Raphael Caldas, founder and CEO of Inteligov, was invited by Diálogos magazine, a publication of the Institute of Government Relations (IRELGOV), to write an article on the topic “Lobbying and Democracy” . Check out the insights presented by Caldas below, contextualizing the importance of democracy for the Institutional and Government Relations (IGR) market and for the work of lobbyists, who are responsible for the dialogue between public and private organizations.
At this electoral moment, there has been much discussion about democracy. And not in the context of the “celebration of democracy” that has been, since the reopening, the way in which the press and civil society have treated the moment of suffrage, the effective exercise of popular sovereignty.
Today, the tone is one of institutional questioning and uncertainty hong kong mobile database regarding the democratic process. So much so that the inauguration speech of the new President of the Superior Electoral Court, containing obvious statements about the rule of law that, according to one commentator, in normal times should “go down the drain” (i.e., pass without any impact), had strong political repercussions.
I believe that government relations professionals should engage in this debate because it is even more relevant for us. After all, democracy is our business. It is our job to ensure that the interaction between the public and private sectors occurs in an ethically correct and technically articulated manner, enhancing the quality of public policies.
To contribute to this exchange of ideas, let’s take a closer look at the relationship between democracy and lobbying, a timely topic for this edition of the magazine “Diálogos”.
According to Norberto Bobbio, in contemporary political theory, definitions of democracy tend to be shaped by an articulation of “rules of the game” that must be observed in political life. This would be a much more procedural than evaluative approach. He says:
“All these rules establish how to arrive at a political decision and not what to decide. From the point of view of what to decide, the set of rules of the democratic game establishes nothing, except the exclusion of decisions that would in any way contribute to rendering one or more rules of the game futile.”
For the purposes of this article, it is worth highlighting that in a democracy, the rules for political decision-making must be clear. This is essential for government relations professionals who can thus have visibility of the political terrain, outline strategies and move equitably in the chess game of defending interests. This is how we ensure, for example, the leveling of the playing field of public choices and reinforce the principle of impartiality.