“A legal and empirical investigation into direct selling Industry’s Advocacy in the EU”

Supervisor:

• prof.mr. J.M. Smits

The study is the first comprehensive enquiry into the interplay between EU law and the direct selling industry lobby. The dissertation explores the extent to which the industry advocacy has managed to influence various terrains of European law and what lobbying techniques are used to that end by various actors of the industry lobby.
The relevance of the research is twofold: from a democratic perspective, the study increases lobbying transparency and visibility of interest representation. Secondly, the dissertation entails policy recommendations to achieve better regulation in order to remedy distortions stemming from imbalanced lobbying.

Key words:
lobbying, transparency, democracy, social justice, direct selling industry advocacy