Does lobbying happen in your country?

2 comments

1. Denmark has _both_ lobbying, _and_ corruption. Though we do score low on surveys about perceived corruption.

   Lobbyism is pretty straight forward, as usually happens through what we call _interresseorganisationer_, meaning “interest-organisations,” which, as the term imply, represent the interests of their members. The biggest ones are _Landbrug og Fødevarer_(“Farming and Foodstuffs”) and _Dansk Industri_(“Danish Industry”) and _Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening_(“Associated Danish Employers.”) The first one, as the name implies, represents the interests of the agricultural sector in Denmark, the second one is mainly associated with traditional heavy industry, but in reality represents a broad range of different industries. These two are most often in the media because of their opposition to ecological policy-making and the improvement of worker’s conditions in Denmark… As you would expect. They are also the historical and close allies of the liberal and conservative political parties, closely cooperating with them. The main liberal party, the Liberal Party of Denmark (_Venstre_ in Danish) is the historical farmer’s party, while the main conservative party, the Conservative People’s Party, is the historical party of the industrial and financial bourgeoisie. Funny how such groups maintain cooperation. These groups are basically the main players on the right-wing of Danish politics.

   On the Left, lobbying is a little different, and some people are hesitant to call it lobbyism, as it mostly takes form through the cooperation between the labour/trade unions and the labour parties. I personally am a Leftist, so I see this sort of alliance as more natural, and less corrupt that whatever cheek-kissing the liberals are doing with the agricultural and industrial interest groups, but, to be fair, it does constitute a form of lobbyism in the broad sense of this word. There are also various grass-root movements, particularly ecological and minority ones, who can be said to be lobbying primarily on the left-wing.

   On corruption, it is more dubious. We do have campaign donations, such as, recently in the public conversation, the ties between the social democratic party—*wer hat uns verraten*—and Aalborg Portland, a major industrial plant in, well, Aalborg, which was to be exempt from a lot of the fines and levies placed on industry in the ecological legislation proposed by the—drumroll, *please*—social democratic party. This sparked a discussion about lobbyism and party donations, not to mention about nepotism and politicians favouring their home turf. The current prime minister, and leader of the social democratic party, Mette Frederiksen, is from Aalborg.

   It was also recently uncovered, that the Conservative People’s Party, which receives money from the state, helped pay the taxes of the conservative party leader, Søren Pape Poulsen.

   But corruption is more to be found at the more local level, in the form of nepotism, under the deal tables, and straight up fraud. Local politicians often make so-called _rævekager_(“Fox-cakes;” meaning shit,) distributing the more profitable positions among themselves, in order to make local council coalitions form, while it isn’t unheard of that some public clerk or something bags money for themselves or their family. Such as when it was uncovered, in 2019, that the then 64 year old Britta Nielsen, a deskworker in the social services, had bagged 117.000.000 DKK(15.727.491€.)

   So we have both lobbyism and corruption, don’t you worry.

2. Both lobbying and corruption are a thing. All that’s different is that in the west our democratic systems force us to be less corrupt. The state only works when people trust in it, thus there has to be accountability and transparency. The law reflects this and the respect for said rule of law forces corruption to be kept low.

   This coupled with giving civil servants extremely good pay/benefits and having harsh punishments for it generally keep things calm over here. There’s still jobs for the boys and other more subtle forms of lobbying and corruption but generally in Ireland it’s low.

   I’d add with that meme it seems to ignore the fact that lobbying happens in non western countries too. At the end of the day Lobbying at its simplest definition is someone or group of people trying to convince (lobby) a politician to take a course of action. If a labour union talks to a politician about strengthening labour laws that’s lobbying technically.