How Lobbying Matters

For decades, political scientists have struggled to provide empirical evidence that lobbying influences policymaking. A considerable gap arose between widespread public suspicions of lobbying and the literature’s findings, which failed to document systematic lobbying influence in politics. This gap has closed within the last decade. Causal inference strategies, high-quality data sets, and attention to lobbying in multiple venues have allowed researchers to document the ways in which lobbying matters. In this review, we summarize three ways lobbying has an effect, as documented in this new literature. First, in line with public suspicions, lobbyists have transactional relationships with public officials in which they exchange money for political access and influence. Second, lobbyists persuade public officials by providing information that changes the positions taken by policymakers. Third, successful mobilization of citizen support or lobbying coalitions helps lobbyists attain policy aims. Jointly, these influence pathways nuance our view of lobbying as both harmful and beneficial for democratic representation.