Trinity Political Scientist Briefs House of Commons on Lobbying Regulation

Posted on: 16 May 2012

Trinity academic, Professor Raj Chari was recently invited to give expert evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons in Westminster.  The Committee is scrutinising the British government’s proposals for introducing a statutory register of lobbyists in the UK.

Professor Chari is co-author of Regulating Lobbying: a Global Comparison (Manchester University Press, 2010) with Professor Gary Murphy, School of Law and Government, DCU and Dr John Hogan, College of Business, DIT.  This project was funded by an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) Research Development Initiative award between 2008-2010.

The Committee was informed about their research findings which offer a means for benchmarking potential regulatory regimes. In almost two hours of questioning from the committee, Professor Chari, Department of Political Science, School of Social Science and Philosophy answered questions on lobbying regulations found in political systems from around the world and considered whether any existing models of regulation in other countries could be applicable to the UK.

An audio recording of the evidence which was presented may be found here