Lobbying (A)symmetry: The Dynamics Behind Informed Policy

Introduction

The LOBBYMETRY project addresses two types of imbalances in lobbying:

1. Mobilisation asymmetries, which exclude some actors from the policy debate.
2. Information asymmetries, which empower specific groups in their exchanges with policymakers.

The LOBBYMETRY project analyses these asymmetries and their relationship to each other, as well as their effects on the ways in which sectional and public interests feed into policymaking.

Study Scope

The project studies these asymmetries across populations of interest organisations in twelve European countries and at the European Union level. It also examines the climate and digital policy fields, which vary strongly in mobilisation asymmetries and constitute areas where well- or ill-informed policies have vast consequences for humanity at large.

LOBBYMETRY strives to open the black box of policymaker-lobbyist information exchange within these areas, develop measures of informational quality and accuracy in lobbying, and evaluate how and when lobbying pulls outcomes away from the public interest.

Methodology

Methodologically, the project combines:

1. Cross-country surveys including an AI-aided survey experiment.
2. Cross-venue data on 100 issues in climate and digital policy.
3. Different forms of participant observation of the information exchanges between policymakers and interest organisations in:
   • Natural settings.
   • Researcher-controlled settings.

This innovative combination of methods will generate unprecedented quantitative and qualitative evidence on lobbyist-policymaker information exchange in varying contexts.

Expected Outcomes

If successful, the project will shed light on a serious blind spot in the state-of-the-art literature: the mechanisms through which lobbying actually informs policies.

Its findings will speak to pressing democratic challenges, such as:

• The underrepresentation of citizen interests in digital policy.
• The design of institutional interventions to improve consultation practices, lobbying regulation, and the quality of legislation.