We’re looking to interview people with first-hand experience of policy processes going awry, as part of our new research project into the capture of those processes by vested interests.
We’ve recently received funding from Victoria University and the Gama Foundation to look at what’s called ‘policy capture’, a situation that occurs when a powerful group or industry consistently shifts democratic decisions away from the public interest and towards the protection of their assets, power and status.
There has been growing concern about policy capture in New Zealand, following decisions to – for instance – implement pro-tobacco-industry policies and exempt farmers from taking responsibility for their carbon emissions. Researchers have already begun mapping these instances, typically focussing on well-resourced lobbyists, their motivations, and their actions.
This research, which could be described as “looking in from outside”, can yield important insights. One largely unexplored avenue, though, is to ask about the experiences of those being lobbied and the policy processes they supervise. Drawing extensively on interviews with current and former public servants, politicians and political advisers, our research will be “looking out from inside”.
Our aim is to establish why policy processes become vulnerable to capture. Using interviews, official information requests and other sources, we will explore the points of weakness that, in each phase of the policy process, allow capture to occur. We plan to run a large anonymous survey of public servants to map the extent of capture-related issues.
We also hope to identify – and explore in detail – instances where vested-interest lobbying may have been particularly damaging to the public interest. Such instances have proved difficult to identify with any certainty when looking “from the outside”. Our detailed examination of instances of such lobbying, using insights gleaned from actors “on the inside”, will allow us to significantly strengthen the evidence base about the problems of policy capture.
Ultimately, our hope is that our work will aid efforts to combat capture. After all, if we do not clearly understand the current weaknesses in policy processes, we will struggle to know how to strengthen those processes against improper influence. The conclusion of our work will be to recommend systemic changes – such as opening up policy processes to a wider range of views – that will help ensure those processes are less vulnerable to capture.
If you would like to speak to us in confidence about any vested-interest lobbying or policy capture you have witnessed, please contact us via email (max.rashbrooke@gmail.com) or WhatsApp (+64 22 694 0871).
