Are Lobby Groups Un-Democratic?
This week the focus of the lectures was on competitive authoritarian regimes, and both the lecture and tutorial discussed the democratic elements or lack thereof, in a regime to consider it un-democratic. A common theme was around elections, is any election free and fair? Where do we draw the line? There was one element to elections that I found jumped out multiple times, lobbying. This was brought up specifically in relation to the US, but not limited, as many elections have lobby groups that vie to be represented.
Lobby groups, advocacy groups or interest groups, are groups that communicate with politicians or people in public office in order to influence policy. Lobby strategies include meeting with politicians, conferences, consultations, and of course, donations. These groups can donate to campaigning candidates with the intention of achieving access to government to eventually influence policy. At first sight the concept doesn’t seem too democratic, a group with a lot of money can essentially “buy” themselves into office by donating to a campaigning politician who will later enact their policies. Does this therefore undermine democracy? This question however, cannot be answered without considering the following: is access to government enough to change and/or influence policy? And furthermore, is the success of an interest group contingent on its ability to change and/or influence policy?
The first thing to acknowledge is that the majority of interest groups are primarily ideologically motivated. This means that first and foremost they have an ideological premise to wanting to change and/or influence policy. They are not targeting public officials for the sake of gaining access to government. We can see this easily exemplified in the US. Thomas Brunnell argues in his article “The Relationship Between Political Parties and Interest Groups”, that all interest groups have a party preference. His research was focussed on Political Action Committees (PACs) which are tax-exempt lobby groups in the United States, and he analyses the donations of PACs in twelve election cycles between 1979 and 2002. PACs have a cap on the amount of money they can donate in an election cycle to both candidates and political parties. If PACs were focussed on access, they would donate to both Republicans and Democrats. Maybe they have a preference for Democrats but there exists a moderate Republican that would be willing to pass their preferred legislation, so donating to them would not be a loss of utility. For example, in 2002 the Carpenter’s Labour Union gave half of a million dollars to Republican candidates. What is important to note however, is that they only donated to Republicans in two out of twenty-one close races. This is because while donation is a key strategy and gives access it is not the main reason interest groups support political parties.[1]
The second thing to address is the efficacy of interest groups, to what extent can they actually change and/or influence policy? Research on this front is mixed, conflicts often arise when it comes to defining what is influence and what is success. Some research on interest groups use interest group’s self-reports on their success which relies on the perceived success of the group. Other research, such as Brunnell’s, uses expenditures and associates the extent of expenditure to the outcome of legislature.[2] Some interest groups do regularly influence policy outcomes, but this is not contingent to their success. To use another example, what is particularly interesting is that the Council of Europe does not have a huge impact on policy. 400 organisations however, still hold participatory status and they lobby the organisation to further their interests. If the final objective was always on policy influence, interest groups should have no incentive to spend their resources with no clear outcome that changes policy making. The reasons for this are technical in the wider context of European politics but one of the reasons is because it is favourable for the policy image of the interest group, groups can create an image as being a partner in the decision-making process for ideological motives.[3] The aims and interests of these groups are often much more nuanced than “buying” themselves into government.
With this in mind we can analyse how they operate today, and can they still be considered democratic? To take a controversial example, in 2010 was the Supreme Court decision of Citizens United vs FEC which repealed a law that stopped corporate electoral expenditures. These created independent expenditure only committees or “super PACs” which can spend an infinite amount of money on elections. Knowing the role of partisanship and ideology in how PACs operate, super PACs can be potentially damaging to the U.S.A political landscape. For example, when Kevin McCarthy struggled to find speaker votes the “Congressional Leadership Fund” made a deal with another super PAC, “Club for Growth”, where they agreed not to spend money in safe Republican districts in order for Club for Growth’s endorsement of McCarthy as speaker. This brings into question how fair the party-interest group relationship is in this context.[4] On the other hand, interest groups also give opportunity to underrepresented groups to be considered and represented in public office who may not have been able to otherwise. Interest groups do not exclusively entertain the aims of the elite, it allows citizens to express their ideas and what they hold important to their elected officials. It encourages public participation in the political process, which is the fundamental basis to a functioning democracy.
It is difficult to answer whether or not lobby groups, PACs, interest groups etc. are un-democratic or lead to un-democratic outcomes. It requires us to expand our understanding of these groups outside of the mechanism of “the more donations -> the most influence.” I wrote this contribution to nuance the question a little bit, and to recognise both the benefits and disadvantages of these groups in the political process. The success of these groups in engaging democratic political participation is heavily dependent on the political system and rules applied to them. They cannot therefore be exclusively be considered as inherently un-democratic, but can contribute either to or against the functioning of a healthy democracy.
[1] Brunell, T. L. (2005). The relationship between political parties and interest groups: Explaining patterns of pac contributions to candidates for congress. Political Research Quarterly, 58(4), 681. https://doi.org/10.2307/3595653
[2] Grossman, M. (2012). Interest group influence on US policy change: An assessment based on policy history. Int Groups Adv 1, 171-192 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/iga.2012.9
[3] Trommer, S. M., & Chari, R. S. (2006). The council of Europe: Interest groups and ideological missions? West European Politics, 29(4), 655-686. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402380600842163
[4] Super pac deals are a bad deal for democracy. (n.d.). Campaign Legal Center. Retrieved 15 April 2024, from https://campaignlegal.org/update/super-pac-deals-are-bad-deal-democracy
Very good work Alex - very thorough discussion!
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