Do lobbyists’ sociodemographic characteristics influence their access to European Parliament members? Based on new research, Iskander de Bruewicker, Sandra Martinez-Boehme and Susanna Eiselt We find that lobbying teams with a balanced gender composition are more likely to secure access to MEPs, and that similarity in gender and national origin facilitates interactions between MEPs and lobbying teams.
Mention of the EU lobby often evokes the “old boys’ club” stereotype. A quick Google search for caricatures of lobbyists usually reveals a familiar scene. A middle-aged white man in a suit represents a large corporation and is participating in a secret meeting.
This perception may be somewhat exaggerated, but it is not completely unfounded. In a compelling TED talk, Marta Żołądź highlights the continued underrepresentation of women in EU lobbying, noting that many conferences held in Brussels are overwhelmingly male-dominated, even when discussing policies that primarily affect women. . Likewise, academic research shows that the lobbying environment is dominated by men, especially well-educated, elite non-immigrant men.
Despite these observations, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the socio-demographic characteristics of lobbyists, including gender, age, nationality, education, and ethnic background, and how these characteristics influence their access to policy-making bodies. The ACCESS4ALL project seeks to address this gap by examining how these characteristics affect lobbyists’ ability to collaborate with key EU institutions.
Although there has been considerable research on which interest groups are successful in gaining access to policymakers (typically well-resourced interests), there is a paucity of research examining how the personal characteristics of individual lobbyists influence this access. Public discourse often portrays lobbyists as faceless agents of corporate interests rather than as individuals with unique identities and perspectives.
Our project aims to change this narrative by focusing on the human side of public affairs and highlighting how the personal characteristics of lobbyists and policymakers influence their policy approaches. We therefore aim to uncover the biases that characterize the everyday interactions between lobbyists and policymakers and provide solutions on how to overcome them.
The role of gender and nationality in access
Project leader Iskander de Bruycker’s initial research looked at how the gender and nationality of lobbying teams affected access to members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Drawing on research on descriptive representation and political stereotypes, this study hypothesizes that lobbying teams comprised of members from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as women, nationals of new member states, and people with non-EU migrant backgrounds, are less likely to have access to MEPs. . .
What sets this study apart is its application of similarity attraction theory. Although this theory is widely used in the social sciences, this framework was first introduced in the context of interest group lobbying. This theory assumes that individuals are attracted to people who share similar characteristics. This reduces cognitive dissonance and emotional discomfort, making individuals believe that interacting with people like themselves is more efficient and predictable. For example, female lawmakers may be more likely to meet with lobbying teams led by women, and lawmakers may prefer lobbyists who share a national background.
To test these hypotheses, this study analyzes data from the European Parliament’s pass register and reporting meetings with MEPs, using name analysis and desk surveys to assess the socio-demographic characteristics of lobbying teams in relation to gender and nationality. The statistical analysis includes registered meetings from 2019 to 2023, involving a total of 335 MEPs and 329 lobbying teams, and 1,252 individual lobbyists admitted to the European Parliament.
Figure 1: Overview of European population aggregation patterns and lobbying team composition with access to MEPs.
Note: For more information, please refer to the documents attached to: European Journal of Public Policy
The descriptive results in Figure 1 highlight significant differences in access to lobbyists in new Member States, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Despite these countries accounting for 23% of the EU population, lobbyists in these countries account for only 8% of those with access to at least one MEP.
In contrast, gender representation in lobbying teams appears to be more balanced. The proportion of women in the general EU population closely corresponds to the average number of women in lobbying teams with access to the European Parliament. To further investigate these patterns and investigate the validity of the similarity attraction mechanism, this study also performed regression analyses.
This analysis shows that lobbying teams with a higher proportion of women are more likely to have access to MEPs. However, this relationship is nonlinear. As Figure 2 shows, increasing the proportion of women on lobbying teams improves accessibility, up to approximately 60%. Beyond this point, access decreases as the proportion of women increases. This finding is unexpected because previous research on political inequality and gender stereotypes highlights the difficulties women face in politics. Nonetheless, these findings highlight the importance of gender diversity in lobbying.
Figure 2: Predicted accessibility of female lobbyists (quadratic effect)
Note: For more information, please refer to the documents attached to: European Journal of Public Policy
The findings regarding nationality are less encouraging. Initial analyzes do not show a significant bias towards teams with more lobbyists from new member states, but these teams do have reduced access when dealing with rapporteurs. Bias in interactions with rapporteurs is particularly concerning. This is because they play a leading role in shaping EU policy within parliamentary committees.
This bias may be partly explained by the fact that teams with more lobbyists from new member states face cultural, language, and economic barriers and have weaker integration with lobbying networks. Additionally, lobbying teams with members from non-EU backgrounds are less likely to gain access due to bias or representing organizations outside the EU with limited EU participation.
Interestingly, this analysis supports similarity attraction. MEPs are more likely to grant access to organizations that have lobbyists of the same gender or from the same existing or new member state background. However, the more lobbyists share the MEP’s background, the less advantage there is. That’s because one similar lobbyist is usually enough to pair them with policymakers based on similarity in background.
Why diversity is an asset to your lobbying team
These findings send a clear message to interest groups. In other words, recruiting lobbyists from diverse socio-demographic backgrounds can increase the accessibility and effectiveness of lobbying activities. Moreover, fostering diverse teams is not only an ethical imperative, but also essential to achieving political effectiveness.
While gender diversity clearly improves accessibility prospects, unfortunately, findings regarding diversity of national backgrounds are less optimistic. More academic research and the involvement of public affairs practitioners are needed to understand the causes of these biases and develop strategies to overcome them.
Although this work provides valuable insights, several questions remain. Future research should examine whether different organizations hire different types of lobbyists and whether accessibility is more influenced by lobbyist characteristics or employer characteristics. Questions also remain about whether the strong representation of women among lobbyists in the European Parliament can be generalized to other institutions.
Additional research is needed to understand the interactions between lobbyists and legislators, including the causes of similarity attraction. More accurate measures of socio-demographics, including gender, nationality, and ethnicity, along with experimental and longitudinal data, could improve our understanding of potential biases in lobbying access. Therefore, many interesting questions remain for the ACCESS4ALL team and other scholars to explore.
Please refer to the attached document for more details. European Journal of Public Policy
Note: This article gives the views of the author and not the position of EUROPP (European Politics and Policy) or the London School of Economics. Main image source: Maria Alam Sraboni /Shutterstock.com
