Public relations and lobbying

Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 14–21

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

Public relations and lobbying: New legislation in Slovenia

Dejan Verciˇ cˇ a,∗, Ana Tkalac Verciˇ cˇ b,1

a Marketing Communication and Public Relations Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva pl. 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia b Marketing Department, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Trg J. F. Kennedyja 6, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 20 June 2011

Received in revised form

27 September 2011

Accepted 30 September 2011

Keywords:

Public relations

Public affairs

Government relations

Lobbying

Lobbying regulation

Lobbying legislation

Slovenia

a b s t r a c t

This article reviews lobbying in the political sciences and public relations literature, and it

also provides a conceptualization for the regulatory practices of lobbying around the world.

Then, it presents the newest law on lobbying instituted in 2010 in the Republic of Slovenia,

the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act. This Act treats lobbying in two ways: (1)

as a communication technique used by interest groups to privately influence government

officials and (2) as a process of access to information by the same interest groups. This

inconsistency follows the same trend for lobbying regulation in Europe and raises important

questions regarding lobbying practice and regulation. Lobbying is fundamentally a public

relations practice exercised in private and public sectors, and it uses direct and indirect

communication between interest groups and their respective government.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Lobbying is increasing in influence regarding political and public agendas and governments and international organiza￾tions are developing rules to cope with it. The first government to legislate lobbying was the USA (where, today, lobbying is

regulated in all 50 states) in 1935, followed by Germany (where it is regulated in the lower house of the federal parliament,

but not on local or federal council levels) in 1951, Canada (where it is regulated at the federal and in five of the ten Canadian

provinces) in 1989, the European parliament in 1996, and Georgia in 1998. After 2000, there was a spread of lobbying leg￾islation being adopted. Lithuania began lobbying legislation in 2001 followed by Poland in 2005, Hungary in 2006, Taiwan

in 2007, Australia in 2008 (even though western Australia began legislating it in 2006), and then Slovenia in 2010. In Italy,

there is no federal legislation, but regions started regulating local lobbying with Toscana starting in 2004; the same is true

in France, even though lobbying is being debated in the national parliament without arriving at positive legislation thus far.

The European Commission promoted ‘self-regulation’ until 2008, which is when it introduced a voluntary registration of

lobbyists (Chari, Hognan, & Murphy, 2010; Chari & Murphy, 2006; Murphy, 2010).

It is out of this rising legislation of lobbying on a global scale that this research has been conducted. This article begins

with a literature review in the political sciences and in public relations and then develops a basic typology for studying

lobbying practices. Next, it reviews regulatory regimes of lobbying around the world and focuses on the newest lobbying

legislation adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia in the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act (the

Act), which became effective on 5 June, 2010. Although the Act has a number of idiosyncrasies (e.g., it postulates that public

procurement is exempt from lobbying), at its core, it closely follows the guidelines provided by the European Commission

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +386 1 23 91 444; fax: +386 1 23 91 210.

E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (D. Verciˇ c), ˇ [email protected] (A. Tkalac Verciˇ c). ˇ

1 Tel.: +385 1 238 33 22.

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.09.026