In the Name of Whom? On the Use and Effects of Object Framing in Advocacy

Interest representation is always for someone, and for some purpose. Yet, we still know too little about whether and how lobbyists succeed in attaining their policy preferences based on framing their promises to guard the interests of different types of constituents. This paper applies theory on representative claims making to assess 1) what actor and issue-level factors explain how likely a lobbyists is to use arguments on the economic, social or general public interests affected affect by a policy and 2) to what extent issue characteristics moderate the extent to which these claims affect lobbying success, i.e. the likelihood of getting preferred policy outcomes realized. A novel dataset on lobbying success and claims-making by more than 600 lobbyists in national news media outlets in five European countries will be used to assess these relationships. The findings add to the existing literature on framing, which has only paid limited attention to how issue characteristics affect framing and which has predominantly examined the impact of emphasis framing rather than how object frames affect lobbying success. By explaining the use and effects of the political framing of the acclaimed beneficiaries of advocacy, the findings are relevant for scholars of political representation, public policy and political communication.