The organizational cohesion and political access of business: a study of comprehensive associations

Abstract. This article utilizes an internationally comparative data set to examine the potentiality of comprehensive business associations to define and articulate the interests of business as a whole. We argue that the organizational structures of comprehensive associations - the degree to which they integrate diverse interest areas and they compete with one another- are critical to the degree of probable influence gained in a given country. Using data from seven countries - Austria. Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom - a concept of business cohesion is constructed based on these structural properties. Having differentiated among the countries in terms of the cohesion of business associations, we then relate these differences to variations in the participation of associations in the formulation and implementation of public policy.     

CHARACTERIZING AGRICULTURAL POLICY-MAKING

This article examines the contemporary agricultural policy-making environment in Britain and suggests that the growing complexity of interest articulation and policy making has eroded NFU dominance as a peak association. We would suggest that it is this clientelistic attitude to agriculture rather than a specific relationship with one interest group (however influential) that shapes the agricultural agenda. This article rejects a version of events which sees policy outputs as being the result of exclusive MAFF/NFU interactions as exaggerating policy-making closure, and the exclusion of environmental and other externality interests. It portrays the policy sector as fragmented and competitive, with a wide cast list of pressure participants all vying for policy influence. It identifies flexible policy communities operating at the sub-sectoral level, and within such arrangements the NFU often has to defer to the specialist or niche expertise of single commodity groups or agricultural processing companies.     

IS ALL CORRUPTION DYSFUNCTIONAL? PERCEPTIONS OF CORRUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Many anti‐corruption organisations work from the notion that both petty and grand corruption axiomatically results in negative consequences. However, few studies have asked citizens to evaluate the effects of different scales and types of corruption. This article investigates how rural people in Papua New Guinea associate dysfunctional or functional consequences to different types and scales of corruption. It draws on findings from focus groups conducted in four provinces of the country. The article finds that most examples of corruption considered by respondents were perceived as dysfunctional; however, marginalised respondents considered small‐scale corruption as functional—if the acts described benefitted marginalised people. These findings suggest that it is critical that anti‐corruption organisations understand and respond to the constraints faced by poor and marginalised people when operating in weak states. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.