Has Grassroots Lobbying Effectively Influenced Legislators’ Behavior in Poland? An Overview of Results from Semi-Structured Interviews with Polish MPs

This article presents the first empirical study investigating how Polish members of the lower chamber of parliament (‘Sejm’) perceive the influence of grassroots lobbying on their political behavior. Grassroots lobbying involves direct contact between non-lobbyist constituents and legislators. It encompasses an issue position and a suggested legislative action. Grassroots lobbying campaigns are conducted by all types of interest groups, including NGOs, labor unions, and corporations. The most popular grassroots lobbying techniques include mailing, phoning, direct meetings with MPs, contacting them through social media, submitting petitions, and pressuring them through demonstrations and protests. In the paper, I analyzed when, whether and why MPs consider grassroots lobbying actions effective in influencing their political decisions in Poland. Three major theories on the effectiveness of grassroots lobbying can be distinguished: the 'costly-signaling theory,' the 'economic theory of political communication,' and the 'loyalty to the citizens versus party theory'. In the article, the analysis of the empirical data was based on the theoretical conceptions of these theories. The data were collected during 15 semi-structured interviews with Polish MPs. The sample reflected the composition of the lower chamber of the Polish parliament and included representatives of all parties present in the IX term of ‘Sejm’. Each interview lasted between 45 and 90 minutes, and the respondents were guaranteed anonymity. Each interviewee was presented with the definition of grassroots lobbying (see above) and asked, among other questions, the following: (1) Which methods of grassroots lobbying do you most commonly encounter? (2) How do you assess the effectiveness of these activities? (3) In your opinion, how does the effectiveness of these activities depend on: (a) the form of activism used by citizens, (b) the moment of impact (i.e., the stage of the legislative process), (c) the scale of citizens' support for the demand? (4) How do you address grassroots actions on “higher salience issues” and “lower salience issues”? The research indicates that, according to the MPs: (1) Mailing is by far the most frequently used grassroots lobbying technique. (2) Legislators are more willing to take the requested actions when grassroots lobbying is conducted during the initial stages of the legislative process (e.g., at the drafting stage of the bill, before the first reading, or during committee work). (3) On higher salience issues (issues a party has a clearly defined stance on in its political program, which might derive from the party’s ideology), MPs nearly always follow party instructions and are not influenced by grassroots lobbying. (4) On lower salience issues (issues absent from a party’s program, unrelated to its core ideology), the majority of respondents said that they are more willing to follow constituents’ demands when two conditions coexist: they are presented with high-quality arguments and a high volume of people pressure them. Conversely, a minority of MPs said that the scale of support is irrelevant. However, they might be persuaded to take the requested actions if presented with high-quality arguments. Summarizing, MPs perceive grassroots lobbying as only a moderately effective tool for influencing legislators in Poland.