Revolving Door Lobbying: Public Service, Private Influence, and the Unequal Representation of Interests

The Revolving Door and Access to the European Commission: Does the Logic of Influence Prevail?

“…This observation suggests that gaining access is not primarily a matter of sincerely exchanging key informational resources with policy‐makers, a perspective strongly emphasized by European scholarship (Bouwen, 2002; Coen and Vannoni, 2016). It also concerns skills, knowledge and political process experience in terms of establishing personal contacts, building social networks and sustaining ties with legislative allies, factors that are explicitly emphasized in the American academic literature (Hall and Deardorff, 2006; LaPira and Thomas, 2017; Salisbury et al, 1989; see also Grose et al, 2022). In this article, we have argued that by hiring employees with a public sector background, interest groups might be able to accumulate access goods and strengthen the available process‐oriented expertise.…”

“…This article argues that revolving door practices are not just a matter of exploiting political connections (Bertrand et al, 2014; Blanes i Vidal et al, 2012) but rather that by hiring employees with a public sector background, interest groups are better at accumulating access goods. More precisely, hiring public sector officials strengthens the available process‐oriented expertise (LaPira and Thomas, 2017). Highly professionalized organizations are identified as the type of interlocutor that the EC might find useful and from which they seek technical and policy‐related expert information.…”

“…This article aims to shed light on how the revolving door, the hiring of former public officials by organized interests (LaPira and Thomas, 2017), shapes the ‘insiderness’ (Fraussen et al, 2015; Maloney et al, 1994), measured as the extent to which groups obtain access. Most scholarship on the revolving door presumes that hiring staff from the public sector impacts access positively.…”

“…This perspective views the revolving door as an instrument through which wealthy interests gain access. Another explanatory perspective emphasizes the value of human capital (Coen and Vannoni, 2016; LaPira and Thomas, 2017; Shepherd and Young You, 2019). Whereas the relational perspective has a strong quid pro quo nature and stresses the immediate value of revolvers, the human capital perspective is more nuanced.…”

The contingent value of connections: legislative turnover and revolving-door lobbyists

“…76 Baumgartner et al (2009, 208); Makse (2017). 77 Schattschneider (1960); LaPira and Thomas (2017). 78 Blanes i Vidal, Draca, and Fons-Rosen (2012); Strickland and Crosson (2022).…”