A New Approach In Evaluation Of Transparent Lobbying – The Case Of Visegrad Group Countries

Countries of Central and Eastern Europe are characterized by less institutional effectiveness, underdeveloped civil society and a weak democratic tradition. The efforts to introduce institutional rules for the development and stabilization of liberal democracy means, among all, to set the fair environment for interest representation of all members and stakeholders in the society, which also includes lobbying regulation. The aim of the article is to evaluate transparency in decision making process in public space often influenced by lobbying activities in Visegrad group countries. Since the only one of them - Poland - has implemented statutory regulation of lobbying, the wider and more complex approach is used for the purpose of the article. This approach was recently developed by authors' in the form of set of 158 indicators. The innovative method covers the entire decision-making process and is based on evaluation of 16 groups of measures incorporated in four categories built in so-called Catalogue of transparent lobbying. The result of the provided analysis shows two important conclusions. First, the rules on lobbying are only one part of a transparent lobbying process; a statutory regulation in place does not automatically mean effectively solving problems with transparency (Poland case). Second, countries without (or with) legal regulation often introduce measures for more transparent decision-making in general, labelled as sunshine principles that are reflecting the main international recommendations and international practices; many of them are also indirectly shed more light on the lobbying practices as well.