Alemanno - Lobbying for change: find yout voice to create a better society

LOBBYING FOR CHANGE

LOBBYING FOR CHANGE

FIND YOUR VOICE TO CREATE A BETTER SOCIETY

ALBERTO ALEMANNO

Published in the UK in 2017
by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,
3941 North Road, London N7 9DP
email:
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ISBN: 978-178578-285-5

Text copyright 2017 Alberto Alemanno

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Minion by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

To my girls, Mariana, Marianita, Isabella and Allegra Alemanno, who make me smile every day and remind me how beautiful life is.

Acknowledgements

W hen I began working on this book two years ago, the case for citizen lobbying was incipient, yet not clear. Had the book been published at that time it would have been both premature and prescient. Today lobbying for change appears to be an urgent and salient necessity. Amid a rapid acceleration of the political narratives and an ongoing transformation of economic and social agendas across liberal democracies, a citizen awakening has indisputably occurred. Millions of citizens across the world are becoming increasingly aware of their own collaborative power. This book is firstly dedicated to them.

This book would have never seen the light of day without the generous and inspiring contribution of many people who expressed interest in my ideas and work over the years. I am extremely grateful to my own institution HEC Paris, in particular the HEC Foundation and Labex Ecodec, as well as NYU School of Law, for the support received over the years and for letting me experiment with new forms of teaching and engaged scholarship. Thanks to HEC I was able to pioneer mass online teaching, by first making all my recorded classes freely available on iTunes and, second, by designing a Massive Open Online Course on Coursera. As a result, I reached out to more than 200,000 people around the globe. While I could not meaningfully engage with all of them (their figure is higher than the total number of students I will be meeting in my entire academic career), I have had the opportunity to meet many of them, often serendipitously (in the Paris metro, at airports and conferences), and learn from them. I cant image a more rewarding teaching and human experience. Thanks to NYU School of Law I was able to set up the EU Public Interest Clinic which has served dozens of civil society organisations while training a new generation of public interest lawyers. My students have been an excellent early audience, attentive and receptive, often critical of many of the views exposed in this book.

Several other audiences, from Tokyo University (where I teach every October on the Masters in Public Policy programme) and St. Gallen University (where Ive designed the Lobbying & Advocacy module), to the participants in the EU Pro Bono Masterclasses we offer across Europe, also provided useful feedback.

From the very first moment we met, Kiera Jamison was a dream editor: patient and wise. She believed in my project from day one! Thank you to Andrew Furlow and his team at Icon Books for a smooth publication ride as well as to my publicist Ruth Killick.

I was lucky enough to receive advice and feedback from a close group of trusted friends: Alessandro Spina, Gianluca Sgueo, Helen Darbishire, Bing Taylor, Andras Baneth, Rosana Plaza, Benjamin Bodson, Igor Celikovic, Anne-Lise Sibony, Cliff Wirajendi, Leandro Machado, Ana Benje, Ailish Campbell, Jo Sparber and Yacine Kouhen. Ive also benefited from advice and exchanges with Slav Todorov, Amandine Garde (Liverpool University), Daniel Freund (Transparency International EU), Mariella Palazzolo (Telos), Lisa Witter (Apolitico), Aidan OSullivan (EU Ombudsman), Cinzia Ansaldi, Heather Grabbe and Neil Campbell (Open Society), Cinzia Seccamani, Xavier Dutoit (We Move), Liz Hamburg (Taproot Foundation), Vesco Paskalev (Hull University), Laurent Pech (Middlesex University), Vigjilenca Abazi (Maastricht University) and the Riparte il Futuros team, in particular Federico Anghel and Mattia Ansaldi.

A special thanks goes to the community of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. Becoming a part of YGL has had a profound yet subtle change in my world views. It not only broadened my horizons and brought special friendships into my life, but also inspired and strengthened me to do more to bring positive change into the world.

Thanks must also go to Charlelie Jourdan and Gauthier Bas from Old Continent for the fruitful cooperation and mutual learning over the years. I am also grateful to Ros Taylor, Lucien Midot, Nick Jones and Alexander Preter for research and editorial assistance.

Finally, thanks to the extraordinarily talented and dedicated team at The Good Lobby. I am particularly grateful to my colleague and friend Lamin Khadar for believing in creating a community of citizen lobbyists together, as well as to our colleagues and friends Ana Benje, Alexandre Biard, Andrea Boccuni, Giacomo Delinavelli, Barbara Holzer, Rosana Plaza, Simona Pronckute, Thais Rivera, Jremy Charles, Roberto Tomasi, David Fernandez Rojo, Irina Lysenko, Andrea Tittelova and the many others who are joining our community.

Muchas gracias to my girls my wife Mariana and my daughters Marianita, Isabella and Allegra who make me smile and remind me daily how beautiful life is. And that is despite the many flights and the hours, days, weeks and months I spend in front of my computer, reading and writing instead of being with them. Another special grazie goes to my parents, Gianfranco and Biancamaria, who not only shared their youth with me and my sister Micol but whether deliberately or not offered me the best possible education to become first a citizen, and then a citizen lobbyist.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Henry David Thoreau

We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

J.K. Rowling

Introduction

I f youre anything like me, you are probably unhappy with the way the world and our societies are working. And with good reason.

We, citizens living in democratic societies, are richer, safer, live longer and respect each others rights more than ever before, yet we tolerate daily injustice and growing inequality.

We have talents, expertise and plenty of friends (and we exchange thoughts and images with them daily on social media), yet we mobilise them not to improve the lives of the less privileged, but to make our own lives marginally more comfortable.