Corporate lobbying in the State Duma: Opportunities for Institualization

The aim of the paper is to develop basic arguments for institualization of corporate lobbying in Russian State Duma. The corporate lobbying is operationalized as commercial activity performed on a regular basis by an entity on behalf of corporates on the basis of the contract with the aim to communicate with lawmakers in connection with specific draft law. There is detailed analysis of lawmaking procedure and normative environment of business-lawmakers interaction in Russia. The research shows that institualization of corporate lobbying in Parliament (1) would not change the number and composition of veto players and veto points of lawmaking procedure and (2) would decrease "grey zone" in communication between business and government. There have been revealed several informal points of access for corporate lobbyists to the lawmaking procedure, which should be specifically taken into account while drafting the regulation. Main elements of possible regulation of corporate lobbying in Russian lawmaking process are suggested.