Lobbying for Change E-Book

Alberto Alemanno

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 386

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

'We need effective citizen-lobbyists – not just likers, followers or even marchers – more than ever. I have no hesitation in lobbying you to read this book.' Bill Emmott, former editor in chief, the Economist Many democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. Citizens are making clear their frustration with their supposedly representative governments, which instead seem driven by the interests of big business, powerful individuals and wealthy lobby groups. What can we do about it? How do we fix democracy and get our voices heard? The answer, argues Alberto Alemanno, is to become change-makers – citizen lobbyists. By using our skills and talents and mobilizing others, we can bring about social and political change. Whoever you are, you've got power, and this book will show you how to unleash it. From successfully challenging Facebook's use of private data to abolishing EU mobile phone roaming charges, Alberto highlights the stories of those who have lobbied for change, and shows how you can follow in their footsteps, whether you want to influence immigration policy, put pressure on big business or protect your local community. 

Leseprobe

LOBBYING FOR CHANGE

LOBBYING FOR CHANGE

FIND YOUR VOICE TO CREATE A BETTER SOCIETY

ALBERTO ALEMANNO

Published in the UK in 2017 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia by Grantham Book Services, Trent Road, Grantham NG31 7XQ

Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd, PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065

Distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District, 41 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925

Distributed in India by Penguin Books India, 7th Floor, Infinity Tower – C, DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

Distributed in Canada by Publishers Group Canada, 76 Stafford Street, Unit 300 Toronto, Ontario M6J 2S1

ISBN: 978-178578-285-5

Text copyright © 2017 Alberto Alemanno

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Minion by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

To my girls, Mariana, Marianita, Isabella and Allegra Alemanno, who make me smile every day and remind me how beautiful life is.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I – The Problem

Powerless

Nobody Speaks for You

You’re Not in the Club

Nobody Teaches You

Somebody Decides for You

Part II – The Solution

The Power of Citizen Lobbying

What is Lobbying and Who Does It?

Why Lobbying?

What is Citizen Lobbying?

Why Citizen Lobbying?

Time for Citizen Lobbying

Part III – The Toolbox

How to Be a Citizen Lobbyist

The 10-Step Citizen Lobbying Guide

1. Pick Your Battle

2. Do Your Homework

3. Map Your Lobbying Environment

4. Lobbying Plan

5. Pick Your Allies

6. Who Pays?

7. Communication and Media Plan

8. Face-to-Face Meeting

9. Monitoring and Implementation

10. Stick to the (Lobbying) Rules

Conclusions

End Notes

Resources for Citizen Lobbyists

Index

Acknowledgements

When I began working on this book two years ago, the case for citizen lobbying was incipient, yet not clear. Had the book been published at that time it would have been both premature and prescient. Today lobbying for change appears to be an urgent and salient necessity. Amid a rapid acceleration of the political narratives and an ongoing transformation of economic and social agendas across liberal democracies, a citizen awakening has indisputably occurred. Millions of citizens across the world are becoming increasingly aware of their own collaborative power. This book is firstly dedicated to them.

This book would have never seen the light of day without the generous and inspiring contribution of many people who expressed interest in my ideas and work over the years. I am extremely grateful to my own institution HEC Paris, in particular the HEC Foundation and Labex Ecodec, as well as NYU School of Law, for the support received over the years and for letting me experiment with new forms of teaching and engaged scholarship. Thanks to HEC I was able to pioneer mass online teaching, by first making all my recorded classes freely available on iTunes and, second, by designing a Massive Open Online Course on Coursera. As a result, I reached out to more than 200,000 people around the globe. While I could not meaningfully engage with all of them (their figure is higher than the total number of students I will be meeting in my entire academic career), I have had the opportunity to meet many of them, often serendipitously (in the Paris metro, at airports and conferences), and learn from them. I can’t image a more rewarding teaching and human experience. Thanks to NYU School of Law I was able to set up the EU Public Interest Clinic which has served dozens of civil society organisations while training a new generation of public interest lawyers. My students have been an excellent early audience, attentive and receptive, often critical of many of the views exposed in this book.

Several other audiences, from Tokyo University (where I teach every October on the Master’s in Public Policy programme) and St. Gallen University (where I’ve designed the Lobbying & Advocacy module), to the participants in the EU Pro Bono Masterclasses we offer across Europe, also provided useful feedback.

From the very first moment we met, Kiera Jamison was a dream editor: patient and wise. She believed in my project from day one! Thank you to Andrew Furlow and his team at Icon Books for a smooth publication ride as well as to my publicist Ruth Killick.

I was lucky enough to receive advice and feedback from a close group of trusted friends: Alessandro Spina, Gianluca Sgueo, Helen Darbishire, Bing Taylor, Andras Baneth, Rosana Plaza, Benjamin Bodson, Igor Celikovic, Anne-Lise Sibony, Cliff Wirajendi, Leandro Machado, Ana Benje, Ailish Campbell, Jo Sparber and Yacine Kouhen. I’ve also benefited from advice and exchanges with Slav Todorov, Amandine Garde (Liverpool University), Daniel Freund (Transparency International EU), Mariella Palazzolo (Telos), Lisa Witter (Apolitico), Aidan O’Sullivan (EU Ombudsman), Cinzia Ansaldi, Heather Grabbe and Neil Campbell (Open Society), Cinzia Seccamani, Xavier Dutoit (We Move), Liz Hamburg (Taproot Foundation), Vesco Paskalev (Hull University), Laurent Pech (Middlesex University), Vigjilenca Abazi (Maastricht University) and the Riparte il Futuro’s team, in particular Federico Anghelé and Mattia Ansaldi.

A special thanks goes to the community of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. Becoming a part of YGL has had a profound yet subtle change in my world views. It not only broadened my horizons and brought special friendships into my life, but also inspired and strengthened me to do more to bring positive change into the world.

Thanks must also go to Charlelie Jourdan and Gauthier Bas from Old Continent for the fruitful cooperation and mutual learning over the years. I am also grateful to Ros Taylor, Lucien Midot, Nick Jones and Alexander Preter for research and editorial assistance.

Finally, thanks to the extraordinarily talented and dedicated team at The Good Lobby. I am particularly grateful to my colleague and friend Lamin Khadar for believing in creating a community of citizen lobbyists together, as well as to our colleagues and friends Ana Benje, Alexandre Biard, Andrea Boccuni, Giacomo Delinavelli, Barbara Holzer, Rosana Plaza, Simona Pronckute, Thais Rivera, Jéremy Charles, Roberto Tomasi, David Fernandez Rojo, Irina Lysenko, Andrea Tittelova and the many others who are joining our community.

Muchas gracias to my girls – my wife Mariana and my daughters Marianita, Isabella and Allegra – who make me smile and remind me daily how beautiful life is. And that is despite the many flights and the hours, days, weeks and months I spend in front of my computer, reading and writing instead of being with them. Another special grazie goes to my parents, Gianfranco and Biancamaria, who not only shared their youth with me and my sister Micol but – whether deliberately or not – offered me the best possible education to become first a citizen, and then a citizen lobbyist.

‘It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?’

Henry David Thoreau

‘We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.’

J.K. Rowling

Introduction

If you’re anything like me, you are probably unhappy with the way the world and our societies are working. And with good reason.

We, citizens living in democratic societies, are richer, safer, live longer and respect each other’s rights more than ever before, yet we tolerate daily injustice and growing inequality.

We have talents, expertise and plenty of ‘friends’ (and we exchange thoughts and images with them daily on social media), yet we mobilise them not to improve the lives of the less privileged, but to make our own lives marginally more comfortable.

We have the right to vote for our representatives, and have never enjoyed (at least on paper) so many opportunities to participate directly in local and national affairs, yet our voices go mostly unheard. This may be surprising to some, but there are many more avenues for participation across liberal democracies than we are generally aware of.1 In the US, three-quarters of all cities have developed opportunities for citizen involvement in strategic planning. The EU has also created many channels of public participation, but they remain little known and largely underused.2 The World Bank has invested $85 billion over the last decade to support community participation worldwide.

We have never been in a better position to improve our communities and the world, yet we feel increasingly powerless to do so. Amid ubiquitous market and government surveillance, which is driven by unaccountable algorithms, we are increasingly made powerless by design.

The internet has enhanced our democracy, by ensuring greater access to information and fewer obstacles to connect with each other. Yet our digital social existence has turned into a echo chamber, where we discuss similar views with like-minded peers and fail to penetrate other social bubbles that are often misled by fear and xenophobia.3

As as an academic in his ivory tower, any question about the actual impact of my daily work makes me nervous. On average, only one in twenty students retains what they learn in one of my lectures.4 When it comes to my research, the average scientific article is read by only ten people (who are generally colleagues).5 But think about it: in your day job, how much of a positive impact do you have on the lives of others? If you are a nurse, a doctor, a schoolteacher or perhaps a committed politician then the answer is likely to be ‘a lot’, but most of us have limited scope to contribute to society through our daily jobs. Isn’t that a paradox? The more professional a society becomes, the less it takes advantage of its own skills. It doesn’t really matter whether you are a student, a jobseeker, a professional, an entrepreneur, an artist or a plumber: beyond the contributions we make to our company or organisation, we fail to harness our potential to benefit society. Sometimes we don’t even know what our talents are. (Do you? Don’t worry if not. If you look for one, you will find it!)

Our education systems, our jobs and our societies limit our ability to put our expertise and talents to use for the good of all. Instead, we outsource problems to our elected political representatives and big corporations who cheerfully decide what’s best for us. No wonder elected officials and the market largely ignore citizens’ opinions in favour of affluent and well-connected lobbyists.

We feel stuck. And we really are stuck, both as individuals and as a society, as we retreat into ever-smaller circles of ‘friends’, ‘likers’ and ‘followers’ within which we feel in control. Meanwhile, we have grown more cynical about the value of democracy as a political system and have become less hopeful that anything we do might influence public policy.6 As a result, we’re failing to take meaningful, collective action on issues that are threatening our future and already shaping our lives, such as climate change, migration flows, the technological revolution or the rising tide of populism.7 Every day that we don’t act, the problem gets worse. We seem to grasp this, but we carry on being helpless bystanders.

Let’s admit it: we live in societies paralysed by widespread frustration. Complacency keeps us locked into the system. Instead of harnessing our talents to better society, we drift passively through our lives in the same way that we swipe a mobile phone screen. Often, the two activities are indistinguishable. Every time we are confronted with an opportunity to engage that might disrupt our daily routine, we ask ourselves the same self-absorbed questions. What’s in it for me? Can I put it on my CV? Will it help get me a job, or improve my life? Will my action really make a difference?

We are spectators, not actors. Consumers, not citizens.

Yet having control over our lives is one of the essential elements of well-being.8 Aristotle, nearly two and a half millennia ago, believed happiness was not just a feeling, but a practice, which he called eudaemonia. Contemporary research into happiness has borne him out: people who participate in and contribute to public life are more satisfied with their personal lives.9 This is not necessarily because they get exactly what they want, but because taking part releases feelings of autonomy, competence and social connectedness. As the Nobel prize-winner Amartya Sen has argued, helping to shape the decisions that affect your own life and other peoples’ is fundamental to human well-being.10

And more than that – when you compare it with other indicators of well-being like wealth or education – participation in public life has one of the greatest effects on long-term happiness.11 This is because when you do it you forge personal connections and – together – you help others, fostering a joint sense of purpose. The more you participate in public life, the more fulfilled you will be. The effect is not just psychological, either. People who engage with public life tend to enjoy longer, healthier lives.12 Conversely, citizens who feel estranged from society might become culturally homeless – they do not connect or belong to the local culture nor to that of another nation. As such, they are typically unhappy and often attracted to extremist positions. Indeed, research shows that the psychological need for significance, not religion or ideology, is what propels people toward extremism.13

We often ‘like’ good causes on Facebook. Sometimes we even sign a petition on campaigning platforms like Avaaz. Once in a while we might donate to international charities like Save the Children, Oxfam or Action Aid. Perhaps we give a few coins to a beggar. Some of you might have even contributed to a crowdfunded campaign on platforms like Indiegogo or Kickstarter (if not, check them out!) for a good cause.

Let’s be honest: while these easy forms of engagement may make us feel better about ourselves and perform some virtue-signalling, they are always going to be inadequate.

First, we’re not the ones who chose the cause, let alone who come up with a solution. We’ve resigned ourselves to buying into ready-made campaigns. Even taking these small steps leaves us as spectators rather than actors.

Second, by offering things that require so little effort – a signature, a second of our spare time, some change or second-hand items – we fail to really engage and share a part of ourselves. Our contribution engages us as atomised individuals who sign and/or donate, not as community members.

Third, we all have skills, talents and expertise to offer, but these ready-made campaigns and activities don’t give us any opportunity to put them to use.

One-click participation should be the beginning, not the end of our engagement. Don’t get me wrong: supporting valuable campaigns is great, but it falls way short of bringing your own experience, skills and ideas to these battles. Trust me: you have so much more to give.

Let’s assume that you would be ready to give some of your time, talent and expertise – or even devote part of your life – to fix one issue you feel deeply passionate about. You feel discriminated against because of your sexual orientation. Maybe you worry about finding a job (or the job you want). Your elderly mother or grandmother needs professional care and she isn’t getting it. You hate that the beautiful square where you live is full of parked cars. You want cheaper kindergartens for your kids. You wish the local Roman Catholic church could be used for Muslim rituals, too. You would like the animals you eat to lead better lives. You want to spend less time on your tax return.

Or, on a bigger scale, you might have ideas about how to reform the job market, to promote LGBT rights, to improve the healthcare system or local transport, schools, religious freedom, animal welfare or the taxation system. Most of the time you probably feel it’s not even worth trying to change things. But suspend your doubts for a moment. Let’s assume you are going to give it a try.

Where to Begin?

Given the widespread belief that businesses run the world – symbolised by the current allure of the Silicon Valley start-up scene – it’s tempting to conclude that you need to set up a company in order to change society. It would most likely be a social enterprise, which would contribute toward addressing any of the challenges I’ve just mentioned. It might also make you rich and famous. Maybe it would even turn you into a philanthropist. Yet we often forget that businesses, just like ourselves, operate (or at least ought to) within the boundaries set out by government.14

Government, not businesses, shapes our individual and collective chances of success in life: it determines vital issues like access to education, healthcare and, consequently, life expectancy. It does this by laying down the ‘rules of the game’ – the public policies governing our daily actions, which should in turn reflect our collective preferences. So we should expect government to set emission standards for cars, to regulate the safety of the prescribed drugs we take or the market for cannabis for recreational uses, and to determine road safety rules. Likewise, despite all the talk of corporate social responsibility, evidence suggests that it is public policy – the means by which a government addresses the needs of its citizens – that usually pushes an entire industry to embrace a new business model.15 As argued by Manuel Arriaga, policy-driven action reboots the system by creating a new, irreversible best practice.16

Like it or not, governments are the only institutions that truly represent us – our wishes, rights and aspirations. They hold the keys to change. Even as people’s political apathy and disaffection grow, this is still true.17 Only a few individuals in society tend to devote time to the political process (and I don’t blame you for not being among them!), but everyone is affected by the policies it makes.

So, even though businesses make huge contributions to society, we had better start with government action if we want to make the world a better place.18 And at a time of increasing disaffection with politics, our elected representatives need us more than ever (though they might not always be aware of it). Shrinking water supplies, 65 million people displaced across the world,19 the disruption brought about by the fourth industrial revolution on our way of life:20 these are challenges they can’t tackle adequately without the public’s help.

This might seem too ambitious. But telling your elected representatives what you think they should do, and whether they’re doing it properly – and to do so in ways beyond simply signing online petitions – could be the most effective way to put an end to our individual and collective feeling of powerlessness. You can change their priorities and influence how they design and develop policies – whether on pensions, unemployment, environmental protection, migration reform and so on.

I’m not advising you to go into politics (though if you want to, please go ahead – we need capable people!). But if you want to have an impact (rather than just talking about the issues) not being a full-time politician might even be to your advantage, given our widespread disenchantment and growing distrust of political parties.21 Politicians sometimes seem to spend more time honing their personal images than doing their jobs, and our political leaders often seem to dump their long-term policy ideals in favour of winning elections.22

This crisis in trust is paving the way for a remarkable, yet largely unnoticed, split between the world of politics and the world of policy. Politics is the realm of a small, self-referential elite. Dominated by a party-based network of public speakers, its aim is to leave a positive yet short-lived impression on you. Policy, on the other hand, has become an ever-expanding, accessible and inclusive world, inhabited by a panoply of actors – ranging from policy analysts, journalists, activists, think-tankers, civil servants and civic entrepreneurs to a few, exceptionally committed politicians who do their jobs well. It’s a demanding environment with little room for improvisation, and where, increasingly, evidence matters more than ideology.

Joining a political party demands compromise and loyalty. So it’s hardly surprising that political parties increasingly struggle to identify and recruit talented candidates. On the other hand, the worlds of policy and government business attract more and more ‘wonks’ whose relevance and impact grow daily. They’re outnumbering politicians. That’s where the power game really is. That’s the apolitical23 world this book will show you how to navigate.

Now we’ve identified where change takes place – the world of policy as opposed to the world of politics – the next step is to make sure that change will actually happen. After that, we just need to learn how to bring about change.

If you picked up this book, you are likely to be relatively young – or at least youthfully optimistic. You are likely to be someone who cares and believes that it is still possible to shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’ in order to change the world.

But what if you’re neither young nor a believer that change is possible? I hope to persuade you that there are very good reasons to believe it, and in this book I will show plenty of evidence that you, as an individual, can help to solve many of the problems affecting your community and the world, without ever running for election.

Paralysed by the hyperactivity of our daily lives, devalued by the educational system and bamboozled by the arrogant rhetoric of many politicians, we are discouraged from believing that ordinary citizens have a role to play in changing the status quo. Today businesses and governments have ever more data about us and know how to use it, yet we citizens know next to nothing about what they are doing with it.24 This imbalance of information control and use is not only an issue of power, but also one of rights and dignity. Yet because we think our voices don’t matter, it seems to make little difference who’s in charge. In any case, we lack a reason to get involved. Again, what’s in it for us?

This has been the case for a long time. But one thing has changed. The information and digital revolution is shaking the foundations of the status quo as we know it, opening up an array of ways to influence how policies are made.25 Digital technology has already created more opportunities for more people than any technological change since the printing press.26 Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr are radically changing how ideas spread, influence others and create networks and communities of change. While their democratising potential must not be overrated,27 their mere existence suggests that there has never been a better time for citizens to have their say and organise.

In our socially networked societies, the publication of one document on WikiLeaks may redefine international relations. Revolutions – like the Arab Spring – can be kicked off via social media. One wrong step online can put you out of business and make you unemployable. When a money manager shared false investment information via tweets and email to a list of 60,000 people, he was fined $100,000 by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. We are the first generation with direct, unmediated access to the world.28 Technology can act as a great social equaliser. It puts resources formerly available to the few in the hands of the many.29 If we are no longer content to be spectators, we can become actors. If we are no longer content to be consumers, we can become citizens, again. As Dorothy Cotton sang during the US civil rights movement, ‘We are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting for’. Millions of citizens across the world are becoming increasingly aware of their own collaborative power.

But how do we convert digital attention into meaningful action? How can you realistically accommodate new forms of participation and engagement into your busy daily routine? How do you channel the new-found exuberance and promise of this technological empowerment into your own life?

According to received wisdom, there are two main ways of taking part in a democracy. Firstly, you can vote. Casting your ballot for local or national representatives supports a given political agenda. You can also volunteer for – or donate to – political campaigns, by canvassing door-to-door, holding public meetings, raising money and helping attract media coverage.

Voting is the most familiar and widely touted form of citizen participation. Many of us have a wide range of elected officials we can vote for, at the local, regional, national and even international level. Voting matters, and we should all take part. The other way of participating is to run for office. You need a political party to co-opt you (a bit like joining a tribe), then support you. Never forget, you must then accept the rules that govern the electoral game. Good luck.

But there are limitations to both these forms of participation.

Voting is undergoing a profound crisis. Elections are occasional events with limited choices, and turnout is not only low but also falling in most countries – particularly among young people. We’ll look at this in more detail in Part I of the book.

While political parties have historically guaranteed the citizen-democracy connection, they are facing dramatic decline – not only in membership, but also in their popular appeal and endorsement. Rather than promoting democratic renewal, outmoded party machines are making it more difficult. Hence the countless calls for more ‘direct democracy’ – a system in which people choose policy initiatives directly – in our system of government. Yet, as Podemos in Spain, the Five Star Movement in Italy, the various Pirate parties and many other protest movements have shown, ‘direct democracy’ is not in itself a viable response to many of society’s challenges. First, these self-proclaimed, technology-enabled experiences of direct democracy haven’t succeeded in meaningfully engaging their followers.30 Second, experience both in parliament and in local government confirms that protest parties railing against ‘the system’ are as likely to find themselves being absorbed by it as they are to transform it once in office. Third, Facebook-type networks are great for gathering people at protests, but not for building stable political organisations.31 At the time of writing, both Podemos and the Five Star Movement are undergoing internal fights threatening their existence.

There is a growing need for alternative, unconventional forms of participation that can reconnect the elected representatives with the public. Voting and running for office isn’t enough; social media networks aren’t enough. There’s an alternative space to be filled in today’s (representative) democracies.

Fortunately, there is also a third, less well-known way to make a difference in public life: lobbying. Don’t recoil at the word! Although you may previously have only heard about lobby groups that represent the interests of big business, whether that’s the pharmaceutical industries or big tobacco companies, it is possible to lobby for good. Lobbying may be the second-oldest profession on the planet, and it is probably the most widely misunderstood (and misused) phenomenon surrounding the healthy functioning of government and society.

Lobbying enables anyone to engage with the policy process directly, by influencing elected representatives to initiate – or block – a given policy, whether it’s fracking, LGBT rights, or reforming the pension system. It involves writing to policymakers to influence them, arranging meetings with politicians or pressuring them into taking a particular course of action, but also mobilising other citizens, building alliances and conveying information to both decision-makers and the public. Thanks to the digital revolution and a myriad of new channels of participation, lobbying has never been so easy.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, lobbying is not only legitimate but also necessary – provided that everyone (including you) has the chance to get involved, which hasn’t always been the case. It ensures citizens and interest groups are directly represented in the policy process by circumventing the traditional, often insidious and oligarchic, channels of political representation. Lobbying empowers you and your community. You may end up being surprised and delighted by how much difference you can make.

But Why Should You Become a Lobbyist?

You have a busy life and certainly better things to do than to spend time with politicians (unless you need their favour or you nurture some political ambitions). In real life, only citizens hired by a company such as Coca-Cola, Google or Toyota, or a non-profit organisation such as Greenpeace or Amnesty International; your city office or a trade union, agree to lobby on behalf of their clients. This is generally a full-time job that can be performed in-house (you’re hired by Google, your city or Save the Children) or by an external consultant.

There are many more lobbyists in our societies than you might expect. Most of the time their work is not reflected by their job title. A CEO is also a lobbyist for her company’s interest, insofar as she represents and defends that company in the public space. The same applies to a teacher working for her school, or an NGO activist volunteering for his organisation. The both speak on behalf of their institutions and promote their interests. Perhaps your job entails a lobbying task but you have never realised it. We all lobby, in our own way. That’s what we are expected to do in a society where there are more and more interests to be taken into account.

Lobbying is a fact of public life in our democracies: lobbyists’ jobs are advertised in newspapers, their position papers circulate in government and they advertise at bus stops (generally presented as ‘public affairs’ positions). Unfortunately organised interests, notably corporations, have historically monopolised (even hijacked) lobbying. On average, out of the 100 organisations that spend the most on lobbying in developed countries, 95 represent businesses.32 Furthermore, many of the non-business organisations that claim to speak for citizens lack representation.33 But these elements do not exhaust the possibilities of lobbying. Thanks to the information revolution and the opening-up of the policy process, lobbying is no longer the prerogative of well-funded groups with huge memberships and countless political connections. And that’s what this book is about: democratising lobbying. We need more – not less – lobbying, but of a different kind: lobbying by the citizens, for the citizens.

To many, ‘citizen lobbying’ sounds like an oxymoron. And so it is, if you believe that lobbyists represent – by definition – the interests of some rather than all, meaning they can never be a force for good. When I was still a conventional academic insulated in my comfortable ivory tower, I shared that belief. Now, after years of direct engagement in advocacy campaigns, I see it differently. Citizens and civil society organisations can lobby for good. So can corporations.34 And sometimes all these actors can even team up to speed up change.35 Imagine the corporate world lobbying together for decisive and effective action to curb climate change, or to promote fair pay. The best lobbyists, marketers, strategists, all mobilised as one for a good cause… Imagine if the non-profit world enjoyed the same resources and expertise as the corporate world. This is the goal pursued by my organisation, The Good Lobby, an advocacy skill-sharing community connecting real people – citizen experts, such as academics and professionals as well as job-seekers and students – with civil society organisations who work on the most important public issues.36

My first experience of citizen lobbying came in 2009. I was teaching a class in Paris to a crowd of students from all over the world. I wanted to illustrate to my students how they – as citizens who knew little or nothing about lobbying – could make a difference by winning a major battle for millions of consumers.

I asked them what they thought of international roaming charges. These are the extra fees mobile operators apply when we make calls from abroad. Being deliberately provocative, I suggested roaming charges should be eliminated as they hampered our freedom of movement, thereby limiting economic and personal freedom across European countries. Only a few weeks after that class, thanks to the entrepreneurship and commitment of a former student of mine, I found myself involved in one of the first popular petitions ever lodged in the EU. In fact, it was one of the first European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECI) ever submitted. An ECI is a transnational petition system that enables citizens of at least seven different European countries to start collecting the 1 million signatures required to prompt the EU to adopt a new policy. Although we never managed to collect that many signatures, we set in motion an EU-wide public debate – through a low-cost, social media-powered marketing campaign. It led the former Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes to propose the abolition of international roaming charges to the European Parliament and EU governments. They will be gone by the end of 2017, to the benefit of more than 500 million citizens.

Success is relative. We failed to get the signatures we needed but we brought about a systemic change. And we did all of this without taking the credit. That’s the essence of citizen lobbying: learning, testing and making things happen within the system. Since then I’ve been involved in dozens of citizen lobbying campaigns and trained hundreds of students, activists and professionals to become citizen lobbyists across the world. Here are a few more examples.

Alejandro Calvillo and his wife Elaine Kemp, who live in Mexico, launched a fight against sodas and their harmful effects on health. Mexicans are among the biggest consumers of drinks with added sugar. As a result, they have one of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world. The poor are particularly affected, putting a heavy burden on Mexico’s public health system.

Alejandro and Elaine decided to create an association to counter soda manufacturers’ lobbying and ad campaigns, which claimed that physical activity mattered more than diet, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary. They called their association El Poder del Consumidor (Consumer Power). By organising street events and academic conferences, they gradually attracted people’s attention. By 2012, Michael Bloomberg’s foundation for public health was giving them enough funding to stand up to counter-attacks by the manufacturers and their tame politicians. Eventually, a bill was passed in 2014 which imposed a ‘soda tax’.

Soda consumption fell by 17 per cent in a year. This piece of legislation has inspired other countries to consider following Mexico’s example. Alejandro and Elaine are citizen lobbyists.

Sofia Ashraf is now an internationally acclaimed Indian Tamil rapper. But until December 2015, she was a creative supervisor at Ogilvy & Mather, a global advertising firm that counts Unilever among its clients. Sofia resigned from her job when she took up the cause of local workers’ associations that had been seeking compensation from Unilever for 14 years. Unilever allegedly operated a thermometer plant in Tamil Nadu that spilt mercury into a local river, killing dozens and incapacitating others.

Sofia released a rap about the spill called ‘Kodaikanal Won’t!’, denouncing Unilever. It went viral on YouTube. In 2016 Unilever finally agreed to compensate the victims for their losses in an out-of-court settlement. Thanks to Sofia, poisoned workers secured justice and the Jhatkaa association is now trying to ensure Unilever cleans up the river at its own expense. Sofia Ashraf is a citizen lobbyist.

Max Schrems, an Austrian law student, stood up to Facebook in 2013. After a short stay in California as an exchange student, he discovered that the company had circumvented the EU data protection regime when transferring his data (and those of millions of other Europeans) to the US. After crowdfunding his campaign, he succeeded in successfully challenging Facebook through the Irish authorities and eventually the EU Court of Justice.

Max epitomises citizen lobbying. He occupied the space left vacant by regulators, enforcers and civil society organisations. We need more Max Schrems in the world, and I hope he will inspire others. Max himself drew inspiration from Edward Snowden, another citizen lobbyist, whose whistle-blowing revealed the largest surveillance system ever deployed by a democratic country.

Jon Worth, a Briton who lives in Berlin, is a self-made campaigner who devotes his life to denouncing political abuses. He persistently spends hours every day monitoring – predominantly on Twitter – the action of many national and European members of parliament. He flags up their abuses, inconsistencies and acts in what he believes to be the public interest. Jon is a citizen lobbyist.

Mari Takenouchi has been an anti-nuclear activist since 1999. In 2011 she and her son were living near the Fukushima plant in Japan. Since then, as an independent journalist, she has been fighting – with the Save Kids Japan association – for recognition of the harmful effects even low-level radiation has on children. In 2014, she took to task a nuclear lobbyist and former Japanese premier on Twitter for encouraging locals to return to their homes near the crippled plant. She alleged that the Ethos group he was supporting, driven underground by the French nuclear multinational Areva, intended to conduct live experiments on humans. Mari has undergone several interrogations by the Japanese police and risks a prison sentence. Her case has attracted the attention of the international community and triggered several campaigns and petitions, notably by Reporters Without Borders. They have shone a light on the largely hidden links between nuclear lobbyists and the Japanese government. Mari is a citizen lobbyist.

Ben Goldacre, a brilliant British physician and academic, decided after years of serious research to start writing to sensitise the UK population to what he called ‘bad science’. In 2012 he showed that a substantial proportion of medical research goes unpublished (estimates range from one-third to one-half). In particular, he highlighted that thousands of clinical trials have not reported their results; some have not even been registered. Information on what was done and what was found in these trials could be lost forever to doctors and researchers, leading to bad treatment decisions, missed opportunities for good medicine and trials being repeated. He has also shown that negative findings are less likely to be published than positive ones, even in the absence of conflicts of interest.

Against this backdrop, Ben launched AllTrials, a campaign countering the phenomenon of under-reporting of clinical trials and advocating that clinical research adopt the principles of open research. The project summarises itself as ‘All trials registered, all results reported’: that is, all clinical trials should be listed in a registry and their results should always be shared as open data. At the heart of the organisation is a petition signed by over 85,000 individuals and 599 organisations. Ben is a citizen lobbyist.

Regardless of whether you care about matters of general public interest, such as consumer and patient rights (like Sofia in India and Ben in the UK), data protection (like Max in Europe), environmental protection (like Mari in Japan), public health (like Alejandro and Elaine in Mexico), the accountability of our elected representatives (like Jon in the EU) or whether you care about people whose voices go unheard, turning yourself into a citizen lobbyist can empower you. It can empower anyone who wants to affect the way policy is decided.

You can have ‘a say’ and even make a positive difference to other people’s lives as an individual, as an organisation or both. And, as these examples show, you don’t have to become an expert or understand all the intricacies of the policymaking process to be a good lobbyist. You just need passion for your cause and the ability to communicate it. Hard facts will also help. Citizen lobbying is cheap, fulfilling and you can do it from anywhere in the world. Just pick your cause.

By providing a counterweight to special interests, citizen lobbyists can improve the quality of policymaking. In the same way, they can hold consumer and pressure groups to genuinely acting in the public interest. Citizen lobbying hones the quality of policymaking while giving all of us a chance to learn about how government works.

This book explores both the dark and light sides of lobbying as it is deployed by both professional lobbyists and citizens. And it shows how corporations can use lobbying to support and build on a commitment to trading responsibly. There’s no reason why the right cause shouldn’t unite citizens and corporations to work together to change policy.

Why This Book?

Building on my personal experience as educator, scholar and civic advocate, this book offers a guide to becoming an effective citizen lobbyist in your daily life. It proposes a 10-step strategy to make you comfortable with lobbying – and get you doing it!

This is not an academic book. This is a volume that aspires to reach a broader audience, and to inspire you. It is not intended to contribute to the academic debate per se, but instead to build upon the insights academic theory offers in order to nurture an entirely different discussion: how to persuade ourselves that the break with our daily routine is worth it. It even tells you how to do it.

These are the three main goals of this book:

To share and promote an innovative form of do-it-yourself citizenship aimed at empowering ordinary citizens at a time of unprecedented social, economic and political volatility.

To demystify and democratise lobbying as a legitimate and healthy component of the democratic process.

To inspire a new generation of advocates, activists and engaged citizens to get involved in the unfashionable world of government.

Regardless of where you come from and what you do in life, every one of us has the capacity to be an effective citizen lobbyist. We have boundless reserves of untapped talent, energy and knowledge. You will be amazed at what you can achieve once you start to make lobbying part of your life.

Lobbying for Change is a down-to-earth, practical guide that will enable you to engage with the things that matter to you and to make an immediate impact on the world around you. I hope you will – because by embracing citizen lobbying, you can breathe life back into democracy and empower yourself and your community.

Throughout the book, you will find three types of extra content to inform and inspire you:

TIP

These boxes contain useful tips that complement the guidance provided in the main text.

ACTIVITY

These boxes suggest activities for you to try out what you have learned.

STORY

These boxes contain real-life examples of successful (and unsuccessful) instances of citizen lobbying. They offer practical illustrations of the dos and don’ts when using the toolbox.

PART I

THE PROBLEM

Powerless

‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’

Edmund Burke

Many of us feel like spectators nowadays. Regardless of where we come from and what we do in life, despite the wealth and opportunities our societies offer, we feel overwhelmed and hopeless in the face of mounting challenges. We have never enjoyed so many opportunities to have a say in shaping our democratic societies. Yet we feel too feeble and helpless to do anything about it. We don’t always grasp why this is.

Powerlessness has a profound effect on our physiology and mental capacity.1 It amplifies our response to stress which, in the long run, damages the brain. This in turn inhibits our ability to function and engage with the world. It damages our individual and collective well-being.2

Many factors can explain why we feel so powerless – including an intriguing bystander effect that reinforces inaction3 – but four things, all of them interconnected, are central to it:

Nobody speaks for you: the unequal distribution of power;

You’re not in the club: the distance between voters and decision-makers;

Nobody teaches you: the disconnect between our schools and reality;

Somebody decides for you: powerlessness by design.

We’re about to look at these in more detail. The remaining parts of this book will tackle what we can do about them.

Nobody Speaks for You: the Unequal Distribution of Power

‘The reality of political life is that the voice that shouts the loudest is the most likely to be heard, no matter how numerous the silent majority, no matter how just their cause.’

Brian Stipelman4

How can you feel powerless in a democracy? Doesn’t democracy mean that power belongs to the people? At least that’s what we learn at school. World leaders assure us that it’s so. They may even compare our modern democracies with the ideal of the first known democracy in Athens. The truth, however, is that during the fourth century BC, there were probably no more than 100,000 people belonging to citizen families in Athens. In other words, about 30,000 adult male citizens were entitled to vote in the assembly.5 If we, like the Athenians, lived in a small community where everyone could discuss issues of common interest, better their understanding in public debates, identify and assess available options and their consequences and eventually reach an informed consensus on what to do (based on universal suffrage and by a majority of individual voting), then we too might have a ‘true’ democracy.

Unfortunately, there are too many of us to make that work, and the delegation of political power is a necessary (if minor) evil. Indeed, the original idea of democracy, as the Ancient Greeks conceived it, was soon adapted by the Greeks themselves into an indirect, representative system that, wittingly or unwittingly, disempowered citizens (so as to empower them through their representatives). That’s what we call representative democracy.