Neil Rollings

2020 Charlotte, North Carolina

Abstract: This paper questions existing explanations of the existence of European business federations. Conventionally, economic historians have emphasised the role of cartels while political scientists have focussed on lobbying of EEC/EU institutions. Both are at best partial explanations and there has been a tendency to underplay the role of information exchange, it is argued here. The paper draws on a dataset of European business federations (federations of national business associations) based on listings in two sources: the annual Yearbook of International Organizations and an occasional publication by the European Commission, the Répertoire des organisme communs, which later became the CONECCS database. Using this data allows us to question the chronology and geography of these European business federations as set out in the existing literature and, hence, the underlying assumptions of the motives for the creation and maintenance of these organisations and, ultimately, Mancur Olson’s Logic of Collective Action (1965). It is suggested that there is evidence, often presented in the existing literature but then either ignored or downplayed, that supports an alternative explanation around the importance of ‘soft’ information and its exchange or sharing among the members of these organisations. Moreover, this fits with a different strand of theoretical explanations of collective action in which such organisations can be viewed as arenas of trust-building and reciprocity. This approach can be found in the work of Elinor Ostrom (A Poteete, M Janssen and E Ostrom Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice (2010), Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution (2011)) amongst others.

2022 Mexico City

2023 Detroit, MI, United States

Abstract: The advent of the Thatcher governments in the UK in May 1979 is typically highlighted as a fundamental turning point in post-war Britain with its denigration of the post-war Keynesian consensus and a shift to what is now often termed the neoliberal order that has been dominant in the UK and elsewhere thereafter. One key element of this perceived revolution is the primacy given to business – business people, business ideas and business methods. Thatcher was a keen proponent of bringing business into government in all three of these aspects, underpinned by notions of the superiority of the private sector over the public sector. This paper explores the pre-history of these developments and flags that a) there were many direct antecedents to the developments of the 1980s b) that in this respect business was in a preferential position from at least the Second World War. The paper outlines a diverse set of ways in which business was able to ‘influence’ the development of policy in a broad sense of framing the agenda in a way that other societal actors were unable to match and that these routes were more diverse than straightforward lobbying. Rather, there was an intertwining of business and government which developed over time. The paper draws on extensive use of the records of various department sin the UK National Archives, various collections of records of business organisations and a variety of datasets.

2026 London

Abstract: In the aftermath of the Falklands/Malvinas War direct trading and diplomatic relations between the UK and Argentina disappeared. In this crisis context one might expect an organisation like the British Chamber of Commerce in the Argentine Republic (BCCAR) to disappear as well, given that its primary function was to promote trading and commercial relations between the two countries. On one level this was the case in that ex-pat managers of UK multinational subsidiaries in Argentina all left the country and the BCCAR deliberately took a lower profile role than previously. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Chamber, while lacking any sense of political power, was able to exploit its position in order to maximise its political influence, particularly with the UK government because of its local knowledge and the uncertainty that existed in the UK over Argentinian policy at various points through the 1980s. The Chamber’s members, representing both local trading merchants and the subsidiaries of UK multinationals, remained committed to the underlying purpose of the Chamber and embarked on a range of activities to promote the eventual re-establishment of direct economic and diplomatic relations, finally achieved in 1990. This paper explores the nature of the political influence achieved by the BCCAR when it had so little political power by using the archival records of the Chamber, UK Foreign Office files and the papers of Margaret Thatcher’s private office. This paper is joint authored with Andrea Lluch (CONICET and Universidad de los Andes) but only Neil Rollings will present.