LE LOBBYING, UN VRAI MÉTIER POLITIQUE ? ÉLÉMENTS POUR UNE SOCIOLOGIE DES LOBBYISTES PROFESSIONNELS EN POLOGNE ET EN RÉPUBLIQUE TCHÈQUE.

Professional lobbying, appearing in central Europe thanks to the opening of markets to foreign investors, is a new source of jobs in the public sphere. Who occupies this profession, which is not very institutionalized and is ambivalent for public opinion? And what are their expectations? Are these middlemen between the private and public sectors involved in politics? A typology of lobbyists and an analysis of them as a professional group helps provide answers. This typology's major criterion of differentiation, which most lobbyists have in common, is a stint in the public sector. But it apparently has a paradoxical function. While fostering a practical and symbolic dependence on the public sphere, it provides lobbyists with control over the resources necessary for developing an autonomous status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]