Description
Book SynopsisTo the public's eye, lobbying is still a highly obscure trade. Lobbyists are generally perceived to work behind closed doors in order to influence legislation -- what really happens is unknown to the public. To make interest representatives more visible, both the European Union and the United States have developed mechanisms to register lobbyists. However, while US legislation now forces lobbyists to register and report their influential work by fixed deadlines, the EU's registration remains voluntary due to the lack of a legal basis. This book takes the reader closer to today's concept of lobbying, especially in regard to the EU's registration mechanism. Lisa Moessing compares both the US and the EU registration systems by their technical composition, accessibility, and handling and contrasts their efficiency and effectiveness. Providing a forum for 17 lobbyists, watch dog members, and political representatives to discuss lobbying registration, this book defines starting points for improvement and emphasises the importance of listening to those who deal with the registers in everyday practice.
Trade Review"Thanks to its qualitative interview approach as well as an interviewee array of influential actors, decision-makers, and lobby organizations, the book is an important research contribution to the EU's mechanism of lobbying regulation which has been fought for and debated for several years." -- Hans-Wolfgang Platzer, Holder of the Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration at the University of Applied Sciences Fulda
"While the book's description of the U.S.' and the EU's registration systems is both extensive and in-depth, it covers all the essential literature, even the most recent ones." -- Rinus van Schendelen, Erasmus University Rotterdam
