Whose Lobbies are Lobbied? Executive and Legislative Branch inside Lobbying of Firms in the United Kingdom

In representative democracies, all three branches of government are targets of corporate lobbying. So far, empirical research on corporate lobbying mostly analyzed each of the branches separately. This paper identifies differences and similarities of inside lobbying of firms that address the executive and the legislative branches in the United Kingdom. Due to the system’s strong executive dominance, the UK is an interesting case: In order to influence legislation, lobbyists must pay attention to the most important stages of the policy process. During the policy formulation stage, which takes place mainly in government departments, interest groups attempt to place their preferred policies in legislative drafts. At the decision stage, the draft is put to the vote. Here interest groups have to see to their preferred policies being enacted. Hence, it is expected that the same firms lobby both branches. The analysis uses data on 300 British firms and their contacts to legislative and executive policymakers. The results give new insights into the relationship between the executive and legislative branches lobbying of corporations in parliamentary democracies. In addition to trivariate descriptions of the contacts of firms to members of the legislative and executive branch, the findings show to what extent lobbying at these two branches of government is driven by the same causal mechanisms.