Alexander Katsaitis Photo: Private

PUBLISHED: September 6, 2024

Read more about Katsaiti's research

"I think it is a confirmation of my career progression from the department and the faculty; a positive nod so to speak", he told the Department of Political website.   

What research and/or projects are you currently involved in? 
"Now I am involved in a few things that broadly fall within two core clusters of research: interest groups behaviour and regulation, and the political accountability of experts. 

In the former cluster, I am focusing on lobbying and political finance in the EU, a comparative of lobbying regulations across political systems, and a review study of research on business strategy.

The latter cluster addresses how elected officials hold to account expert-agencies through deliberative procedures (such as committee hearings)", Alexander Katsaitis said. 
 
I understand you just got a co-edited handbook published. What are the main take-aways/conclusions from your research on lobbying and public policy? 

Handbook on Lobbying and Public Policy
 

"I am pleased to see this handbook finally out! It contains 37 chapters produced by 50 contributors located in Europe, the USA, Brazil, and Japan. 

The handbook offers a nuanced understanding of the relationship between public policy and lobbying. It includes a section that assesses macro-systemic perspectives (that is why/how different interest intermediation systems impact lobbying; a section examining the impact that different stages and actors of the policy process have on lobbying strategies (e.g. agenda-setting; political parties; civil society); a section that assesses how different political structures affect interest groups role in policy (e.g. we look at the EU, the USA, and Japan, amongst others); and finally a section that observes lobbying across different policy fields (e.g. Agriculture; Tobacco; LGBTQ; Finance). 

I genuinely think this is a solid handbook for students that want to engage with the topic at the undergrad and graduate level. 

The main take-away from the book is that interest group involvement in public policy has exploded and continues to grow across the board. On the one hand, we observe some common behaviours and strategic choices across the board. Notably, the rise of pluralism has impacted lobbying ecosystem across the world. We now observe lobbying populations with a lot of similarities even in places we thought this was less likely e.g. think tanks in Germany, and diverse lobbying strategies.

On the other hand, when we look closer there are still notable differences in interest groups' activity especially across issue areas and across policy stages. Overall, this weaves a tapestry that is logical (there is a systematic behaviour that we can observe, measure, and theorise) however, it is particularly rich; similar to kaleidoscope where a simple parameter change alters the observation in a significant fashion", he said. 

What will you do next (upcoming projects, books etc)?
"That is a good question. Not sure yet" Alexander Katsaitis said adding that he will be "trying to focus on a funding application for the next round of calls".