The legitimization of lobbying as an indicator of changes in the conception of political legitimacy: the examples of the Czech republic and France
Abstract
What do the discourses related to the desirability of introducing lobbying regulation reveal about what holds to be the dominant conception of the sources of political legitimacy? More specifically, of the sources of legitimacy for the purpose of influencing the political decision-making process? The present article attempts to give some elements of answer to this question, drawing on a discourse analysis of debates surrounding the attempts at lobbying regulation in two countries, the Czech Republic and France, where these debates are simultaneously taking place. In particular, the article infers the normative presuppositions of different groups of actors concerning three basic questions: firstly, what the character of the relation between the governors and the governed is; secondly, how the identities of the actors of this relation are to be defined; and thirdly, what the condition of a legitimate inclusion of non-public actors in the public decisionmaking processes is.