Influencing with Power and Dubious Panache? - Business Associations

Business associations are the most influential and consequential corporate political agents in many important policy domains. Their lobbying expenditure dwarfs that of individual companies , their disproportionate salience and impact on specific policy-making processes is well documented . Despite their significance however, business associations have until very recently largely escaped effective public scrutiny regarding how responsibly they do and should behave. Their funding and governance structures remain largely opaque. Even their membership base and internal strategy/ decision-making processes are typically a ‘black box’ even though they primarily derive their legitimacy and role in policymaking through the claim to represent the interest of their members. Meanwhile, empirical evidence increasingly confirms that business associations are often used by some companies to outsource reputationally challenging, obstructionist lobbying and hard-ball tactics. The proposed paper contributes to a gradually expanding literature on business associations by seeking to more systematically explore the internal governance practices of business associations. It examines the major business associations operating at EU level in a select set of policy areas with regard to their transparency and disclosure practices, decisions-making structures, funding models and other governance attributes. Based on this empirical scan complemented by key informant interviews it maps common patterns and practices, suggest a typology of different association forms that fits this account and also surfaces interesting deviant practices that attest to potentially innovative and progressive dynamics. The paper concludes with a normative outlook on how the observed patterns do or do not align with claims for representation and legitimacy and how they map or do not map onto evolving stakeholder expectations and regulatory lobbying standards.