Business lobbying and government relations in Russia: the need for new principles

Dmitry Denisov has written a path-breaking study on whether new legislation or a code of practice could, or should, be applied to the relationship between business lobbyists and the government in Russia.

Dmitry Denisov, the editor of The Business Magazine in Russia, has written a path-breaking study on whether new legislation or a code of practice could, or should, be applied to the relationship between business lobbyists and the government in Russia. In his research paper, 'Business lobbying and government relations in Russia: the need for new principles', Dmitry first lays out how the lobbying of the legislative and executive branches took off in Russia after the mass privatisation of the economy under Boris Yeltsin.  He then describes three fascinating - but very different - examples of how lobbying has worked in the last few years.  A chapter follows on how the two models of regulating lobbying in the UK and the USA work: the first as an example of where no specific lobbying legislation is needed because of the existence of an efficient system of anti-corruption laws and binding civil servants’ codes of conduct; the second an example of where lobbying requires a special mechanism of regulation due to the high corruption risks involved. Dmitry concludes that the current state of affairs in Russia 'looks pretty much like a vicious circle in which none of the parties involved – providers of lobbying services, clients (business) and their counterparts in government - are able to change the situation for the better even if they want to.'  He suggests that given such a situation, formal statutory regulation of lobbying activities similar to the one existing in the USA would seem to be the only solution.

As with all Fellows’ research papers, any opinions expressed are those of the author and not of the Institute.