The concept of lobbying refers to the lawful influence on legislators and attempting to promote the interests of companies or influential stakeholders and interest groups. One of the major advantages of lobbyists is that they represent the interest of minorities (Komarnytskyy, 2020). The government commonly tries to meet the interest of dominant groups of the society and neglects the needs of minority groups. This way, lobbyists grant minorities a chance to be heard and raise awareness of politicians and the public of a specific problems existence. Furthermore, politicians usually do not possess expert knowledge on how to solve the problem of a special interest group (Kluver, 2020). Therefore, lobbyists also offer precious and practical solutions to the issues experienced by minority groups or some other special interest groups.
At the same time, lobbyists could be criticized for being excessively influential. More precisely, history reveals numerous cases when lobbyists promoted decisions beneficial only for their groups but not for the entire society. This, in turn, raises a question on ethics and transparency of the lobbying process (Oluwole, 2019). What is more, when the majority notices that a decision of the government favors only a small group of interested people, this could turn the mass opinion against this interest group and destroy its reputation.
For the sake of ensuring transparency of lobbying, the former members of Congress should not be allowed to become lobbyists. The reason for such an opinion is that lobbyists who previously were members of Congress might use their personal relations and friendships to promote the interests of the represented groups. It is unethical and unfair to other lobbyists who have no experience being a congressman.
References
Kluver, H. (2020). Setting the party agenda: interest groups, voters and issue attention. British Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 979-1000. Web.
Komarnytskyy, M. (2020). The role of ethnic interest groups in US foreign policy. HumanistiÄŤke Studije, (8), 93-106.
Oluwole, F. (2019). Getting past the lobby! The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU). In: Dialer D., Richter M. (eds) Lobbying in the European Union (p. 291-303). Springer. Web.
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