Why We Need a Formal, Mandatory, and Remunerated “Citizen Lobby”

At the end of the twentieth century, the end of the Cold War suggested that freedom and democracy were the name of the game. The launch of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s promised a free flow of information and knowledge as well as borderless access to people across the connected world. Democracy was now likely to become more than a system operated by an elite on behalf of “the people,” becoming instead something the people themselves could actively take part in—beyond merely being the smallest denominator of the electorate.

The new millennium has, nevertheless, brought a number of counter-developments. Neither the East–West nor the North–South global dialogues have delivered the long-term socioeconomic stability hoped for. Trade, energy, and political interests—combined with various forms of fundamentalism—have contributed to a renewed arms race that many believed had ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

Alongside—and perhaps contributing to—these developments, there has been a post-1989 trend toward political neoliberalism. This ideology argues that ultimate freedom of choice will liberate us from unwanted authority. However, it also encourages a focus on short-term values such as increased consumption and freedom from collective responsibilities, often at the expense of equality, empathy, and solidarity. This trend has coincided with a revival of nationalistic ideologies, in which “we-versus-them” thinking has become increasingly prominent.

The convergence of geopolitical tensions, resurgent nationalism, and market-driven neo- liberalism constitutes the perfect storm for power politics, where “the winner takes all.” The winners tend to be those who already possess significant resources. While political power has always generated wealth, wealth today, increasingly, also generates political power. Corporate political posturing—where corporate interests discreetly influence politics—makes lobbying highly profitable, often at the expense of those with fewer or no resources.

The Citizen Lobby intends to counter this development and give the electorate a stronger voice—not to block corporate and institutional lobbies but to balance them. Its purpose is to remind elected parliamentarians who elected them, who pays their salaries, and who may or may not reelect them.

In this essay, I argue that social media and the Internet—contrary to popular belief—are not sufficient to ensure that elected parliamentarians truly represent their voters rather than those who lobby them between elections.

Generalized particularism and the role of premises

In my book The Citizen Lobby: From Capacity to Influence, I argue for a mandatory and remunerated people’s lobby to represent the electorate in the face of vested interests represented by political parties and corporate or institutional lobbies. Political parties and corporate/institutional lobbies exist to represent specific ideas and interests. In “Further Reflections on the Public Sphere,” Jürgen Habermas describes this as “generalized particularism”—a process in which vested interests are re-formulated and re-presented as if they were of general public interest, even when they are not.

This is not necessarily sinister; in a democracy, everyone is entitled to personal or institutional preferences. Our thinking is shaped by premises we inherit or develop, and even people in the same community rarely share the same ones. Consider, for example, two residents of a small town in upstate New York: one a Catholic from a land-owning family, the other a Hindu from a family of traders. They may share local premises but differ culturally, historically, and economically. Compare them further to residents of the Bronx and Manhattan’s Upper East Side respectively—and then to the premises of Big Capital and Big Tech. The divergence expands significantly.

While citizens vote every three, four, or five years, policymaking continues daily. Circumstances change. What seemed wise before an election may appear misguided later. Corporate and institutional actors, seeing strategic or commercial gain, treat lobbying as an investment and allocate substantial resources accordingly. Since politicians are, after all, human, those who try to influence them most often, inevitably, shape their views and decisions. Without an equivalent voice for the electorate, this influence becomes structurally one-sided.

A counterforce is therefore needed. Below, I argue why the Internet and social media are insufficient—and why a Citizen Lobby must be mandatory.

Why we Need a formal, mandatory, and remunerated citizen lobby

The Citizen Lobby would consist of a rotating group of citizens, each batch representing 0.25% of the population. Participants would be randomly selected and serve for five consecutive weeks once in their lifetime. Each selected participant would act as a shadow parliamentarian and receive state remuneration (though less than elected officials). Their task would be to present and represent the electorate’s collective view on issues debated and to be debated in parliament. Because participants are selected randomly and participation is mandatory, the Citizen Lobby reflects the demographic and socioeconomic diversity of the electorate far more accurately than voluntary participation mechanisms such as public consultations or online debates.

Professional lobbying occurs across industries, including oil and gas, defense, automotive, finance, pharmaceuticals, and high-tech. The tobacco industry has, historically, significantly influenced legislation despite established scientific evidence of harm. In fact, most industries engage in lobbying via associations, unions, think tanks, and consultants. The Citizen Lobby could be compared to mandatory military service or jury duty. It would, however, remain truly civil in nature. Parliamentarians would still retain their authority over and responsibility for decision-making, but by registering individual members of parliament’s (MPs’) votes in a Citizen Lobby database, their votes could be compared to Citizen Lobby recommendations, enhancing accountability and helping to inform reelection strategies. That is not populism. It is showing respect to the constituency.

Making participation mandatory ensures representation beyond activists and opinion leaders. Busy executives and politically disengaged citizens must also be represented if democracy is to reflect the whole electorate. Remuneration is necessary because few can afford five weeks of unpaid service.

Social media’s algorithm trap and the “long tail”

The Citizen Lobby addresses, as discussed at length in the book, the role of the Internet in digital democracy. The rise of AI in social media has further intensified existing concerns.

The “long tail” phenomenon—described by Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody—suggests that only about 20% of participants actively contribute to debates, while the remaining 80% primarily react. This creates new digital elites who, despite differing from traditional elites, still require visibility, funding, and followers to remain influential. Since such visibility requires sponsoring—in turn calling for return favors—those sponsoring them are typically part of the commercial and/or political elites whose interests constitute the bulk of what Jürgen Habermas calls “generalized particularism,” whereby the circle of influence is closed.

Social media algorithms create filter bubbles that connect like-minded users. While presented as community-building, this structure enables targeted monetization. Algorithms identify and deliver content to receptive audiences, helping vendors, ideology promoters, conspiracy theorists, and scammers alike to pinpoint and reach out to their prioritized target groups. Algorithms can, furthermore, be programmed to suppress counterarguments, reinforcing the illusion of consensus.

AI-generated content further blurs the line between truth and fabrication. Images, statements, and supporter counts can be manipulated. Online discourse is therefore vulnerable to distortion and cannot reliably represent collective opinion. This is not only because algorithms shape what users see but also because participation is voluntary and self-selecting, meaning that large segments of the population—including the politically disengaged, the elderly, and those without digital access—are systematically excluded.

For these reasons, the Citizen Lobby must be legally established, formally organized, and mandatory.

Purpose and benefits

The Citizen Lobby has multiple purposes: First, it educates participants about policymaking. Members select a ministerial area aligned with their interests and hence engage substantively with issues relevant to them. Somebody interested in social matters may link to the Ministry of Social Affairs. Somebody interested in finance may link to the Ministry of Finance. And so on. Second, participants will encounter diverse perspectives from other lobby members, eventually gaining a broader understanding while practicing civil deliberation. Third, it intends to inform parliamentarians of collective public opinion before decisions are made.

Many policies may appear minor but are actually building blocks in a long-term strategy with significant consequences. As modern policymaking is often both technical and opaque, citizen engagement prior to decision-making can inform lobby participants and those with whom they socially communicate, thereby possibly also preventing policy-outcomes undesirable to themselves. Although community members getting upset over decisions already made sometimes leads to revisions, it is both smoother and more democratic to be pro-active than only re-active, which is what the Citizen Lobby-process intends to facilitate.

Fourth, structured dialogue and interaction, as well as transparent recording of parliamentary votes in a Citizen Lobby database accessible to all citizens (whether they have participated in it yet or not), compared to the Citizen Lobby’s recommendation on that particular issue, would enhance accountability. Voters can then assess whether their representatives align with the collective’s recommendations or with other—their own or commercially biased—interests. In most parliaments, the party whip also tends to ignore the more local needs and ambitions upon which MPs were elected, in favor of the stance held by the party leadership. Publicly comparing MPs’ votes with Citizen Lobby recommendations introduces reputational and electoral pressure that can counterbalance party-whip discipline, giving MPs stronger incentive to consider their respective constituents’ views.

It is also likely that society at large would benefit from a mandatory Citizen Lobby. Over time, when such an institution is established and a recognizable part of the population has participated in it, citizens are likely to become more politically aware of their society’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, in turn becoming more capable and interested in helping their society to thrive. This may also reduce today’s fairly widespread contempt of politicians, replacing it with an interactive dialogue benefiting the democratic process.

With such a structure in place, Jürgen Habermas’s concept of deliberative democracy—where legitimacy arises from inclusive and rational public discourse—becomes more attainable. The Citizen Lobby institutionalizes broad participation and structured deliberation, providing the procedural foundation that the Internet alone does not offer.