MACMILLAN Transparent Lobbying and Democracy

"The authors come up with some innovative tools, namely the “Catalogue of transparent lobbying”. They look at and evaluate the impact on both key stakeholders (lobbyists and targets of lobbying), monitoring of lobbying activities and sanctioning for breaches of rules. This tool holds out benchmarking capacity of sound framework for understanding of lobbying in the context of democracy, legitimacy of decision-making and accountability." David Ondráčka, member of global Board of Transparency International, head of Transparency International, Czech Republic " Transparent Lobbying and Democracy provides a comprehensive view into the phenomenon of lobbying... As a well-established scientist specializing in democracy, civil society and the public sphere, I see it as a useful and enriching contribution to the debate on lobbying, its necessary transparency and its role in the democratization process. This book has the potential to reach an international audience of experts and interested lay persons, and both complement and compete with publications on similar issues." Karel B. Müller, University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic This book deals with the current, as yet unsolved, problem of transparency of lobbying. In the current theories and prevalent models that deal with lobbying activities, there is no reflection of the degree of transparency of lobbying, mainly due to the unclear distinction between corruption, lobbying in general, and transparent lobbying. This book provides a perspective on transparency in lobbying in a comprehensive and structured manner. It delivers an interdisciplinary approach to the topic and creates a methodology for assessing the transparency of lobbying, its role in the democratization process and a methodology for evaluating the main consequences of transparency. The new approach is applied to assess lobbying regulations in the countries of Central Eastern Europe and shows a method for how lobbying in other regions of the world may also be assessed. From the Back Cover This book deals with the current, as yet unsolved, problem of transparency of lobbying. In the current theories and prevalent models that deal with lobbying activities, there is no reflection of the degree of transparency of lobbying, mainly due to the unclear distinction between corruption, lobbying in general, and transparent lobbying. This book provides a perspective on transparency in lobbying in a comprehensive and structured manner. It delivers an interdisciplinary approach to the topic and creates a methodology for assessing the transparency of lobbying, its role in the democratization process and a methodology for evaluating the main consequences of transparency. The new approach is applied to assess lobbying regulations in the countries of Central Eastern Europe and shows a method for how lobbying in other regions of the world may also be assessed. Šárka Laboutková is Associate Professor at the Economics Department of the Faculty of Economics at the Technical University of Liberec (TUL), Czech Republic. Vít Šimral currently serves as a Councillor of the City of Prague responsible for education, sports, science, and business development. Petr Vymětal is Assistant Professor at the Political Science Department of the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic. About the Author Šárka Laboutková is Associate Professor at the Economics Department of the Faculty of Economics at the Technical University of Liberec (TUL), Czech Republic. Her research activity is primarily focused on the theory of impact of non-economic factors on decision-making in public policy, especially lobbying. She is an author of many journal articles and co-author of the first Czech comprehensive publication on lobbying, and regularly cooperates with anti-corruption NGOs as well as professional associations of lobbyists.