The Importance Of Lobby

Lobby could be defined as the process in which a person or a group of people try to influence the government or the public institutions in order to obtain a public policy implemented. It is probably one the oldest occupation in the world. Everywhere there is power, and people in power, there are lobbyists. The lobby can be carried out by a person, a group of people (working for profit or non-profit organisation) or an agency working with various clients (for example Central Lobby Consultants –CLC- in England). There are agencies who only do lobby, and others who deal with public relations or advertising, and lobby is part of the services offered by the company. There are also firms, which have teams doing the lobby and some

We will provide next some examples of organizations that deal with lobby and what is their focus. Pressure groups only deal with lobbying. Their purpose is to persuade politicians to adopt new policies in a certain field, for example environment (e.g. “Greenpeace”), culture (e.g. “Welsh Language Society”), human rights (e.g. “Liberty”, “JUSTICE”), health (e.g. “Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco – FOREST”), transport (e.g “The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association), etc. Pressure groups have their members and receive funds only if they prove they can achieve their goals and make a difference in their area of interest. Charities act similar to pressure groups. On one hand they try to make policy changes that align with their purposes and on the other hand, they support and advise their members. Examples of charities in Europe are “European Federation of Food Banks”, “Solidarités international”, Norwegian Refugee

For this to happen they must convince politicians to continuously allocate them a greater share. This kind of negotiations, for the most part, take place behind closed doors. There is no need to bother people with every trade union demands. But if negotiations fail and the need for policy is big, unions can have a campaign to get public opinion on its side. This is called advocacy. They try to get to the real public, by using an intermediate public to get to the real one. Advocacy is a general tool of lobbying and is not used only by trade unions. What differentiates lobby from advocacy is mainly the language used. While lobbying addresses key officeholders from a certain area, advocacy addresses the people. In lobby the language must be specialized, specific to that area is addresses, because of course, one must prove to officials that one has technical knowledge in the area. In advocacy, the language has to be accessible, clear, so the public understands the message. According to Lionel Zetter, the types of lobbying programme are: profile raising, contact programme, policy shaping, and legislation