent Lobbying and Democracy provides a comprehensive view into the phenomenon of lobbying... As a well-established scientist specializing in democracy, civil society and the public sphere, I see it as a useful and enriching contribution to the debate on lobbying, its necessary transparency and its role in the democratization process. This book has the potential to reach an international audience of experts and interested lay persons, and both complement and compete with publications on similar issues."Karel B. Müller, University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic
This book deals with the current, as yet unsolved, problem of transparency of lobbying. In the current theories and prevalent models that deal with lobbying activities, there is no reflection of the degree of transparency of lobbying, mainly due to the unclear distinction between corruption, lobbying in general, and transparent lobbying. This book provides a perspective on transparency in lobbying in a comprehensive and structured manner. It delivers an interdisciplinary approach to the topic and creates a methodology for assessing the transparency of lobbying, its role in the democratization process and a methodology for evaluating the main consequences of transparency. The new approach is applied to assess lobbying regulations in the countries of Central Eastern Europe and shows a method for how lobbying in other regions of the world may also be assessed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030360443
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Šárka Laboutková is Associate Professor at the Economics Department of the Faculty of Economics at the Technical University of Liberec (TUL), Czech Republic. Her research activity is primarily focused on the theory of impact of non-economic factors on decision-making in public policy, especially lobbying. She is an author of many journal articles and co-author of the first Czech comprehensive publication on lobbying, and regularly cooperates with anti-corruption NGOs as well as professional associations of lobbyists.
Vít Šimral currently serves as a Councillor of the City of Prague responsible for education, sports, science, and business development. Before entering politics he was a member of several anti-corruption bodies in Europe, both NGOs and in the public sector. He remains a part-time member of the Czech academia, carrying out research or teaching at the University of Hradec Králové and the Technical University of Liberec. His academic research focuses on issues of corruption, public procurement, political funding, and lobbying. Among his most recent works are chapters in Corruption and Norms: Why Informal Rules Matter (2018) and The Handbook of Political Party Funding (2018).
Petr Vymětal is Assistant Professor at the Political Science Department of the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic. His main field of research is lobbying and interest representation, political parties’ funding and campaign financing, corruption and the political-economic factors influencing economic policy. He is the co-author of the first Czech comprehensive publication on lobbying. He collaborates with anti-corruption civil sector organizations and is a member of working group on lobbying at the Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction.- 2 Democracy and lobbying.- 3 Transparency in democratic decision making.- 4 Methodology of research on lobbying regulation.- 5 A theoretical model of lobbying.- 6 Past and present practice of lobbying and its regulation.- 7 Transparent lobbying in Central and Eastern European Countries.- 8 Open Government and its impact on the lobbying environment in CEE countries.- 9 Conclusion.