From National Champions to Global Players? Lobbying by Network Operators During the WTO's Basic Telecommunication Negotiations

Abstract

Observers generally assume that firms which engage in lobbying know what they want. Business-government relations and especially the corporate political activities of network operators during the basic telecommunication negotiations of the World Trade Organization present a slightly different picture. European monopoly providers benefited from the old international regime and initially ignored trade discussions in their sector. In the course of negotiations, however, they became part of a three-level game, which obliged them to consider national, European, and multilateral objectives simultaneously. In the course of these complex negotiations, their preferences evolved. Because governments advanced independently on the liberalization project, companies adapted their policy stances from reluctance to support for the negotiations. This article thus cautions against treatments of lobbying that consider preferences as exogenously given.

Big audit firms as regulatory intermediaries in transnational labor governance

“…), and the two may be empirically difficult to disentangle in practice; service firms may engage with regulatory processes and even lobby in favor of certain policy proposals because they seek to gain political capital from rule‐takers and/or rulemakers and/or beneficiaries as these engage in policymaking (Woll ; cf. Puro ) – rather than because of their keen interest in the policy position at hand; and service firms may have policy preferences that change while lobbying on regulation (Woll ).…”

“…For a set of reasons, this has to do with different strategies when engaging in influencing practice: as noted above, the big audit firms engage both in lobbying on their own behalf, and as an intermediary lobbying service for other private and public interests (Wonka et al 2010), and the two may be empirically difficult to disentangle in practice; service firms may engage with regulatory processes and even lobby in favor of certain policy proposals because they seek to gain political capital from ruletakers and/or rulemakers and/or beneficiaries as these engage in policymaking (Woll 2007a;cf. Puro 1984)rather than because of their keen interest in the policy position at hand; and service firms may have policy preferences that change while lobbying on regulation (Woll 2007b).…”

MNEs and policy networks: Institutional embeddedness and strategic choice

“…If the host country's actors have an important bargaining power in the corresponding issue-area, the MNE might follow a supranational and macro-political influence approach (area a). In this complex game, goals and aspirations are mutually adapted and the outcome is often unpredictable, as for instance, regarding the internationalization of cultural industries in the Triad countries or the deregulation of telecom markets in Europe (Woll, 2007). In some cases, jointly with home governments, MNEs can negotiate the establishment of international standards and rules (protection of intellectual property, removal of entry barriers) at the level of supranational institutions, as WTO.…”

Spaces of lobbying

“…'political players' own perception of their influence, (ego perception); (b) 'other players' perceptions of the influence (alter perception); and (c) a process analysis by the researcher (researcher's analysis) Arts & Verschuren, 1999;Sauvé & Watts, 2003;Vandecasteele, Bossuyt, & Orbie, 2013 Situational Theory of Publics "To explain the communicative behavior and attitudes of publics that arise from issues of corporate social responsibility" (Grünig, 1979, p. 738), using types of communication behaviors and perceptions of the situation Xifra, 2016 Interviews "To understand the world from the subjects' points of view, to unfold the meaning of peoples' experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations" (Kvale, 1996, p. 1) Baumgartner et al, 2009;Chalmers, 2013;Charman, 2011;Goldstein, 1999;Kollman, 1998;Mahoney, 2008;Useem, 1983;Woll, 2007a;Young, 2012 Participant observation…”