Lobbying and uncertainty: Lobbying's varying response to different political events

Abstract

Does political uncertainty affect whether lobbyists contact government officials? We suggest that the answer depends on the type of uncertainty introduced. Distinguishing between policy objective uncertainty—where organized interests and lobbyists are uncertain about the policy intentions of decision makers—and issue information uncertainty—where policymakers are uncertain about the technical details of issues—we hypothesize that whereas an increase in policy objective uncertainty leads to a decrease in lobbying, a rise in issue information uncertainty leads to more lobbying. We test the hypotheses with longitudinal data from the Canadian Lobbyists Registry measuring change in the number of times lobbyists have contacted government ministries each month from 2008 to 2018. The results suggest that lobbying intensity does respond differently to these types of uncertainty. Whereas events introducing issue information uncertainty have a statistically significant positive relationship with lobbying, events introducing policy objective uncertainty do not.

Canada's Lobbying Industry: Business and Public Interest Advocacy from Harper to Trudeau

“…In some accounts, lobbyists act as a “service bureau” or “adjuncts to [governmental] staff,” more so than a force of persuasion (Hall and Deardorff, 2006: 76). This perspective, which often carries a benign or positive view of lobbying, is partly affirmed in Canadian lobbying studies (Boucher and Cooper, 2019; Cooper and Boucher, 2019). Using indicators found in the literature, these studies find that lobbyists in Canada supply information on technical details of issues and policy expertise more so than partisan and electoral information (which is part of persuasion).…”

“…We also found a spike in lobbying contacts at the onset of COVID-19, including a modest increase in the ratio of public interest advocacy. While more research is needed, this growth may be partly explained by what Cooper and Boucher (2019) call "issue information uncertainty." Indeed, there was an immediate rise in rates of lobbying at the onset of the pandemic, and organizations were likely advocating for financial relief while also providing state officials with information and technical details concerning their respective industries in relation to health policies.…”

“…Key recent contributions (Boucher, 2015(Boucher, , 2018Boucher and Cooper, 2019;Cooper and Boucher, 2019;Graham et al, 2020;Yates and Cardin-Trudeau, 2021) have begun to address the paucity of research on Canada's lobbying industry. Our wide-angle overview of lobbying representation and access builds on this work and provides context for more focused case studies.…”

“…This was combined with newly elected government's explicit interest in public engagement. While some organizations adopted a wait-and-see approach and decreased lobbying contacts immediately following the transition to Trudeau (Cooper and Boucher, 2019: 451), as the policy intentions of the government became clear, lobbying effort rose sharply.…”

Lobbying and governance in Canada

“…While the above works tend to approach lobbying as a strategic action aimed at influencing policy, a great deal of research has shown us that governing is not just about power; knowledge, uncertainty and problemsolving are also key pieces of the governing puzzle (Bennett and Howlett 1992). Building upon this, Cooper and Boucher (2019) examine how uncertainty influences lobbying and find that events introducing issue information uncertainty-where policymakers lack details of issues-leads to more lobbying as lobbyists provide policymakers with information, whereas events introducing policy objective uncertainty-when lobbyists are uncertain about the government's policy objectives-leads to less lobbying, as lobbyists reserve their resources until the government's position is better known.…”