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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
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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