Lobbying as Rhetorical Framing in the “Sharing Economy": a Case Study on the Limits and Crisis of the Evidence Based Policy Paradigm

This paper critically discusses the "sharing economy", highlighting the conceptual ambiguity and the rhetorics that characterise this emerging phenomenon and the regulatory and policy disputes that have arisen around it. The paper considers both consumption oriented platforms and platforms intermediating labour and identify a number of rhetorical narratives that are then contrasted with the available empirical evidence. It shows that the debates on the sharing economy are characterised by value disputes, uncertain facts, high stakes and the need of urgent decision; despite the lack of robust evidence, rhetorical discourses are used by powerful concentrated interests for lobbying based on a convenient framing of the policy agenda. As decisions on regulation are taken or not taken in conditions of scientific uncertainty and under the framing implemented by concentrated interests, the paper argues that the approach of policy makers and regulators to the sharing economy exemplifies vividly the crisis of the Evidence Based Policy paradigm.