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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ben FarrandORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Oxford University Press, 2015.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
The purpose of this article is to examine the issue of ‘lobbying’ in the EU legislative process, using an interdisciplinary analysis of the development of copyright laws as a way of explaining why and how some lobbyists are more successful than others in having their preferences taken into account in legislation. As this article will demonstrate, the keys to successful lobbying in this field are information exchange, the ability to frame issues at an early stage in the legislative process (agenda setting) and the political salience of an issue. By assessing not only where legislative initiatives in copyright reform have been successful, such as the passing of the Information Society, Enforcement and Term Extension Directives, but also where legislative initiatives fail, as in the case of ACTA, it will be demonstrated that legislative success is not a simple case of ‘big business getting what it wants’, but of varying levels of political salience. Where the salience of an issue is low and voters consider that issue comparatively unimportant to other issues, industry representatives are able to effectively frame legislative outcomes. Where salience is high, and an issue important to voters, this ability is substantially reduced. By approaching copyright law development in this way, it is possible to reconceptualise the role of lobbying in the EU legislative process.
Author(s): Farrand B
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
Year: 2015
Volume: 35
Issue: 3
Pages: 487-514
Print publication date: 01/09/2015
Online publication date: 20/01/2015
Acceptance date: 23/10/2014
Date deposited: 06/04/2019
ISSN (print): 0143-6503
ISSN (electronic): 1464-3820
Publisher: Oxford University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqu028
DOI: 10.1093/ojls/gqu028
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