Lobbying Alone? A Comparative Study on Corporate Political Fragmentation in the European Union and the United States

Does the business community share a common political agenda? Historically, many scholars have assumed that it does. However, the empirical answer, to whether this is true or not, does not lend itself to a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If unity seemed to be strong during earlier decades, it is now clear that at least the American business community displays much more fragmentation these days. A politically united business community has, for many decades, worried some of the greatest students of democracy. The existence of such, many argue, would potentially undermine the realization of the “rule by the people.” Others take a radically different view and argue that it engenders political stability and allows for fruitful partnerships to develop between lawmakers and business representatives. Despite the alleged detrimental/beneficial effects of a politically united business community, we know little with regards to how such a unity comes about. There are three reasons for this. One is that there is a conceptual confusion regarding what corporate political unity/fragmentation entails. Second, the research that has been carried out focuses mainly on specific cases and a small number of firms, not enabling a great scope for generalization. Third, the bulk of the research has focused on the American context. In this quantitative study, the population is close to a thousand firms from Germany, United Kingdom, and United States. I have studied their political activities in the European Union and the U.S. federal level. The question I ask is: Why do some firms display a rock solid unity while others are basically at war with each other. By including different institutional setting and firms from different business communities and industries, this comparative study offers us a broad perspective to the question of what facilitates unity between firms and what fragmentizes them.