Lobbying Woven into the Fabric of Everyday Life

Weeks Spent in Local Communities Helped Researchers Understand Local Life

Nine local authorities of differing types and sizes from across the country were chosen as case studies.

The areas were divided among the researchers, but most were visited by at least two of them. They stayed on site, with the longest single fieldwork period lasting around three weeks.

The researchers describe the time spent in the communities as the most valuable aspect of the project.

“The local authorities have also appreciated this in our feedback discussions with them,” says Mikkonen.

Activity in the communities was followed using ethnographic methods, namely interviews and observation. This is unusual in lobbying research, which is typically quantitative.

“The principle was to try to interview the key politicians, senior officers and main lobbying actors in each area,” Spännäri explains.

In all, more than 240 interviews were conducted.

In addition to the interviews, the researchers observed council meetings, events and procurement dialogues. The project also used virtual ethnography to observe remote meetings and analyse recordings of meetings and events.

Initially, the plan was also to include shadowing local decision-makers, accompanying them in situations relevant to lobbying. This did not work, however, because lobbying did not take place in scheduled lobbying meetings.

“Local lobbying was fairly homespun: much of it came down to who bumps into whom and who knows whom. Not in the sense that knowing people gets decisions pushed through, but rather that lobbying happens within the fabric of everyday life,” says Spännäri.

A local councillor may at the same time be a resident, the parent of a schoolchild and the brother of a local business owner, she explains.

Although shadowing proved unworkable, ethnography otherwise turned out to be an effective method, and the researchers encourage others to use it too.

“When there are no diarised lobbying meetings, quantitative research wouldn’t capture these other encounters where lobbying takes place,” says Salla Mikkonen.

The researchers are currently writing two methodological articles in which they share their experiences of ethnography in lobbying research and reflect on ethical team ethnography.

“The myth is that the ethnographer is a lone wolf, alone in the field. In reality, ethnography has always been done in teams, but this hasn’t always been acknowledged in writing. For example, a male researcher might be in the field with his wife, and she would type up his notes,” says Mikkonen.

In ethical team ethnography, everyone receives credit. Conducting ethnography together speeds up data collection, brings different theoretical perspectives to the analysis and reduces the burden on individual researchers, Mikkonen adds.

A Hundred Types of Lobbyist Lobbying on Ninety Issues

The data gathered in the communities revealed a wide range of lobbyists. So far, the researchers have identified a hundred different types of actor, from sports clubs to businesses, nature conservation organisations to parents’ associations, and health and social care organisations to residents’ associations and interest groups.

Land use appears to attract the most lobbying. The service network was another key issue.

Lobbying did not require any particular title, and it was fairly easy to get a hearing with decision-makers. On the other hand, lobbying was made harder by the difficulty of understanding how local decision-making works.

People found it easier to talk about their own lobbying, but many struggled to recognise lobbying directed at themselves, the researchers say.

“An interviewee might come back half an hour later and say, “Now that I think about it, it was influencing when someone came up to talk to me about this at the supermarket,” Korkea-aho recounts.

The everyday nature of lobbying did not, however, mean impropriety: the sauna meetings and boozy lunches of years gone by were not observed in the communities.

Many people, though, felt that ‘lobbying’ was not a word that reflected local experience.

“It was seen as something that happens in Helsinki or Brussels.”

Although the concept felt unfamiliar, influencing itself was familiar in local communities too, Salla Mikkonen stresses. Many could name several groups engaged in advocacy. Locally, people simply talked about things such as normal co-operation.

Even so, when interviewees were asked to describe what good or bad lobbying might look like, they did so readily, says Kaisa Kurkela.

Good lobbying was seen as that in which a particular measure could be presented as being in the wider interests of local residents. Bad lobbying, by contrast, was viewed as the pursuit of self-interest. Aggressive or personal lobbying was also regarded as bad. These perceptions may, however, have been based on public debate rather than on personal experience of lobbying.

An Intriguing Research Topic

The project’s researchers have already presented their findings in some of the local authorities, and next year a tour is planned to discuss the results with local communities.

The response has been surprisingly positive.

“I was once told, ‘It’s great that you came to do this research. It’s got me thinking about lobbying here,’“ Kaisa Kurkela recalls.

In another area, a director of administration suggested that new elected members could in future also be briefed on attempts to influence them.

The topic has generally intrigued people. “Of all my research topics, this is the one that my friends and relatives are most keen to hear more about,“ says Emilia Korkea-aho.

The Transparency Register Not Suited to Local Authorities

The project has also addressed one specific question.

Under the Transparency Register Act, which came into force in 2024, those lobbying Parliament and government ministries must report the targets of their activities twice a year. The register does not extend to local authorities, but during the parliamentary reading of the bill it was decided to revisit the matter as part of the Act’s post-legislative evaluation, which is currently under way.

At the start of the project, the researchers considered extending the register to local authorities a fairly natural step.

“Now we’ve changed our minds somewhat,” says Salla Mikkonen.

The project’s researchers have reservations about simply copying the Transparency Register across to local level. A duty for lobbyists to register might not work in local authorities, because lobbying there is interwoven with everyday life, unlike efforts to influence Parliament or ministries, and roles often overlap. The reporting requirement could also be unnecessarily burdensome for small local actors.

Project leader Emilia Korkea-aho is currently writing an article analysing why local government was excluded from the Transparency Register and how attitudes towards regulating lobbying in local authorities have developed. She is also mapping the regulation of local lobbying in other countries and considering what should be taken into account if local-level lobbying in Finland is brought under regulation.

Transparency should nonetheless be promoted in local authorities too, the researchers believe.

One idea might be for key local decision-makers and senior officers to keep public diaries of who has tried to influence them, Korkea-aho says.

Contact

Professor of European Law and Legislative Studies, University of Eastern Finland, Emilia Korkea-aho, emilia.korkea-aho@uef.fi