The ethics of political lobbying: Power, influence, and democratic decline

Lobbying poses an urgent threat to democracy. The problem is not principally one of a lack of transparency, or that lobbyists comprise a secret cabal of anti-democrats at the heart of the democratic system, or even that lobbying is a form of corruption (Parvin, 2016). The problem goes deeper and wider, and its solution requires nothing less than a fundamental re-ordering of the modern state, and a winding back of nearly a century of democratic decline. Moreover, it requires action on the part of an institutional regime which is now dominated by powerful lobbies who have proven themselves unwilling to permit necessary reform. [...]