InstitutionalDUAL-USE

Revolving Door Influence

What it is

The movement of personnel between government regulatory roles and the industries they regulate, creating conflicts of interest and industry-favorable governance.

How it works

When regulators know they may soon work for the companies they oversee, they have incentive to be lenient. When industry executives become regulators, they bring industry perspectives and relationships. This creates a class of professionals whose loyalties span both sides, systematically tilting regulation toward industry interests.

Real-world examples

  • •Former pharmaceutical executives running the FDA drug approval process.
  • •Defense contractors hiring former Pentagon officials who maintain relationships with procurement decision-makers.
  • •Tech company lobbyists becoming congressional staffers who write technology legislation.

Ethical guidelines

Where the line is

Expertise moving between government and industry is legitimate and often valuable. It becomes manipulation when the prospect of future employment shapes present decisions, when cooling-off rules are evaded, or when access is traded rather than earned.

  • ●Cooling-off periods should be mandatory and long enough to meaningfully reduce conflicts.
  • ●Lifetime bans on lobbying former agencies should be considered for senior officials.
  • ●Financial disclosure and recusal requirements must be rigorously enforced.

How to defend against it

  • ►Track the career paths of officials making decisions that affect you — databases like OpenSecrets make this possible.
  • ►Support legislation strengthening cooling-off periods and lobbying restrictions.
  • ►Demand transparency about meetings between regulators and industry representatives.

From the Defense Playbook

Follow the Incentivesminutes

Before weighing a recommendation, find out what the person making it gains if you say yes (commission, funding, votes, attention, status), and adjust how much independent confirmation you require accordingly.

Every playbook entry states how strong its evidence is and when not to use it. Browse the full playbook.

References

  1. Stigler, G. J. (1971). The theory of economic regulation. The Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 2(1), 3–21
    The general capture thesis behind the entry: regulation tends to be acquired by, and operated for the benefit of, the industry it governs, because the industry has concentrated stakes and resources that the diffuse public lacks.
  2. Blanes i Vidal, J., Draca, M., & Fons-Rosen, C. (2012). Revolving door lobbyists. American Economic Review, 102(7), 3731–3748
    Evidence that what moves through the door is access rather than expertise: lobbyists who had worked for a U.S. senator lost roughly a quarter of their lobbying revenue when that senator left office, supporting the entry's claim that a class of professionals trades on relationships spanning both sides.
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