Partisanship and institutionalization are more important to group formation and dynamics than is often recognized in the literature on interest groups. This study examines the contrasting cases of small business group formation and dynamics in Japan and the United States to demonstrate how opposition to the party or parties in power was crucial to the timing and nature of the largest small business organizations formed in both countries. Parties are also important to subsequent developments in the organization and institutional interactions of the sector. It is these processes which explain the divergent outcome whereby the US small business sector is identified with the political right and the small business in Japan with the political left.

Industry lobbying is traditionally thought of as a non-excludable good subject to collective action problems that are most easily solved by concentrated industries. However, there is very little empirical support for this hypothesis. In this paper, we address a major shortcoming of existing work on the topic: Its near-exclusive reliance on data from the US. Using comparative firm-level survey data from up to 74 countries, we construct an industry-level indicator of concentration and test its effect on firms’ lobbying activity. Using multilevel Extreme Bounds Analysis and Bayesian Variable Selection techniques to account for model uncertainty, we find no evidence that industry concentration is a predictor of lobbying activity. We discuss the implications of these non-findings for the literature and outline possible avenues for further research.

While the West is struggling to find a way out of recession, emerging markets present myriad opportunities for growth. This paper offers a new perspective on how global economic triangulation facilitates trade between regions. Triangulation occurs where barriers exist to trade and investment between two countries and a third party (e.g., a country) acts as a facilitator or bridge. The “bridge model,” as we call it, shifts the focus away from national policy as a facilitator of international trade and emphasizes the role of companies. Corporate bridge-building is essentially a form of economic triangulation, and we use the terms “bridge” and “triangulation” interchangeably. Various examples are cited to show how Spanish multinational companies have served as a bridge connecting Asia and Latin America, and in so doing have expanded their own business. Thanks to their links with both regions they create business relationships that might otherwise be impeded by cultural or language barriers, facilitating the flow of products, knowledge and financial resources. In this way firms in otherwise stagnating economies have an opportunity to grow by facilitating trade and investment between emerging markets via the bridge model.

The creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 was a landmark in the development of the liberal international economic order. Yet the global economic crisis of 2008 put the spotlight on the longstanding question whether WTO membership limited the policy choices of governments coping with distress. This Special Issue of Business and Politics uses the crisis as a “stress test” for evaluating the prominent thesis that multilateral trade rules presently impose sharp limits on national industrial policies. The evidence from a wide range of sectoral and national contexts suggests that the WTO's ability to constrain member governments’ use of industrial policy is highly exaggerated. As we argue in this introductory essay, and as the studies in this Issue show, assertions of the WTO's strength do not reflect the incomplete and contested nature of its accords and the imperatives of policymaking in an era when many governments simultaneously intervene in national economies.

Wind power remains one of the fastest growing energy sources in the world, even as countries have struggled to come back from the global economic crisis of 2008. Yet the sector's rise has been the product of a crucial shift in how governments approach renewable energy. To build political support for wind power, governments have added industrial policy instruments to traditional renewable energy deployment mechanisms. This paper argues that we are witnessing a rise in protectionism in the wind power sector growing out of specific political and economic challenges at the national level that have arisen in the period following the 2008 crisis. In addition, this paper demonstrates that protectionism, justified by a rationale of promoting local economic development, takes many forms, and countries have come up with ever more varied and sophisticated methods of using industrial policy to establish and protect nascent, strategic industries. Finally, it challenges conventional wisdom that protectionism is reserved for the emerging economies as either a strategy to improve economic competitiveness or as a short cut to technological innovation. It demonstrates that while these strategies do indeed persist in emerging economies, North America and Western Europe continue to protect their own wind industries, even as they initiate disputes with countries for implementing similar measures.

The economic success of state-led forms of capitalism in Russia, China and some other autocracies is one of the most challenging developments for existing typologies of comparative political economy research. For the OECD-World complex theories and models assess the interrelation of polity and economy (e.g., Hall/Soskice), while well defined and systematic approaches for autocracies are seldomly found. Most of the existing work are rather idiosyncratic case studies. We argue that by climbing up the ladder of abstraction (Sartori), we gain analytical leverage and comparability between cases and regions. That's why we've developped an idealtype called “incorporated capitalism.” By looking at state-capitalist developments in China, Singapore, Saudi-Arabia or Russia, there is strong empirical evidence for a variety of “incorporated capitalism”: bureaucratic market economies and patrimonial market economies. Why are those types of capitalism so successful? In order to answer this question correctly, we have to consider other questions first: 1) Which are the specific patterns of interaction between polity and economy? 2) What are the unique governance mechanisms in those incorporated capitalisms? Using mainly qualitative methods we will empirically proof our theoretical findings in order to decode the special complementarities of the bureaucratic and patrimonial market economy in those four real types mentioned above.

Despite a considerable push by policy-makers to incentivize green business practices, take-up of environmental initiatives amongst North American retailers has been highly uneven. While some “big-box” retailers have launched ambitious environmental initiatives, others continue to conduct business as usual. This paper asks: why do some mega-retailers commit to ambitious environmental agendas while others in the same sector do not? And how can the answer to this question improve public policy? I investigate these questions using comparative case studies of four North American big-box retailers: Wal-Mart, Target, Costco and Kroger. My findings suggest that the socialization of senior executives through multi-stakeholder sustainability networks is the critical variable accounting for progressive environmental practices in some corporations and not others. This finding suggests that existing public policies that focus on making the business case for sustainability are based on incomplete assumptions about why companies “go green.” It further suggests that socialization theory can help explain broader instances of corporate social responsibility and proposes that scholars in this field should devote more attention to the composition of socializing groups.

Mining companies are increasingly seen as co-governors of sub-Saharan Africa's gold mining industries, sharing sovereignty with states through private governance initiatives. Using interviews with company executives from the continent's largest gold mining firms this paper highlights the private authority of these firms vis-à-vis the state. This paper firstly examines the globalization and governance literature, focusing on why states share sovereignty with non-state actors. Secondly, a “three faces of power” framework is employed to understand how authority is exercised. Thirdly, private governance regimes specific to the mining industry are outlined. Finally, individuals’ and firms’ attitudes towards these private governance regimes are examined through an analysis of elite interviews. The theoretical and empirical analysis demonstrates that firms are formulating rules in order to increase certainty and reduce investment risk. These firms are engaging in private governance initiatives to build reputations as industry experts thereby controlling the regulation of their sector, rather than sharing authority with states.

Scholars and policymakers tend to see economic sanctions as an important tool of coercive diplomacy, even if the effectiveness of sanctions in changing the policies of target states remains highly contested. Though much of the research on sanctions focuses on their effects at the state level, this article argues that analyzing their effectiveness must begin with the industrial sectors they are meant to affect. Through analysis of restrictive measures currently in place against Iran, this article explores the impact of sanctions at the working level within the insurance industry, drawing on qualitative data gathered as part of a recent workshop funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and industry partners.

The Lobbying and Disclosure Act of 1995 requires lobbyists to disclose information about their lobbying activities. The resulting data is used by the website OpenSecrets.org (run by the Center for Responsive Politics) to give snapshot pictures of the amount of lobbying groups do. The same data has also been used by scholars to measure the impact of lobbying and to evaluate rent-seeking expenditures by firms. Unfortunately, users of the data are unaware of a reporting option for organizations under the LDA that has consequences for the validity of the data. LDA data does not accurately reflect the amount of money that an organization has spent trying to influence federal law because organizations may choose a reporting requirement under which they must also disclose the amount of money they spent to influence state laws. In this article I analyze the implications of this fact. I begin with a discussion of the problem's scope and then show how it misleads scholars.

The dual pressures of the global economic crisis in 2008 and high crude prices through the subsequent recovery period have prompted oil-producing countries to adopt a wide range of protectionist measures including subsidies in all forms and trade and investment restrictions. Focusing on fiscal and industrial policy adjustments in the UK and the People's Republic of China since 2008, this paper argues that both governments have sought an increase in tax contributions from the corporate sector in exchange for intensified, targeted support for specific capital investments that will address the challenges of overall decline in domestic oil production and new field exploration and oil recovery opportunities. These novel “rent-sharing” schemes – inadequately captured in recent academic debates over precise measurements of fuel subsidies – raise concerns for fair competition in the upstream market and politicians’ long-term commitment to the transitioning of energy mix toward green and renewable sources.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, governments turned to protectionist policies to support their financial sectors. Yet these policy choices have been highly variegated, and like many recent protectionist policies reflect a process of adaptation to changing circumstances. Using data on a variety of government interventions in the financial sector since the crisis, I show that financial protectionism comes in at least three types, only two of which have witnessed a traceable increase since the global financial crisis. These are protection through market entry restrictions (Type 1), through asymmetrically applied regulation (Type 2) and protection through subsidies (Type 3). While Type 1 has not appeared to change significantly since the crisis, Type 2 and Type 3 have. I present empirical evidence which suggests that while Type 3 financial protectionism proliferated during and shortly after the crisis, it is unlikely to continue. Type 2 financial protectionism, I conclude, is more likely to take off into the future because of the nature of interest group effects associated with asymmetric regulation as a form of government intervention.

Globalization is often described as a chaotic process which signals the end of national institutions’ ability to regulate markets. However, a closer look reveals a new world of standards and regulations, often with a transnational scope and reach. Contemporary rule making and rule monitoring increasingly take place in the context of transnational arenas that bring around the table many different types of actors, all of whom have or feel to have a “stake” in the regulatory project at hand, yet often for quite diverse reasons and with varying interests. While standardization would seem to suggest regularity, rationalization, and a reduction of diversity if not the advance of homogeneity and convergence, we can easily document a surprising multiplicity and plurality in our transnational world of standards. In most industries, fields and arenas, we find multiple standards and standard setting coalitions. Even so, scholars have only barely started to explore this multiplicity and plurality. Building upon what we know on technical standards, this Symposium describes and explains important patterns in the world of transnational standard-setting, revealing the nature of this plurality and the ways in which it impacts upon and is impacted by different groups of actors involved.

Since deregulation in 1980, there has been a major shift in antitrust enforcement to the states, specifically to state attorneys general (AGs). For advocates of deregulation, this move has had important unintended consequences. Specifically, it has allowed antitrust litigation to become hitched to the political incentives of AGs. Analysis of a panel dataset of all state antitrust actions between 1990 and 2008 suggests that antitrust enforcement by state attorneys general appears to follow electoral cycles, which is especially pronounced depending on specific institutional constraints that exist between the states.

Over time and across countries, researchers have noted frequent and mostly unexplained gender differences in the levels of support for policies of free or freer trade: according to aggregate results from many surveys, women tend to be less favorable toward policies of liberalizing trade than men. Positing an economic security explanation based largely on a mobile factors approach, we ask if it is women generally who are more negative toward trade or rather women who are more economically vulnerable – i.e., women from the scarce labor factor. We utilize data from two recent surveys on individuals’ attitudes toward different facets of trade and its effects to examine this hypothesis empirically. Rejecting a monolithic definition of “women,” we find that disaggregating by education level illuminates to some extent what underlying characteristics might be helping to drive some of these findings. Lower-skilled women in the US are much less likely to support free trade compared to higher-skilled women and this may largely explain previous negative findings. The low versus high-skill dynamic is, however, much less clear in the findings using survey data from a small sample of developing countries.

Analyses of transnational governance formation point to the destabilizing effects transnational standard setters have upon national institutional configurations. Isomorphic pressures, it is argued, lead to the standardization of procedures used and actors involved in standard setting processes. What is not clear, however, is to what extent this meta-standardization increases the chances for convergence of national with transnational standards. This article explores this question for the case of the international accounting standard for off-balance-sheet financing in the Netherlands, France and Germany. It argues that the reconfiguration of domestic governance architectures had a decisive impact on convergence processes. Counter-intuitively, copying goals, membership and procedures of the transnational, private International Accounting Standards Committee limited the chances of rule convergence, as it threatened to deinstitutionalize the standard-setting role of an important national champion of rule-convergence, the banking regulator. The institutional template developed at the transnational level created actor-mismatch at the national level between those formulating and those implementing the rules, thereby weakening the coalition for rule change. A strong coalition, however, is needed to overcome vested business interests that favor convergence with transnational templates for legitimacy gains at the same time that they oppose convergence to contentious rules that limit their business activities.

The commercial aircraft industry is no stranger to trade friction, which has brought bitter international disputes over industrial policy to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Yet despite the fact that several countries, notably China, Japan and Russia have stated their intentions to develop aircraft that can compete with other countries, these efforts have not led to a trade dispute. What explains this pattern? Drawing on sources such as the Global Trade Alert database, this paper argues that that the complexity of the aircraft industry generates considerable barriers to entry. Moreover, emerging aerospace states have not repeated earlier efforts of direct subsidy, but rather, they have sought to position themselves in the global aerospace value chain, with selective government interventions designed to help national champions accumulate the necessary technical experience though collaboration with incumbent firms. However, the very diversity of government supports may make protectionist measures more difficult to identify.

We argue that international trade affects party systems but that this impact is conditioned on the types of societal interests trade brings about. When factor mobility is high, trade promotes class-based grievances that are unlikely to affect the structure of the party system. However, when factor mobility is low, trade will increase the diversity of group interests and policy preferences, thereby pressuring structural change in the party system. A consequence is an increase in the effective number of political parties. The empirical analysis supports these expectations. This paper contributes to our understanding of the political impact of economic liberalization on representative democracy.