How do business firms decide on their strategies for political advocacy? What agents do they use to influence the business and governmental environments? Should a corporation use an outside agent such as a trade association or rely on an in-house public affairs manager? This book represents the first-ever comprehensive overview of the burgeoning phenomenon of corporate political agency. Beginning with the basic theoretical concerns of understanding the competitive nature of the democratic system, this collection moves on to the practical considerations of whether the various chosen forms of public affairs activity actually work as intended.
How do business firms decide on their strategies for political advocacy? What agents do they use to influence the business and governmental environments? Should a corporation use an outside agent such as a trade association or rely on an in-house public affairs manager? This book represents the first-ever comprehensive overview of the burgeoning phenomenon of corporate political agency. Beginning with the basic theoretical concerns of understanding the competitive nature of the democratic system, this collection moves on to the practical considerations of whether the various chosen forms of public affairs activity actually work as intended.
Corporate Political Activities Deskbook provides a thorough grounding in the current state of the law on federal and state campaign finance, pay-to-play, lobbying, and gift compliance. It serves as a practical manual for in-house attorneys who advise corporations about involvement in the political process.After describing the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United--that began the expansion of permitted corporate speech in the political realm--and McCutcheon v. FEC--that expanded the exemption further, the book examines thoroughly the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) requirements, federal lobbying and gift rules, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and practice and appearances before the FEC. The Deskbook includes an overview of state lobbying, gift, placement agent rules and pay-to-play rules as well as the federal pay-to-play rules (MSRB Rule G-37, SEC Rule 206(4)-5 and FINRA's proposed pay-to-play rule).Appendices include model documents, such as sample PAC bylaws, a PAC contribution card, a resolution for establishing a PAC, as well as a summary chart of the corporate, PAC and individual contribution limits in each of the 50 states.Corporate Political Activities Deskbook provides practical examples of best practices and "dos and don'ts." In many cases, the suggestions go beyond the black letter requirements to incorporate advice that can help corporations utilize the available avenues of interacting with the government while avoiding negative press, and public as well as legal regulatory attention.
This Essay explains why the investor-shareholder relationship gives rise to political agency problems that neither the Law and Economics nor the critical Corporate Social Responsibility literature have acknowledged. The corporate separation between ownership and management results in many social benefits, but imposes costs on the democratic process. The corporate structure requires managers, as agents, to maximize their principal shareholders' wealth. This requirement is insensitive to the principals' political preferences on how profits should be pursued, and may therefore result in an overall decrease in shareholders' welfare. This Essay suggests that these costs could be reduced by disclosing information about the impact of corporate activities on issues of political concern. Using insights from financial markets theory, it points out how disclosure of non-financial information would help to ensure a better alignment of corporate actions with the political preferences of shareholders, their rational passivity and apathy notwithstanding.
This book explores and critically reflects on the theory and practice of political agency in contemporary global politics. In light of the changing relationship between the state, the market and the society, it seeks to map both theoretically and empirically contemporary forms of global political agency. This book reflects on the theory and practice of political agency in contemporary global politics. More specifically, it empirically analyses a range of different forms of political agency and explores their significance for understanding and enacting global politics. Reflecting the efforts of scholars from a variety of disciplines from political theory and Sociology to Geography and International Relations, it brings into conversation a wide spectrum of theoretical approaches including Marxism, feminism, post-structuralism and historical institutionalism. The contributors compare a range of forms of political agency; exploring their significance for the theory and practice of global politics; and reflect on the tensions and synergies generated by recent efforts to conceptualise them. Demonstrating an innovative and interdisciplinary approach Contemporary Political Agency will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, sociology, political economy and political theory.
Drawing on the expertise of leading figures in the field, this handbook provides an overview of public affairs and government relations for students, CEOs, association executives, politicians, lobbyists and business managers.
Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.
This book explores and critically reflects on the theory and practice of political agency in contemporary global politics. In light of the changing relationship between the state, the market and the society, it seeks to map both theoretically and empirically contemporary forms of global political agency. This book reflects on the theory and practice of political agency in contemporary global politics. More specifically, it empirically analyses a range of different forms of political agency and explores their significance for understanding and enacting global politics. Reflecting the efforts of scholars from a variety of disciplines from political theory and Sociology to Geography and International Relations, it brings into conversation a wide spectrum of theoretical approaches including Marxism, feminism, post-structuralism and historical institutionalism. The contributors compare a range of forms of political agency; exploring their significance for the theory and practice of global politics; and reflect on the tensions and synergies generated by recent efforts to conceptualise them. Demonstrating an innovative and interdisciplinary approach Contemporary Political Agency will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, sociology, political economy and political theory.
We have long been told that corporations rule the world, their interests seemingly taking precedence over states and their citizens. Yet, while states, civil society, and international organizations are well drawn in terms of their institutions, ideologies, and functions, the world's global corporations are often more simply sketched as mechanisms of profit maximization. In this book, John Mikler re-casts global corporations as political actors with complex identities and strategies. Debunking the idea of global corporations as exclusively profit-driven entities, he shows how they seek not only to drive or modify the agendas of states but to govern in their own right. He also explains why we need to re-territorialize global corporations as political actors that reflect and project the political power of the states and regions from which they hail. We know the global corporations' names, we know where they are headquartered, and we know where they invest and operate. Economic processes are increasingly produced by the control they possess, the relationships they have, the leverage they employ, the strategic decisions they make, and the discourses they create to enhance acceptance of their interests. This book represents a call to study how they do so, rather than making assumptions based on theoretical abstractions.
Corporate Political Behavior centers on why corporations do what they do in politics. The text draws upon insights from the author’s forty years of government and political experience—insights placed within an operating framework grounded in the political science and strategic issue management disciplines. Robert Healy argues that corporate political behavior results from the interplay of behavioral drivers—commercial objectives, competitive political advantage, corporate political culture and leadership—and behavioral enablers—political capital, corporate political reputation, corporate campaign financing, and corporate political clout. This interplay all functions within a three-world environment: market, non-market, and internal corporate. The book examines how these factors structure a firm’s political positioning, its business-political strategies, and its political behavior as it seeks to attain its marketplace goals. The text features in-chapter side bars— events, or circumstances or political happenings of which the author either knew or participated—along with longer mini-cases in which the author also participated or was consulted. Each chapter concludes with a summary and takeaway points. Corporate Political Behavior will be applicable to courses in political science and in business school courses on strategic issue management, policy construction, corporate agency and corporate strategy, as well as of interest to corporations and practitioners.
