LOBBYING AGAINST DEMOCRACY

Abstract

This essay seeks to
excavate the anti democratic propensities of corporate lobbying. It
begins by considering th e nature of lobbying and then attempts to comprehend the
relationship between corporate lobbying and democracy in terms of Crouch ’s theory of
post democracy. The political culture of post democracy is blatantly corporatist and
promotes the anti democratic proclivities of the corporate lobby by providing ready
opportunities for non transparent lobby ing . Cohen Eliya & Hammer classify non
transparent lobbying as a n index of the failure of the democratic process. The essay
applies the typology developed by them to Germany as a case study of anti democratic
corporate lobbying in action. It concludes by consider ing regulation and criminalisation
as two possible remed ies for the anti democratic transgressions of non transparent
corporate lobbying. The former is explored by way of an analysis of t he regulatory
regimes of Germany and the USA ; the latter by considering non transparent corporate
lobbying as a homologue of the crime of corruption.