Lobbying in the US and Turkey: One Word, Two Different Worlds

In Turkey the word “lobby” is mostly used as an accusation: “such-and-such lobby is at work”, “they are running a lobbying campaign”. In Washington the same word is a job title. It goes on business cards, and who was paid how much on whose behalf ends up in public records.

That contrast keeps bringing me back to one question: is the real problem lobbying itself, or the fact that it stays invisible? In this piece I want to look at how the two countries answer it.

What exactly is lobbying?

Put simply, lobbying is organised activity aimed at persuading decision-makers to support or block a policy on behalf of a person, company, association or government.

US law ties it to a very concrete act: the “lobbying contact”. Under the statute, a lobbying contact is any oral or written communication, including electronic communication, made on behalf of a client to a covered official in the executive or legislative branch [2]. It is not a shadow. It is a conversation that can be put on record.

The US: make it visible, don’t ban it

Two main laws govern lobbying in the United States.

The first is the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA), signed by President Bill Clinton [4]. Anyone paid by a client for services that include more than one lobbying contact, and who spends at least 20 percent of the time serving that client on lobbying over a three-month period, is a “lobbyist” under the Act [2]. A lobbyist must register with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House no later than 45 days after the first lobbying contact or after being hired to make one, whichever comes first [3]. A 2007 amendment made lobbying reports quarterly [4].

The second is much older: the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). It requires anyone carrying out political activity in the US on behalf of a foreign government or entity to register and disclose that activity [1]. According to the Department of Justice, the law’s central purpose is transparency about foreign influence in the country. It does not limit the content of speech or messaging, and the filings are public [1].

To me the shared philosophy of the two laws is clear: trying to influence is legitimate, but everyone should be able to see who is trying to influence whom.

Turkey: a field without rules

Turkey is the mirror image. According to Melike Sönmez’s 2024 thesis at Marmara University, the Turkish legal system has no dedicated lobbying regulation and does not regulate several elements of how lobbying works [5].

That does not mean nobody lobbies in Turkey. It means nobody keeps a record of it. There is no systematic way to find out who met which ministry about which bill, or who was paid what for that meeting.

A model is already available. In 2017 the Council of Europe issued Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)2, setting out principles for member states to consider when designing lobbying rules [5]. Sönmez’s thesis builds on that framework to propose a model for Turkey [5].

Turkey in Washington: what the filings say

Here is the irony: the most detailed data on Turkey’s lobbying comes not from Turkish records but from American ones.

According to the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, which based its calculation on FARA filings, Turkey-linked lobbying spending in the US reached roughly $153 million between 2015 and 2025 [6]. The report says about $48 million of this went to firms hired directly on behalf of the government, and about $105 million to spending channelled mainly through civil society organisations [6]. Citing a 2026 Congressional Research Service report, the same article says Turkey worked with 105 lobbying and law firms between 2001 and 2021 [6].

The point here is not to label these figures good or bad. Every country hires lobbyists in Washington to defend its interests. What stands out is that a Turkish citizen can learn about their own country’s foreign lobbying spending only from an American database.

The cost of invisibility

In my view, what Turkey needs is not a ban on lobbying but a way to make it visible. A registration system, regular reporting and an open database anyone can search would be a good start. That is the whole logic of the path the US began in 1938 and widened in 1995.

As long as it stays invisible, lobbying will keep earning the bad reputation the word carries. So what lets it earn that reputation: the activity itself, or a system that prefers to keep it off the books?

Sources

1. U.S. Department of Justice, “FARA — Frequently Asked Questions”
2. 2 U.S. Code § 1602 — Definitions (Lobbying Disclosure Act), Cornell Law School LII
3. 2 U.S. Code § 1603 — Registration of lobbyists, Cornell Law School LII
4. Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 — Wikipedia
5. Melike Sönmez, “Lobbying regulations: Practices of the Council of Europe countries and a suggested model for Türkiye”, Marmara University (2024)
6. Yılmaz Polat, “Türkiye, son 10 yılda ABD’deki şirketlere 150 milyon dolardan fazla para harcadı”, Cumhuriyet, 16 April 2026 (Turkish)

Glossary: FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act), Lobbying

The views in this piece are my own and do not represent the organisations I am part of.