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Choosing lobbying sides: the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2018

Ece Özlem Atikcan  and
Adam William Chalmers
Ece Özlem Atikcan*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK Department of European and International Studies, King’s College London, UK
Adam William Chalmers
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK Department of European and International Studies, King’s College London, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: o.atikcan@warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract

Despite the impressive amount of empirical research on lobbying, a fundamental question remains overlooked. How do interest groups choose to lobby different sides of an issue? We argue that how groups choose sides is a function of firm-level economic activity. By studying a highly salient regulatory issue, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and using a novel data set of lobbying activities, we reveal that a group’s main economic sector matters most. Firms operating in finance and retail face unique costs and are incentivised to lobby against the GDPR. However, these groups are outgunned by a large, heterogeneous group of firms with superior lobbying firepower on the other side of the issue.

Keywords

data protectionEuropean Unionfinancial industry groupsinterest groupslobbying

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 543 - 564
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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Footnotes

†

The authors are listed in alphabetical order.

Cite this article: Atikcan EÖ, Chalmers AW. 2019. Choosing lobbying sides: the general data protection regulation of the European Union. Journal of Public Policy 39: 543–564,, doi:10.1017/S0143814X18000223

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