Topic Guide: Undue Influence

Access Info

Access Info is a human rights organisation dedicated to promoting and protecting the right of access to information in Europe as a tool for defending civil liberties and human rights, for facilitating public participation in decision making and for holding governments accountable. Access Info Europe works on the steering committee of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) to call for a more transparent and inclusive decision-making process at the EU level. One campaign is for a mandatory EU lobby register in order to ensure that decisions are taken in the public interest with a balanced participation of different interests in the decision-making process. Their website can be accessed here.  

The Sunlight Foundation

The Sunlight Foundation is a nonpartisan, non-profit that advocates for open government globally and uses technology to make government more accountable to all. They use creative tools, open data, policy recommendations, journalism and grant opportunities to dramatically expand access to vital government information to create accountability of public officials. They have created several different tools and applications to track undue influence on politics. For example, their app Influence Explorer allows users to explore which companies and organisations are donating funds to political campaign. The Lobbyist Registration Tracker is a database which allows users to see lobbying registrations as they're submitted and the trends in issues and registrations over time. Their website can be accessed here.

Open Secrets

Open Secrets is a “nonpartisan, independent and non-profit organisation that aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more transparent and responsive government.” The Open Secrets website provides comprehensive resources for federal campaign contributions and lobbying data and analysis. While Open Secrets deals with numerous topics related to US politics and financing, their main area of expertise is on lobbying in the US context. They have several informative tools on interest groups, lobbying, revolving door, PACs and 527 ad financing. Their website can be accessed here.

Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)

CEO is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making. Corporate Europe Observatory works in close alliance with public interest groups and social movements in and outside Europe to develop alternatives to the dominance of corporate power. They have topic-specific pages on revolving door at EU level and on corporate dominance of expert policy groups. Their website can be accessed here.  

Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

The OECD has launched a variety of initiatives to discuss lobbying in the private sector. While the OECD believes lobbying to be necessary for democracies, it holds that principles of transparency, integrity and fairness should be upheld in respect to the influence of lobbyists. The organisation has published several reports and has made a CleanGovBiz Toolkit regarding lobbying. For reports and access to the toolkit click here.