Thanks for your participation, Elliott. Hope to see you here again soon…

Indeed.

Thanks, DW. Hope to see you again soon!

Thanks, Ben! Thanks, Bev! And thanks to all the contributors to the discussion and those of you who followed along. It was fun and informative, as always.

Sorry! :)

Shifting gears slightly, but staying on a hopeful note (hopefully): Are there any members of Congress who manage to keep themselves above the fray, who refuse to accept contributions from these firms? If so, who are they? And how do we explain this if, in fact, the model of self-interested rational action drives policymakers to seek out money in order to secure reelection?

I was actually thinking about the Dalai Lama. How much money does China throw at firms to beat back pressure from him? Is it significant enough that the Dalai Lama’s presence actually contributes, indirectly, to the ballooning amounts of cash streaming from Beijing into the coffers of DLA Piper, Livingston, and other groups, and then on into the campaign war chests of members of congress?

That’ll be fun to peruse!

DW’sa comment about the dismantling of civil society got me thinking about other outfits that lobbby for the small fries of international relations, groups like Independent Citizen, which you touch on in the book. Can you talk to us about how these groups, which don’t concern themselves with profit, operate in Washington. Without the financial fire power of the big houses, how do they grab attention on the Hill? Are they successful?

I was actually wondering about the question of response to your book, and work generally: have the firms answered any of your criticisms or let you know how they, um, feel, since the publication of the book?

Wow! That sounds like a herculean task. Good luck to you, and please keep at. Really important work!

Fair enough. My other concern, then, would be that bans on contributions might create opportunities for increased corruption, engaged with by all parties. After all, the portraits you paint of these actors–foreign dictators, lobbyists who advocate for the highest bidders (whoever they may be), and American politicians desperate to gain reelection (and other perks)–aren’t exactly the most scrupulous bunch. Do you worry about this, or am I failing to consider other factors that ameliorate this concern?

Ben, it looks like you’ve found yourself a research assistant! ;)

Quick question on this: Can you give us a sense of what the foreign lobbying industry would look like if campaign contributions from lobbyists to elected officials were banned outright? Would governments even bother with them, or do you think they would focus their resources on more traditional diplomatic channels and practices?

I get the same sense. That, and media outlets are scaling back their funding for deep, investigative reporting, seems to me. The combination of these two factors doesn’t bode well for shining a spot light on these practices.

Following up on this, this is one of the more curious features of this whole phenomenon, as far as I can tell. That is, the stuff you document in the book is frequently shocking and outrageous (and I am not using those terms lightly). And yet, there’s virtually no attention given over to it, in both the media, nor in more scholarly circles. How is that? I would have thought the scoop would be more than juicy enough to inspire an investigative report or two. Thoughts about this?

Indeed. But as you point out in the book–the lawmakers, on this issue, are the ones directly benefiting from bad practice, which reduces the likelihood that reform will be forthcoming, and at the very least will be difficult to enact. What do you see as some of the more productive, and politically feasible, ways forward to getting foreign influence over American policy decision making under control?

Can you talk a little bit more about who some of these lobbyists are? And to what degree lobbying firms working on behalf of foreign agents are sending out formerly elected officials to purchase influence? There’s a sort-of revolving door here between elected office and getting hired onto the team of one of these lobbying firms, no?

Great question, and one that ties into eCAHNomics’s observation, which leads me to ask, Ben, is the extent to which the purchasing of influence in the United States on matters of foreign policy is unique *to* the United States? Is this sort of thing common in other nation-state settings in the same way it is in Washington, DC?

That’s really frightening in certain regards, especially when you frame it around the language of bribery, or, as Jack Abramoff termed it (correctly, in my view) “legalized bribery.” So, on to the nuts and bolts of the thing, you demonstrate pretty clearly that the foreign policy auction is largely exploited by a small handful of lobbying outfits that use big time money to literally buy influence on the Hill. The book focuses on two, in particular—DLA Piper and the Livingston Group. Who are these firms, and how do they operate?

Demi, I agree. And not only does he have hope, but Ben also has some ideas for how things can be reformed in the name of the public good. Hopefully we’ll get to some of the meat of his proposals later in the discussion.

Ha! Welcome, Ben. As you can see, there’s already some questions in the queue. At the risk of overloading, though, let’s jump right in. You argue that the sale of US foreign policy is the result of two converging phenomena: the increased importance of money in American politics, and increased technological connectedness. Can you flesh each of these things out, briefly, and discuss how they intersect to open the doors to foreign influence in US foreign policy?