3155+Who+wins+and+loses?

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 * __Who Wins in Business and Politics__**
 * Received wisdom is that business has a privileged position, per Charles Lindblom
 * Need to look at circumstances of winning, and losing
 * It’s not just a game between players with different resources

__Background__ > > > >
 * Remember: the dominant view is/was **pluralism** : that groups balance each other, with modifications over the decades to account for the systemic/ structural/ persistent advantages of business
 * The **game metaphor** : a contest for attention immediately before a vote for or against some policy in Congress
 * In this game, **resources obviously matter greatly** …and business will likely do well on resource comparisons
 * Rather, as Salisbury says, we need to see trends in their **“larger historical/developmental context”**
 * Look at institutional and issue-related factors: the context provides an ‘opportunity structure’ for interests and policy entrepreneurs

It's crucial to understand the differences within 'business': on a great many issues that concern the government, businesses have different interests and different priorities eg:
 * Trade policy
 * Education and training policy
 * Tax policy

Capital (business) is itself divided in many ways, including:
 * Traded and non-traded sectors
 * Finance and non-finance
 * Services and manufactures
 * Mobility within nation and abroad
 * High wage/low wage (high skills/low skills)
 * Small and large business
 * Energy intensive/non-energy intensive
 * By degree of reliance on government contracts
 * Etc...

__Let’s look at 3 studies and then see what they have in common__

__1. Mitchell’s__ //__Conspicuous Corporation__// > > > > >
 * Business power not monopolistic…but they are advantaged in resource terms
 * On the other hand, they do lose on occasion
 * Politicians are also key: their primary goal is to turn their ideas/beliefs into policy…and they seek political support to do so: “They choose among the policy positions of rival interests on the basis of the congruence of those positions with their own ideas and on the basis of the capability of the interest to contribute to or detract from their public support.”
 * So legitimacy is the key…when business loses legitimacy it can’t deliver public support to elected officials and so loses in policy debates
 * Note we’re talking about perceptions of legitimacy—not whether a policy is or isn’t legitimate in a normative sense

__2. Berry__ //__New Liberalism__// __: it’s the issue agenda__ > > > > __3. Mucciaroni (Temple!) in__ //__Reversals of Fortune__// __:__ > > > >> >> >
 * Tracked issues for three separate years (63, 79, and 91)
 * Found that business faced increased opposition from ‘public-interest’ groups
 * Institutional changes meant greater access and opportunity for the new groups
 * And they **were publicly constructed** in a more positive light by journalists
 * Looked at taxation, regulation, trade protection, agriculture
 * But debates didn’t always go industry’s way…
 * 1980s ‘neo-liberal’ era saw (some) reduced tax advantages and deregulation, for example
 * This hurts the favored producer groups since it increases competition
 * On the other hand, agricultural subsidies and trade protection continued
 * Key explanatory variables were **issue definition and institutional context** (public or media view of business/industry and its fortune, proximity to elections, position of administrative bureaucrats)

__So: what determines how an issue area is publicly viewed?__ > >> >> >> >> > > > > >> >> >> >> >
 * JQ Wilson’s view: costs and benefits of a policy domain determines it’s ‘politics’
 * Majoritarian politics (costs and bene’s widely distributed, eg soc sec)
 * Client politics (bene’s concentrated, costs distributed, eg ag price supports)
 * Interest group (benefits and costs concentrated, eg trade union policy)
 * Entrepreneurial (costs concentrated, benefits distributed)
 * So some areas of policy are more easily subject to regulatory ‘capture’ by business interests than others
 * But this doesn’t yield hypotheses about business politics generally
 * Mitchell’s view is that politicians have their own ideas about policy, and need to attract support from business and others to implement those ideas…they will seek business support/do what business wants where they can get more public support…and this depends on the **legitimacy** of the business position
 * 4 dimensions of legitimacy
 * Legal
 * Ethical
 * Economic/efficiency
 * Traditional loyalty/cultural attachments
 * Think of it as business confidence versus public confidence…and the latter usually wins