Lobbying, a real career? Selection and professionalization of lobbyists in Poland and the Czech Republic
Abstract
In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, professional lobbying represents a new job outlet near the political sphere since it appeared with the liberalization of markets and the arrival of foreign investors in the 1990s. Who enters this occupation, very little institutionalized and ambiguous in the eyes of public opinion, and with what expectations? Can one make a career out of it? And what can we infer from the difficulties that these actors astride the public and private sectors have to forge a professional status, about the role of private actors, their clients, in the public sector? A typology of lobbyists and their analysis as a professional group allow for a better understanding of these difficulties.
At the same time, this typology, together with an analysis of the practices of lobbyists and their discourse on their work, expose a fundamental tension between their proximity to the political sphere and the attraction it exerts on them, and the reluctance of political actors to recognize them on the basis of this proximity, which leads to their effort at constructing an intermediary status. A hesitant effort, nonetheless, since the vertical and horizontal mobility remain very low on the Czech and Polish markets and the occupation is mostly seen as a stage in a career by default, rather than a career in itself.