The Relationship Between Lobbying, Businesses And Political Decisions - Essay Example

Why is Politics and Government Big Business?Lobbying is the process of trying to influence the decisions made by an administration, for example, the government especially the members of legislative assemblies of regulatory agencies. Economic lobbyists represent, educate and advocate on the behalf of their business clients’ interests. Politics and economics affect each other in complex sometimes inexplicable ways. The aim is to make the people in the administrative capacity to look favourably on the side of the business (Adellino 272).

The paper tries to scrutinize the relationship between lobbying, businesses and political decisions and how the government makes a profit from this.Politics and economics are tied together with some scholars even arguing that politics is merely an extension of economics. Political economists strongly speak out on the proactive position of governments in economic policy and for their ability to regulate the business cycle. Regulation of the business cycle involves putting in place fiscal and monetary measures in order to mitigate or avoid adverse effects of economic depressions and recessions.

These measures also pertain to economic policies such as taxation, economic barriers, price fixation et cetera. The aim of the economic lobbyists is to make sure that the policies the government makes favour them and provide a conducive business environment for the success of their businesses. The lobbying involves delivery of data or opinions to a government decision maker at local or national level. They do this by presenting the interest of their company or client in the context of public interests.

After receiving data, the decision makers then decide basing on the content of the data their next course of action.The government profits from its relationship with businesses in a variety of ways. Lobbying is important to the government too as it needs to know what is going on in the real world. Government-business relations enable decision makers in the business to be aware of the conditions prevailing in the business environments to make relevant legal policies. Also, they do want to make decisions or have a debate on a law when they are not well informed.

Government-business relations give an opportunity also for the government to present its demands. For instance, a business may be lobbying for the establishment of an industry that might compete with a government-owned industry or institution. The government might grant the company permission in a condition that the company gives back royals to the government regularly. Royals are part of the profit that the company gives back to the government. However, these relationships might cause harm to the country especially when government officials take advantage of them and start engaging in corruption.

For example, the government official might award illegal tenders to companies in exchange for personal financial rewards (Adelino 257). In other instances, due to financial bribes, the relevant government dockets might choose to look away in cases where a business is conducting activities that might be harming the nationals of the country. Examples include child, labour, crime and illegal drug trafficking. The perpetrators of such activities in the government might accrue illegal wealth at the expense of the country’s development.

In 2004-2006, the American political establishment suffered a number of painful scandals related to lobbying practices. In a report to ‘The Lobbying Manual’ (Luneberg and Susman, 2005), U.S. SenatorCarl Levin assessed the situation with lobbying in the early 1990s: “The 1946 Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act had become a dead letter; fewLobbyists were in compliance, and the Department of Justice had declared theStatute was unenforceable. It was time for a new statute” (p. XXV)In conclusion, relations between businesses and governments are a necessary evil.

Good relationships result to growth in businesses and consequently growth and development in the country as a whole. Harmony between the two entities also results in the creation of more job opportunities in the country. Bad and corrupt interactions cause economic losses and make investors shy away from investing in different sectors of the economy. It is, therefore, critical that these relationships are kept purely open and lawful as designated in the Lobbyist Act.Works CitedAdelino, Manuel, and I.

Serdar Dinc. "Corporate distress and lobbying: Evidence from the Stimulus Act." Journal of Financial Economics 114.2 (2014): 256-272.Choi, Seong-Jin, Nan Jia, and Jiangyong Lu. "The Structure of political institutions and effectiveness of corporate political lobbying." Organization Science, 2014.Della Vigna, Stefano, et al. "DP9813 Market-based Lobbying: Evidence from Advertising Spending in Italy." 2014.