(iPoster) Who Becomes a Lobbyist? Comparative Evidence from the US and Germany

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Economy; Civic Engagement; & Comparative Politics, Political Economy, and Participation
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics, Political Economy, and Participation

Abstract

Who becomes a lobbyist? While researchers have extensively studied lobbyists' skills and political connections, much less is known about why individuals become lobbyists in the first place. We study self-selection into becoming a lobbyist in Germany and the US. We merge the names of more than 30,000 lobbyists from federal lobbying registers with their LinkedIn profiles and a population dataset of all LinkedIn users. We find German lobbyists have much less previous political experience than in the US. Executive branch experience is more frequent than among US lobbyists, reflecting the higher importance of the executive in the German lawmaking process. We then use machine learning to predict becoming a lobbyist. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of lobbying and political representation.

Authors

• Cornelius Erfort, Witten/Herdecke University

• Jan Stuckatz, Copenhagen Business School

• Felix Hartmann, Copenhagen Business School

• Heike Klüver, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin