Having explored Elster’s claims concerned the civilizing force of hypocrisy, there are two empirical questions to be asked. First, are Elster’s factual assumptions empirically plausible? Second, are there no other negative side effects relating to publicity that might outweigh the benefits identified by Elster? In the next section, we provide elements that may be relevant to answering the latter question. Let us briefly address the first challenge here. Daniel Naurin (2004) provides some interesting evidence in this respect. On the one hand, he refers to a study by Christian Joerges and Jurgen Neyer (1997) that looks closely at European Union comitology committees. Their study indicates that public-spirited deliberation can be present in such committees whose existence is unknown to most people. This may seem reassuring as it suggests that publicity is not necessary to foster truly deliberative behavior. However, on the other hand, Naurin refers to evidence from Nina Eliasoph (1998: 7) suggesting that, in the case of activists, while in backroom conversations these individuals tend to express themselves with reference to justice and common good concerns, shifting to a front stage context also increases their use of self-regarding arguments. Naurin’s (2004) own empirical data illustrate a similar trend in the case of industry lobbyists in the European Union context. In other words, a forum-like type of behavior is already present in the lobby corridor. Surprisingly enough, bringing lobbyists from the backstage to the front stage therefore risks making things worse from the point of view of reducing reference to mere self-interest. One should admittedly be cautious in extrapolating such results.[51] Still, both Eliasoph and Naurin identify a phenomenon that goes in the opposite direction of what Elster’s view implies. This is clearly a serious challenge to his account.