Citizens and the public perception of lobbying: do regulation and trust in political institutions make a difference?

In political studies, lobbying is portrayed as a vital process of political participation, contributing information, policy capacities, and political capital to policymaking, but also as a potential source of representation biases, undue influence, and policy capture. Given such Janus-faced nature of lobbying within democracy, the primary aim of this article is to investigate which perception prevails among citizens empirically. By analysing the primary data of two surveys of 4000 Canadian and 1600 Swiss citizens, it investigates the public perception of lobbying across countries with contrasting institutional and regulatory frameworks and different levels of trust in political institutions. Results show that citizens' perception of lobbying differs in the two contexts, being predominantly negative in Switzerland and positive in Canada. Additionally, Swiss citizens are significantly more likely than Canadians to view lobbying as inadequately regulated. Both trust in political institutions and the perception that lobbying is properly regulated have a significant and positive impact on the perception of lobbying. Interestingly, despite Switzerland's higher levels of trust in political institutions than Canada, this trust does not translate into a more positive perception of lobbying, suggesting that robust regulations may play a more decisive role than institutional trust in shaping public perceptions.