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.Frankenstein has been exorcised, at least for a while.extra: the gmo food arena 195 Arena Analysis: Necessary Means, No Sufficient GoalThe short exercise on the GMO food arena is no magic show but an exampleof the utility of thoughtful arena analysis for finally managing an arenamore successfully.It also illustrates the many reasoned options obtainablethrough systematic descriptive and analytical homework.Professionallobby groups consider this preparatory work as necessary in order to findsound answers to the question of whom to lobby in an arena on what.Theycan now see the best practices for window-in lobbying, as illustrated by theGMO case.Semi-professionals limit the homework to studying only a fewstakeholders and issues and perhaps some moments, and take the arenaboundaries as set, thereby failing to match the performance of profession-als.Amateurish groups that take into account little more than a few EU offi-cials, their own desires and usually a decision-making moment at a latestage of the game hardly have a chance of winning.Yet, like any sportingachievement, preparation is only the means and not the objective or, in aca-demic words, it is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for success.Even after the best preparation, at least four factors may contribute to losinga game regularly, a set sometimes, and perhaps a match.Firstly, inherent to every complex and dynamic situation there is always adegree of uncertainty, caused by a less than perfect quantity and quality ofinformation and an inevitable dependency on next-best solutions.The vol-ume of both observations and options makes their all-round processingmere howling at the moon, as for the game of chess that is simpler than thegame of an EU arena.Every player decides to the best of his knowledge, butthe level of knowledge may vary significantly.The smallest margin can,however, be decisive for the outcome, like a few balls in the match point intennis.The management of uncertainty is, in other words, the manage-ment of best possible knowledge, including chance and opportunity.Everyplayer, secondly, can have some bad luck, even if this is only the good luck ofa competitor.It may come from some special information or support.In the1992 HDTV case, Commissioner Filippo Pandolfi, personally in favour ofthis technology, was the embodiment of luck: good for the producing com-panies and bad for the opponents, and when he left in 1994 the luck re-versed.Good or bad luck is, however, seldom a message from heaven orhell.Often it can be (or could have been) foreseen by good homework andscenarios.Thirdly, the chance of winning is a factor.The best prepared andmost excellent player at the low side of a mountainous playing-field canhave less chance of winning than the amateur player entrenched in an up-hill bastion.In the 1998 GMO case, the food companies found they had a196 managing the eu arena downhill position.Chance, however, is not a metaphysical category.By stu-dious homework it can be noticed and responded to through appropriatemeasures that improve and stabilise chance.Finally, an otherwise professional lobby group can lose a game and evenits reputation, if its home organisation has become disorderly or in badshape.Even when all its preparatory homework for an arena has been car-ried out excellently but is not taken at home as input for strategy and man-date for action, then it cannot create a winning performance.In general,when the home organisation has no sufficient capacity for arena manage-ment, lacks a clear strategy, leaves its targets undefined or does not learnfrom its mistakes, whether forced or unforced, then it will bring even itsbest professional to despair instead of high performance.This is the themeof the next chapter.arena analysis: necessary means, no sufficient goal 197 CHAPTER 5MANAGING THE HOME FRONTWho Is Lobbying, Why, for What and with What Result?In this chapter, the lobby group is the unit of analysis.It may be the Siemenscompany, an NGO like Animal Welfare, the EuroFed CIAA (food industry),the Warsaw local government, the Regional Affairs Ministry of Italy, theAmCham in Brussels, the Commission or any other established organisa-tion of either a public or a private nature, and based either inside or outsidethe EU area.They have all been formally established, but have semi-for-mal or informal layers that exist either internally or externally and mayalso be relevant for consideration as a lobby unit.Internally, any part of anorganisation can behave as a lobby group, for example a company s divi-sion, a ministry s bureau, a Commission DG, a DG s unit, an EP inter-group, a section of an NGO, or the junior staff of MEPs.Every establishedinterest group participates in external networks and platforms that mightdevelop into lobby groups as well.They may take place as an ad hoc coali-tion, cross-sectoral platform, interface between industrialists and officials,Irishmen s club, meeting of French and German officials or a regular din-ner among ministers from applicant member states.The formally estab-lished interest group, however, remains our focus for the leading questionshere regarding internal organisation, strategy, targeted agendas and evalu-ation, in short for getting insight into who is acting, why, for what and withwhat result? , as summarised in Figure 3.3 and placed on the left-hand sideof Figure 1.2.The simple-minded lobby group answers the questions before they areposed.It takes its self-image as self-knowledge, its motivation for the actionas self-evident and its objectives as clear enough.It divides the results intotwo categories: the losses are to be blamed on others, and the gains comefrom its own performance.In daily life it will continually blame others andwhitewash itself.In contrast, the professional group knows that its internalaffairs are always an incomplete puzzle, its motivations uncertain and its199 objectives full of dilemmas.It divides the causes of both its losses and itsgains into either its own behaviour and/or outside (f)actors.It aims tostrengthen the causal relationship between its behaviour and the targetedresults of lobbying by improving its internal PA organisation.Many PA of-ficials spend more than half their energy on improving the home organisa-tion, the remainder spent on EU officials and competitors.Their own or-ganisation is often the most difficult arena, called the home front, requiringmuch ambition, study and prudency.Our approach is, once again, not normative but advisory.There is nogood reason why a lobby group or even a citizen should not be allowed to actin a simple-minded or amateurish manner.It may be in a situation that suf-ficiently justifies this.But if it wants to create real chances to influence itschallenging EU environment, then it must europeanize, by taking the EUarenas as sources of inspiration for the early improvement of its homefront.For this reason, chapter 4, on managing the EU arena, preceded thischapter.No lobby group can ever get a desired outcome from EU decision-making by an introverted focus on its own inner world, as this would blockits window-out and -in.It has to adapt its organisation, strategies and agen-das to EU constraints and possibilities permanently by allowing requiredvariability and flexibility within its internal affairs.The ambitious lobbygroup is also eager to learn all the time from both its own experiences andthose of others.These differences between amateurish and professionalbehaviour remain our focus
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