The most important findings to emerge from the comparison were the emphasis in defining lobbyists by their activities, and the strong emphasis on remuneration as a defining feature of a lobbyist.
The definition of a particular sort of actor by their actions is a useful lesson as it allows greater precision and coverage, especially where political processes are themselves tightly prescribed. At the same time it points to the difficulty in fixing any perfect definition. The difficulty is that identified earlier by Pross, namely defining with sufficient precision without being partial.
The analytical framework was of only limited use in comparing interest group definitions across countries. Many of the elements identified as important distinctions in the academic literature, such insider or outsider, were unmentioned in the legislative text.
As expected, lobbyists are necessarily organised, though surprisingly need not necessarily intend to influence legislation. The absence of intent from the definitions of Canada and the USA is because enforcing regulation through the courts was difficult when it was necessary to establish evidence of an ‘attempt to influence’ (Pross 2007: 14).
The distinction between sectional and promotional groups was important only in Germany which regulated, and privileged sectional groups. In Canada, a faint distinction is made between organisations and corporations, although any distinction between sectional and promotional interests is implied by these categories rather than explicitly defined. Each of the definitions examined did however make distinctions between interest groups additional to those in the academic literature.
The framework was able to provide a mechanism for looking at different elements within the definitions and assisted in making fine distinctions between definitions.
