Foreign Interest Groups and American Foreign Policy.

长期以来，游说在政客、学者以及最重要的美国选民中一直是一个有争议的问题。这一现象的一个特别有争议的方面是外国委托人的游说：国家、外国政党、外国跨国公司或外国国民游说国会、行政部门或行政机构，试图改变美国的政策，使外国委托人受益。尽管存在争议，但关于外国游说团体在哪些政策领域或环境下影响美国外交政策，实际上几乎没有什么有用的知识。现有的研究通常基于轶事案例，往往优先于社会科学的规范性判断。因此，几乎没有系统性的证据能揭示外国实体何时或如何游说美国决策者。在寻求回答这些重要问题的过程中，这项研究利用了已经作为《外国特工注册法》(FARA)的一部分提供给司法部(DoJ)的数据。当外国利益集团聘用美国游说者时，他们必须向美国司法部登记自己的活动，这些信息随后以半年度报告的形式提交给国会。然而，到目前为止，还没有对这些数据进行分析，以了解外国原则何时游说美国、外国委托人如何游说美国以及这些外国游说努力的“回报”包括哪些方面的总体趋势。考虑到这项法律是在第二次世界大战之前颁布的，这令人惊讶。该项目将首先使用FARA过去50年的报告创建一个可访问的数据库(目前只有前10年可以访问)。该数据库可供学者、从业者和公民使用，以追踪来自任何国家的外国负责人的游说活动。调查人员将把FARA的数据与其他数据库的数据(特别是联邦选举委员会[FEC]数据和立法披露法案[LDA]数据)整合起来，以全面了解面向国际的游说活动。结合这些数据来源还可以检验外国校长使用了哪些影响策略：支持候选人选举(FEC)；直接游说个别决策者(LDA)；或者雇佣代表外国校长进行任何形式游说的传统游说公司(FARA)。第二，研究人员将使用这些数据来回答上面提出的问题：谁在游说，为了什么问题，为了什么目的？在一项使用FARA十年报告的试点研究中，对美国外交政策的一个领域--贸易关税--的初步分析表明，各国更多地游说，无论是花费的金额还是外国委托人授予美国游说者的合同数量，都会降低美国对这些国家的关税。即使考虑到许多其他影响关税税率的因素，这一结果也是成立的。一个更全面的外国主要游说数据库将使试点研究得以扩展，并将调查扩大到许多其他领域，如外国援助支付、人权评级和谴责以及经济制裁。新数据将允许以仔细、系统的方式评估关于外国游说团体的旧的和新的猜测，而不是依赖于对游说团体的单一案例研究。该项目开辟了新的领域，旨在确定国际游说努力是否、何时以及如何以系统的方式改变美国的外交政策。因此，研究结果可能会导致一场关于这一现象的更具信息量的辩论。此外，这些调查结果应该为希望修改现行游说规则的政策制定者提供指导，指出游说努力集中在哪里，并孤立它们可能产生的任何影响。

Lobbying has long been a controversial issue among politicians, academics, and, most importantly, American voters. One particularly contentious aspect of the phenomenon is lobbying by foreign principals: countries, foreign political parties, foreign MNCs, or foreign nationals that lobby Congress, the executive branch, or administrative agencies in an attempt to change US policy to benefit the foreign principal. Despite the controversies, little useful knowledge actually exists about the policy areas or circumstances under which foreign lobbies influence US foreign policy. Extant research is usually based on anecdotal cases and often privileges normative judgment over social science. As a result, very little systematic evidence sheds light on when or how foreign entities lobby American decision-makers. Nor is it known to what end they do so.In seeking to answer these important questions, this research capitalizes on data that is already provided to the Department of Justice (DoJ) as part of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). When foreign interest groups hire American lobbyists, they must register their activities with the DoJ and this information is subsequently submitted to Congress in semi-annual reports. To date, however, no analysis of these data has been conducted to understand general trends about when foreign principles lobby the US, how foreign principals lobby the US, and what the "return" on these foreign lobbying efforts comprises. This is surprising given that the law was enacted prior to World War II.The project will first create an accessible database using FARA reports from the past 50 years (only the previous 10 years are currently accessible). The database can be used by scholars, practitioners, and citizens alike to track lobbying efforts by foreign principals from any country. The investigator will integrate the FARA data with data from other databases (specifically, Federal Election Commission [FEC] data and Legislative Disclosure Act [LDA] data) to gain a full picture of international-oriented lobbying. Combining these data sources will also allow an examination of what influence tactics are used by foreign principals: supporting candidates in elections (FEC); direct lobbying of individual decision-makers (LDA); or hiring traditional lobbying firms that engage in any manner of lobbying on behalf of the foreign principal (FARA).Second, the researcher will use the data to answer the questions posed above: who lobbies, over what issues, and to what end? In a pilot study using ten years of FARA reports, initial analysis in one area of U.S. foreign policy, trade tariffs, suggested that more lobbying by countries, in terms of both the amount of money spent and the number of contracts awarded to American lobbyists by foreign principals, decreases US tariff rates towards those countries. This result holds even when accounting for a host of other factors influencing tariff rates. A more comprehensive database of foreign principal lobbying will enable an extension of the pilot study and expand the investigation into numerous other areas such as foreign aid disbursements, human rights ratings and denouncements, and economic sanctions. The new data will permit evaluation of old and new conjectures about foreign lobbies in a careful, systematic fashion, rather than relying on single case studies of lobbies.Staking out new ground, the project is designed to define whether, when, and how international lobbying efforts change American foreign policy in a systematic fashion. The research findings should thus be likely to lead to a more informative debate about the phenomenon. Moreover, the findings should provide guidance to policymakers who wish to revise current rules on lobbying by indicating where lobbying efforts are concentrated and isolating any effects they may have.