This session explores the relationship between business and politics, more particularly the political influence of business. This is a particularly timely session given contemporary concerns about the power of business in society and renewed academic interest in the topic.
Influence has always been a problematic concept in that it has been well-recognised to be very difficult to show direct influence of one actor, such as business, over government policy. Political scientists have developed ever more complex methodologies and quantification but results remain contested and often inconclusive.
Once the complexity of historical research is incorporated into the study of this subject, with recognition of the importance of context and the interplay of multiple actors, the difficulty of reaching clear conclusions becomes even harder. However, historians are also well placed to explore this issue through their abilities to examine in detail the policy formation process and to trace the policy process in ways that other fields of research find hard to match.
The session aims to make an effort to open up this challenging field. To this end, one of the objectives of the session is to advertise to potential contributors a special issue of Business History on ‘Historical perspectives on business power and influence’. Each of the three papers offers a different perspective on this issue – Fellman and Wuokko explore ways of measuring influence, Rollings analyses the breadth and diversity of ways in which business is able to acquire a preferential and unique place in policy-making compared to other non-state actors, while Ballor shows how business adapts and organises to push its agenda in the face of a changing political environment, in this case the growing relevance of European institutions to retail business.
Ben Waterhouse has been asked to be the discussant but has not replied yet.