Determinants of Firm‐Level Lobbying and Government Responsiveness in Agricultural Biotechnology in China

Understanding what stimulates agribusiness firms to lobby the government and what makes the government responsive to lobbying are the two issues that have been discussed extensively in the debates concerning determinants of biotechnology policy. This paper examines the factors influencing agribusiness firms' lobbying and government response using econometric modeling on a new data set of 160 leading agribusiness firms in the food, feed, chemical, and seed industries in China. The results show that approximately 10% of agribusiness firms lobbied the government about biotechnology policy and regulations and over half of those that lobbied received a verbal or written acknowledgment from government agencies. Seed and feed companies are more likely to engage in lobbying than chemical companies. Owning GM patents not only has a positive impact on firms' lobbying activities, but firms with these patents are more likely to receive a government response to their lobbying efforts. The experience of selling GM products does not significantly influence lobbying activities or response from the government.     

Mixing business with politics: Does corporate social responsibility end where lobbying transparency begins?

Scholars increasingly have argued that the future effectiveness and legitimacy of firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are dependent on more transparent forms of lobbying to ensure firms' policy positions are aligned with their CSR commitments. Very little empirical work, however, has systematically analyzed firms' lobbying disclosures or examined how these firms coordinate their lobbying and CSR activities. We address these empirical questions by analyzing the CSR reports of 150 corporations from Germany, the UK and the US over an 18-year period and by conducting interviews with the CSR managers of these firms. We find that corporations have become more transparent about their public policy advocacy over time, thus acknowledging that lobbying is a CSR issue. For most firms, however, this commitment to transparency appears to be largely ceremonial. Few firms disclose the specific policy positions they advocate or sufficiently coordinate the work of their lobbying and CSR units to foster greater alignment of these activities. These modest changes in lobbying transparency appear to be driven by legitimacy concerns and, in a few instances, by governance gaps firms perceive to be relevant to their future business interests.     

Congressional certification: How firms use former Congress members to lobby on their behalf

This paper models the effect of firm-level profitability (earnings before interest and taxes and return on sales) against certification by former members of the U.S. Congress. Although some scholars have studied certification, none have studied certification in the public policy market as is done in the current work. Likewise, although scholars have studied the effects of lobbying and political connections on firms' outcomes, none have studied lobbying through former Congress members specifically. The findings confirm that, after controlling for numerous factors, firms can use former Congress members to effectively lobby and certify their intentions. Both firm-level earnings before interest and taxes and return on sales were significantly associated with prior lobbying efforts by these former elected federal officials in several different estimation techniques employed in the study.     

Corporate lobbying in Europe,managing knowledge and information strategies

• Given that knowledge and information are critical resources for acquiring access to the EU policy process, the question of this paper is how firms should manage the knowledge and information strategies surrounding their lobbying attempts. Developing an appropriate resource base is critical for firms trying to bring their interests to bear on European decision‐making. The same holds for the ability to recognize potential points of entry to the EU policy process. Next to substantial knowledge and expertise, therefore, the ability to understand policy dynamics and the appropriate timing of lobbying attempts are critically important in corporate lobbying in Europe. The implication of this argument is that managing knowledge and information strategies become increasingly important for handlings firms' public affairs.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Firm‐level political capabilities and subsequent financial performance

While there is a robust literature on corporate political activity, scholars have not adequately framed these activities as being part of a strategy to garner political capabilities. In this paper, we incorporate political capabilities and argue that those firms that more intensely commit resources to political activities have associated subsequent performance benefits. In a sample of 87 Fortune 500 firms from 2005 to 2011, we find that both political action committee and lobbying intensity were associated with higher return on invested capital and return on assets after controlling for other factors. Additionally, we find support that the cumulative effect of political action committee and lobbying intensity on performance is also significant. Finally, we moderate the main effects with industry concentration and find that returns are greater in more consolidated industries. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When do politicians listen to lobbyists (and who benefits when they do)?

This article provides an empirical test of an informational model of lobbying. The model predicts when lobbyists provide useful information to policy makers and when policy makers follow lobbyists' advice. The predictions are assessed against data on the policy positions and lobbying activities of firms and other organised groups in the context of 28 policy proposals advanced by United Kingdom governments between 2001 and 2007. The results suggest that the interactions between policy makers and lobbyists are driven mainly by the expected policy costs for policy makers, providing lobbyists with strong incentives to provide correct advice to policy makers. There is little support for the expectation that lobbyists can successfully persuade policy makers to take a course of action that is beneficial to the lobbyist at the expense of wider constituencies.     

Opposition Policy Influence through Agenda‐setting: The Environment in Denmark, 1993–2009

This article addresses the opportunities that the opposition has to influence policy – a topic that has been neglected in existing party policy research. The idea that is developed is applied to a remarkable environmental policy development during the Danish right‐wing government in the 2000s. Contrary to its position when it took office in 2001, the right‐wing government turned green and adopted a series of green policy initiatives. It is argued in this article that vehement and persistent criticism from the left‐wing opposition provides an explanation for this turn. Taking media coverage, public opinion, carbon dioxide emissions and the government's approval ratings into account, the empirical estimation based on unique quarterly data shows that opposition criticism had a systematic impact on the government's pro‐environmental policy development. The implications for party policy research are important. If the aim is to understand how parties matter to policy, the opposition should be taken more seriously.     

Managing business political activities in the USA: bridging between theory and practice

The political arena in the USA is portrayed as a marketplace in which businesses and other groups compete to influence public policy decisions. Managers can view this political market as an opportunity to shape the rules of the game by which they operate but must realise that it is a very competitive arena. Drawing on concepts from business strategy advocacy activities like lobbying, making campaign contributions, and organising grassroots efforts are analysed in terms of opportunities for gaining competitive advantage. Results from case studies indicate that many businesses miss opportunities to build support among employees for political advocacy because few firms use bottom up approaches for political action committees or grass‐roots efforts. Suggestions for managers interested in improving the effectiveness of their business advocacy efforts are discussed. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Technology Innovation as a Response to Climate Change: The Case of the Climate Change Emissions Management Corporation of Alberta

Innovation is the central element of climate change policy in many jurisdictions. Reduced to technology development and linked to market‐driven priorities, innovation accommodates the interests of large emitters in the energy sector and underpins a sustainable development discourse that denies ecological limits to economic growth. This study examines the use of innovation as a key component of climate change policy in the case of Alberta's Climate Change Emissions Management Corporation, utilizing a political economy approach to explain the drivers of government funding priorities. An analysis of this technology fund's investments over nine years, under two different governments, revealed that nearly half of the revenue has been used to subsidize R&D in the fossil fuels industry in the name of clean energy development, and that this priority has continued despite recent government commitments under the Paris CoP agreement. The carbon levy system that generates revenue for the fund has been unsuccessful in incentivizing facility reductions, pointing to the need for more stringent regulation. Innovation as a framework for transition to a post‐carbon economy is severely limited by its exclusion of the roles of social knowledge and citizen participation in envisaging and designing paths for change.     

The Adoption of State Climate Change Policies and Renewable Portfolio Standards: Regional Diffusion or Internal Determinants?

This paper draws upon policy innovation literature and quantitatively explains the adoption of state climate change policies, leading to a broader question—what makes states more likely to adopt policies that provide a global public good? First, existing empirical evidence relating to state climate change policy adoption is reviewed. Following this brief discussion, several analytic approaches are presented that test specific hypotheses derived from the internal determinants and regional diffusion models of policy adoption. Policy diffusion is tested as a function of the motivations, resources, and obstacles of policy change. Motivations for policy innovation include environmental conditions and demands of citizens. Resources include state financial and geographic resources, such as wind and solar potential. Obstacles include a state's reliance on carbon‐intensive industries such as coal and natural gas. The results show that internal factors, particularly citizens' demands, are stronger predictors of states' policies than are diffusion effects from neighboring states.     

Smokescreen Politics? Ratcheting Up EU Emissions Trading in 2017

The reform of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) adopted in November 2017 was surprisingly strong, given the previous opposition from central member‐states like Poland and key stakeholders like the energy‐intensive industries. The carbon price has also increased substantially since then. To explain why such major reform was possible, we present several findings with wider relevance. Importantly, all the actors pushing for a more ambitious reform benefitted from having a central, “second‐best” mechanism in place—the Market Stability Reserve (MSR)—which could be further tightened. By focusing cancelation on allowances in the MSR and taking place only after 2023, policy entrepreneurs managed to make the distribution of costs obscure and diffuse, whereas the benefits (a probable higher carbon price and related greater auctioning revenues for member‐states) were more specific and closer in time. That is what we call “smokescreen politics.”     

The Durability of Carbon Cap‐and‐Trade Policy

The surge of American states' adoption of policies to mitigate climate change in the late 1990s and 2000s appeared to constitute a first wave of expanding use of market‐based policy tools such as carbon cap‐and‐trade in the absence of binding federal constraints. Instead, a substantial number of states have rescinded earlier policy commitments, as have Canadian provincial partners, while others have remained engaged or even expanded their policies. This article examines the durability of the three regional cap‐and‐trade zones that were established with comparable structure and intent but met very different fates. The analysis of these regional entities places particular emphasis on their political resilience across election cycles, their ability to be flexible and adapt administratively through mid‐course adjustments, and their capacity to build constituency support through benefit‐allocation to offset opposition linked to cost imposition.     

Lobbying: fantasy,reality or both? A health care public policy case study

This paper provides a theoretical explanation for lobbying as interpersonal rhetorical communication based on the tenets of symbolic convergence theory (SCT). SCT is a general theory of communication in the symbolic interactionism paradigm. Nowhere in the extant communication literature, including the scholarly public relations research, is lobbying explicated in this way. This paper utilises a health care public policy case study to illustrate SCT in lobbying practice. The emphasis here is on how lobbyists use homo narrans, or human storytelling, in influential face‐to‐face information exchange with public policy decision makers to be persuasive on behalf of their clients. The ultimate aim of this paper is to build the current body of theoretical and practical knowledge about lobbying, to advance more positive perceptions of lobbyists and lobbying and to improve the practice of lobbying in producing effective public policy outcomes. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Structural Power and Public Policy: A Signaling Model of Business Lobbying in Democratic Capitalism

This paper develops a signaling model of corporate lobbying in democratic capitalist societies to analyze the conditions that lead to a powerful political position of business. Proceeding from the traditional dichotomy of structural economic determinants versus business' political action, our model predicts the conditions under which elected political decisionmakers modify their policy pledges to accommodate business' political preferences, or override business' lobbying messages and honor their pledges. Our results show that the structural power of business over public policy is contingent on two variables: the size of reputation costs of business in relation to its material costs of lobbying; and the ratio of the policymaker's reputation constraints from policy commitments and campaign pledges to the electoral costs arising from adverse effects of policy. We evaluate our model using case studies of business lobbying on environmental and financial services regulation in Britain and Germany.     

Economic interdependence and the making of trade policy: Industrial demand for an open market in Japan

Abstract

The central question of this article is how the internationalization of corporate activity has changed the trade policy preferences of Japanese corporations. Using case studies of the automobile and textile industries, the paper tests the hypothesis that as firms strengthen multinational operations, they become more committed to trade liberalization of their home market. Growing multinational operations are one of the major reasons why internationally‐oriented automakers have committed themselves to promoting the opening of keiretsu groups as well as the market access for foreign products. In the textile industry, apparel makers opposed import restrictions because of their overseas productions and intra‐firm trade. Towel manufacturers also opposed restrictions on imports of cotton yarn because they were users of imported yarn. However, large textile producers supported import restrictions in spite of their international links. Their preferences stemmed largely from their desire to maintain their domestic linkages with downstream producers.     

Pluralism,corporatism and perception of corruption

When people know who is influencing the elected politicians and they may ‘put the rascals out’ in case they feel that the incumbents are corrupt, ceteris paribus, their perception of the level of corruption should not be affected by lobbying. If on the other hand people are not sure which or how many actors are influencing public policy and they are not able to hold the government truly accountable as interest group influence is constant with different governments, people will be more likely to perceive the government as corrupted. The former system is a characteristic of corporatism and the latter of pluralism. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that interest groups with resources such as business groups or firms in pluralist systems are more influential than groups with few resources. Thus, people may perceive pluralist policy‐making system as more corrupt than corporatist policy‐making system where fewer visible actors have more or less equal weight in the policy‐making process. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rent dissipation through self-regulation: The social cost of monopoly under threat of reform

This piece offers an alternative perspective on the social cost of monopoly and rent seeking. An existing monopolist whose right is contested in a political market has an incentive to expend resources on direct lobbying efforts while also attempting to defuse reformist opposition. Because the strength of reformist opposition will generally be a function of the monopolist's past, present, and expected future pricing/output decisions, such opposition is endogenous. The probability that an existing monopoly right will be retained depends on both direct lobbying efforts by the monopolist as well as the strength, resolve, and cohesiveness of the reformers. By modifying its output/pricing decision and, in effect, engaging in self-regulation, the monopolist gives up current profits in exchange for the expected future profits associated with retaining its monopoly rights. Such opposition dissipating effort is a form of indirect rent seeking that is complementary to direct lobbying efforts. And unlike the Tullock costs implied by the incumbent's direct lobbying, this form of indirect rent seeking may imply a reduction in the social cost of monopoly.     

Corporate lobbying and political contributions and their effects on tax avoidance

This study looks at the impact of U.S. lobbying and political contributions on taxes avoided by U.S. publicly traded corporations. Previous research provides mixed conclusions about the effects when examined separately. Looking at political contributions and lobbying contributions simultaneously displays the larger picture. I find that lobbying expenditures and political contributions both lead to lower future taxes, but those political contributions are more effective in reducing taxes paid from what would be expected given the federal statutory rate. This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it provides empirical evidence on the positive effects of lobbying contributions and political contributions on taxes avoided. Second, the results of this study are particularly useful for future research following the U.S. Citizens United ruling that affects corporate lobbying and political contributions. Third, differing from previous research, I build a simultaneous equation model to jointly determine the link among lobbying contributions, political contributions, and taxes avoided addressing the endogeneity issues of those relationships. These insights can help firms, policy makers, and public affairs researchers understand the connection between contributions and tax avoidance.     

Political Science and Prediction: What's Next for U.S. Climate Change Policy?

This article analyzes how U.S. climate change politics and policy making are changing in the public, private and civil society sectors, and how such changes are likely to influence U.S. federal policies. It outlines the current status of U.S. climate change action and explores four overlapping pathways of policy change: (1) the strategic demonstration of the feasibility of climate change action; (2) the creation and expansion of markets; (3) policy diffusion and learning; and (4) the creation and promulgation of norms about the need for more aggressive climate change action. These four pathways seek to fruitfully draw from rationalist and constructivist approaches to policy analysis, without collapsing or confusing the different logics. Building on this analysis, it predicts that future federal U.S. climate policy will include six major components: (1) A national cap on GHG emissions; (2) A national market based cap‐and‐trade GHG emissions trading scheme; (3) Mandatory renewable energy portfolio standards; (4) Increased national product standards for energy efficiency; (5) Increased vehicle fleet energy efficiency standards; and (6) Increased federal incentives for research and development on energy efficiency issues and renewable energy development. In addition, expanding federal climate policy may bring about significant changes in U.S. foreign policy as U.S. international re‐engagement on climate change is likely to occur only after the development of more significant federal policy.     

Does globalization drive interest group strategy? A cross‐national study of outside lobbying and social media

Social media offer a new outside lobbying tactics for interest groups, yet many examinations of social media use by interest groups have been case studies or single‐country studies. While much can be learned from those approaches, national‐level factors – such as the style of policy making and globalization – cannot be fully addressed. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship between globalization and the use of social media as an outside lobbying strategy with cross‐national data. Controlling for other factors, I argue that globalization creates isomorphic pressure on interest groups to adapt new lobbying tactics, thereby increasing the likelihood of using social media and using it in certain ways. Specifically, based on data collected from interest groups operating in 13 countries, the analysis shows that globalization is associated with more internationally‐bounded social media strategies, but also with lower social media resonance. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.