Introduction: political affairs in the

global domain
Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom

INTRODUCTION: THE POLITICAL TURN OF

BUSINESS

This book sets out to investigate the manifold ways in which corporate
actors attempt to influence political activities in the broad sense, in other
words activities aimed at influencing the development of society. It brings
together scholars from different fields in the study of global governance, to
address the rising influence and power of corporate actors on the political
scene, at national and transnational levels. These questions are addressed
throughout the book by way of illustrative cases demonstrating the
various ways in which corporations pursue political activities in the broad
sense and how they aim to influence policy. One by one and taken together
the chapters present an understanding of how corporate governance is
pursued and with what types of consequences.
Corporate ascendancy has emerged as a universal organizing principle
in the contemporary world. Corporations, and their funded offsprings,
appear as both heroes and villains in tales of political and policy change.
Proponents often present them as the ‘new’, responsible kind of corpo-
rate actors that global politics need, building networks across national
borders and contributing to multi-stakeholders’ solutions to complex
issues. Sceptics view them as cunning organizations, barely masking their
financial interests behind a thin layer of social and political concern. Both
camps, however, would not deny the fact that corporate influence in what
was usually seen as a nation-state domain of political affairs, have gained
tremendous leverage over the last few decades. Through vast ideological
shifts in the late twentieth century, markets rather than governments came
to be seen as the more effective governance and the road to prosperity.
Governments came to seek out the managerial expertise, technology and
investment resources that corporations can bring. The corporate social
responsibility movement (CSR) expresses this contemporary and double
image of the corporation, as both a potentially accountable ‘corporate

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 2 Power, policy and profit

citizen’, capable of regulating and overseeing its own activities and as a

profit-seeking, expansionist exploiter of human and natural resources. On
both accounts, the political dimension of the corporation and of CSR is
highlighted (Scherer and Palazzo 2011; Vallentin and Murillo 2012).
We are witnessing what we may term the political turn of ­corporations.
Whilst corporations have always aimed to exert a degree of influence
on the political infrastructures in which they operate and on decisions
­pertaining to regulatory frameworks, this trend has lately been i­ntensified.
With the restructuring of the provision of welfare services, and the accu-
mulation of private capital, opportunities for corporations to influence
political affairs have multiplied (Barley 2010; Sklair 2001). In recent
decades we have seen an increase in corporate activities aiming to influ-
ence ­policymakers’ ­perceptions of a particular problem, as well as the
institutional arrangements in which they conduct their business (Lawton
et al. 2012). Corporations have gained increased influence in certain
policy areas and broadened their influence onto other policy areas usually
under public control. A wide variety of firms are now involved in political
activities in industries as varied as oil and gas, air transport, information
technology, tobacco and pharmaceuticals. There are as well high levels of
corporate participation in political fields such as energy and ­environmental
policy, transportation, education and health care at national levels (see
for example, Braithwaite and Drahos 2000). Influence is exercised by a
variety of means, such as political campaign contributions, lobbying with
policymakers, ­
­ interlocking of board memberships, setting up political
action committees (PACs), by providing analyses and research, creating
standards for social ­responsibility and transparency and, at times, even by
way of bribery (see for instance Austen-Smith and Wright 1996; Delmas
and Montes-Sancho 2010; Hansen and Mitchell 2000; Okhmatovskiy 2010;
Ring et al. 1990; Spiller 1990; Yoffie and Bergenstein 1985). Corporations
have been able to amplify their influence as not merely implementers of
public policy, but as agenda-setters and co-authors of policy. Furthermore,
the resources at the command of corporations to do so are more powerful
than ever. Yet, this development has hitherto not gained the attention it
deserves.
Relations between what is commonly perceived as the spheres of p ­ olitics
and business are dynamic and complex, and corporations stand in a dynamic
and complex relation to politics and policy. Oftentimes, c­ orporations are
analysed as separate from political institutions, practices and visions; as
dependent on them; as creatively responsive to them; or, as is often the case,
as antagonistic to them. As Neil Fligstein (2001, p. 6) maintains, however,
‘[t]­
­ he frequently invoked opposition between governments and market
actors, in which governments are simply viewed as intrusive and inefficient,

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 Introduction ­3

and firms as efficient wealth producers, is simply wrong. Firms rely on

governments and citizens for making markets.’ In other words, to ‘make
markets’ and to pursue their interests, corporations rely on appropriate
political and ­regulatory structures, for which they need to organize accord-
ingly. The scope of corporate influence in politics and policymaking varies
with time and space. Irrespective of scope, corporate political activity is
central for the organization of markets (Ahrne et al. 2015).
Globalization processes have made it both possible and necessary for
corporations and corporate-funded organizations to act politically outside
the nation-state arena. The extensive movement in favour of market-
driven approaches to stimulate growth and improve living and working
conditions put in place since the late 1970s has leveraged transnational
corporations as legitimate actors with a part to play in an emerging
system of global governance. Some of the big global questions, such as
climate, forced migration, unemployment and threats to security, are now
­conceptualized as demanding transnational forms of collaboration into
which ­corporations are often invited. A case in point is the G20 meetings,
at which the role of business leadership in promoting and strengthening
an open global market economy is now recognized to be central. Thus,
large transnational corporations, such as The Evian Group, are invited
to be part of deliberations. Another kind of arena for the fostering of
­interactions of state and non-state actors is the Club of Rome, a global
think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues.
Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the Club of
Rome describes itself as ‘a group of world citizens, sharing a common
concern for the future of humanity’. It consists of current and former
heads of state, UN b­ ureaucrats, high-level politicians and g­ overnment offi-
cials, ­diplomats, ­scientists, e­ conomists and business leaders from around
the globe, c­onvening to sort out issues of the ­contemporary state of
affairs. One of its projects, to only give one example of the intersection
of p ­ olitics and corporations it ­constructs, regards ­‘circular economy’,
looking at the impact of a circular economy on jobs, carbon emissions
and the trade balance in five different European economies, namely
Finland, Sweden, France, the Netherlands and Spain. The results from the
project were ­presented in front of the European Commission in October
2015 as an input to for the European Commission’s package on Circular
Economy, arguing that in all five countries, an economy based on circular
resource flows would create jobs, reduce carbon emissions and improve
the trade balance (http://www.clubofrome.org/project/circular_economy_
and_societal_benefit/, accessed 3 July 2016). Another pertinent example
is Microsoft Corporation, an organization whose financial assets over-
ride those of many nation-states. Some of the wealth accumulated by its

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 4 Power, policy and profit

founder, Bill Gates, has been ­channelled into the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, which is now one of the most resourceful foundations in the
world. The foundation is in itself active globally in shaping policy agendas,
for instance by being present at the meetings of the World Economic
Forum, where it is given ample space to present its views and propositions
before other world leaders, but it also sponsors think-tank based research
and analysis which is drawn upon in wider political settings. Finally, the
Foundation is commonly ­credited for eradicating malaria in Africa. In this
way, Microsoft influences not only markets but also political institutions
and organizations.
Corporate influence on the political arena is thus taking on new
and ­powerful forms. Due to their financial and organizational resources
and their structural importance to employment, economic growth and
­technological innovation, corporations are in a privileged position on the
global arena compared to other actors. Corporate actors also benefit from
a host of international regimes that prioritize policy objectives such as free
trade and free investment flows over others such as sustainability. This is not
to say, however, that corporate actors will always dominate policy p ­ rocesses
or dictate outcomes. Other types of actors, mainly from civil society, are
invited to the arenas. The standing of corporations in these settings are,
however, a reflection of the varying sources of power available to d ­ ifferent
types of non-state actors and the relative strength of corporations. We
may concur that the nature of global governance is shifting, and with it the
balance between political actors. The articulation of transnational politics
will depend on a number of aspects, such as the issue-specific circumstances
and power resources brought into play, which may also benefit other non-
state organizational actors rather than businesses in certain ­circumstances.
In a globalizing world, political processes and their outcomes are likely to
be more open-ended than ever before (Cerny 2010).
The amplification of globalization thus brings to the fore and h ­ ighlights
the multifarious ways in which governments and market actors are
interdependently configured. Research into these kinds of ­ activities
is becoming all the more urgent and complex, not least because the
pursuit of ­competitive advantage through political means may be ­ethically
­problematic and challenge established democratic procedures. What does
such corporate engagement at transnational scale mean in terms of
shaping policy ­priorities and agendas? What are the predominant ways by
which corporate actors shape the way policymakers and politicians frame
urgent problems? What are the means by which they contribute to defining
what is the ‘right way’ forward?
This volume addresses the dynamic, complex and often conflictual
­relation of corporations to policy and power. This relation is indeed a

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 Introduction ­5

long standing one, but one that keeps transforming along with geopoliti-
cal trends, financial fluctuations and social priorities. The relation is thus
a moving target with potentially wide ramifications that calls for a close
examination. Our starting point is that any investigation of emerging
forms of global governance must now take into account the significance
of ­corporate actors. A number of crucial questions call for attention:
What are the mechanisms used by corporations and corporate-funded
organizations to exert influence in the political sphere? What are the
­
resources upon which such actions are based? What are the scenarios aimed
for by the political activities of corporate actors? How do corporations and
­corporate-funded organizations achieve legitimacy as political actors? And
what are the future prospects for democracy and welfare, as profit-driven
actors engage in pursuing their interests in the public domain?

CORPORATE POLITICAL AFFAIRS AT LARGE

In this volume we focus our attention on corporations or corporate-

funded organizations acting at national or transnational level to influence
politics and policy. We take a broad perspective on politics, as relations
­involving authority, power, and the struggle for the allocation of resources
and rights, taking place in most areas of day-to-day life as well as those
­commonly termed politics. Common to the authors of this book is thus
the view of politics in the broad sense and taking a processual view on
politics, implying that it is the continuous construction of interests and
priorities, and the continuous negotiation and struggle over definitions of
reality that concerns us most. In all chapters, it is the processes through
which ­organizations attempt to gain influence and construct authority,
rather than the resulting decisions and structures, which are in the lime-
light. Moreover, as stated by Andrew Abbott (2016, p. 41), there is no
fixed ­‘topology of politics’, no fixed location in which politics is done.
Contemporary politics may take place outside of established political
localities, in the interstices of political structures and with unconventional
actors involved. In other words, places may be others than administrative
councils, state agencies and formal legislatures and actors may be of many
different kinds: corporate leaders, think tanks experts, PR-consultants, as
well as elected politicians and civil servants. We also share the conviction
that politics, as a social force, may be seen as productive as well as destruc-
tive (Spencer 2007). Politics allow for the mobilization of collectivities, for
the ­articulation of shared and conflictual interests and ultimately for social
change. The destructive side of politics means that collectivities may be
torn by struggles over resources and access to decision-making arenas, and

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 6 Power, policy and profit

it may hinder social change and development. We wish, in other words,

to work with an expansive notion of politics, which gives weight to the
meaning-making, performative and aspirational dimensions of politics,
beyond the instrumental (compare with Spencer 2007).
Policy is intimately related to politics, broadly seen as the ways in which
politics is articulated and implemented. As pointed out by Wedel et al.
(2005, p. 31):

[i]n an ever-more inter-connected world, public policies, whether ­originating

with governments, businesses, supranational entities, nongovernmental (NGOs),
private actors, or some combination of these, are increasingly central to the
organization of society. Policies connect disparate actors in complex power and
resource relations and play a pervasive, though often indirect, role in shaping
society.

Policy is not to be seen as produced by rational choice, measured by

positivist models and transferred by straightforward diffusion. Such
­
approaches tend to miss out the contestations over meaning negotiations
and political struggles that are integral to policymaking. In contrast, policy
processes are messy, socially produced and embedded in power hierarchies
(Shore et al. 2011). A focus on policy as a ‘connector’ between diverse
organizational actors is, we believe, a fruitful way to investigate emerging
forms of governance, power and politics.
Our curiosity about corporations and their relation to politics and policy
stems from an interest in the operations of power in contemporary society.
We take inspiration from Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller’s viewpoint (1992,
p. 175) – that ‘political power today is exercised through a profusion of
shifting alliances between diverse authorities, to govern a multitude of
facets of economic activity and social life.’ The common political vocabu-
lary, structured by differences between state and civil society, public and
private, coercion and consent and the like, is no longer apt to characterize
the diverse ways in which power is exercised in advanced liberal democra-
cies at global level. To analyse these aspects of contemporary power, we
need to relocate the state and the market and the concepts of politics and
non-politics. Moreover, power is a complex matter, which, as stressed by
Steven Lukes in the revised version of his now classic book, shall be seen
as a capacity that is constructed and not something which actors have
or have not. Power may or may not be exercised, and actors may or may
not be powerful by satisfying others’ interests (Lukes 2005, p. 12). Thus,
the interesting aspect of power is not primarily over what corporations
may be powerful, since that changes over time, but in what sense and by
what means they create the capacity to make others follow their interests,
however non-unified, conflicting and shifting these interests may be. This

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 Introduction ­7

perspective serves as a launch pad for investigations into the operations of

power across and among organizational spheres: the public, private and
civil spheres – nationally and transnationally.
We conceptualize the profusion of shifting alliances between diverse
authorities as part of a move towards new forms of global governance
(Hall and Biersteker 2002; Scholte 2004; Rhodes 1996), more specifi-
cally as the development of new public domains in which the boundaries
between spheres are not as clear (Ruggie 2004). In this transnational
domain states are still highly important actors, but they are also devolving
some of their authority to private actors, such as corporations, think tanks
and policy institutes (Stone 2008). Characteristic for activities relating
to the global domain is the relativization of the significance of national
boundaries. Even if actors still have their base in a given geographi-
cal territory, their activities are not tied to that territory (compare with
Scholte 1996; 2005). They are to be understood as transnational in their
capacity to operate and influence beyond national borders. Compared to
the political sphere of international relations, which rely on established
institutional ­structures, actors and procedures, transnational relations are
still in a state of formation, with structures still emerging, actors compet-
ing for space and influence among themselves, and procedures of often
ad hoc, contingent or flexible character. This means that the boundaries
of the global domain are somewhat permeable, offering opportunities for
many different and capable actors to participate. Examples of such non-
state ­organizations are the World Economic Forum, Brookings Institute,
Fairtrade International Organization for Standardization, Motorola,
Standard & Poor’s, Transparency International and Freedom House.
Conjunctly, they all testify to the fact that the regulation of social and
political concerns is no longer the business of nation-states alone. The state
has to share r­ egulatory agency with other organizations, such as corpora-
tions, international ­governmental organizations and international non-
governmental ­organizations. Whilst these actors may not have the ‘hard’
power exercised by the State by way of legal frameworks and sanctions,
they work by ­crafting and diffusing norms, standards, codes of conduct
and by putting into work political programmes for the transformation of
minds and actions (Djelic and Quack 2010; Djelic and Sahlin-Andersson
2006). In Saskia Sassens’s terminology (2003), new organizational ‘sites of
­normativity’ are appearing on the global scene, with power and resources
to influence, shape and fashion the thoughts and actions of others.
The new global political domain that these actors are c­onstructing
is ­multilayered (Sassen 2006). It involves local, regional, state and
transnational operations alongside and intertwined with each other. It
­
involves a partial disaggregation of states as governments into e­xtensive

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 8 Power, policy and profit

transnational ­networks, linking state authorities with international institu-

tions, international non-governmental organizations and transnational cor-
porations. Due to increasing crossover partnerships, global g­ overnance is
more fragmented, decentralized and diffuse compared to nation-state based
­governing (Josselin and Wallace 2001; Scholte 2005). Regulation of global
financial flows and social impacts of global market ­operations takes place
through multilateral consultations and coordination. Representatives of
corporations may consult, negotiate and make decisions with ­representatives
of state departments, international organizations and so on. Corporate
actors have learnt to exploit the space between state agencies, international
­organizations and INGOs, contributing to ever more complex multi-stake-
holder constellations. Diane Stone (2008, p. 24) describes global policymak-
ing as consisting of ‘multilevel and p ­ olycentric forms of public policy in
which a plethora of institutions and networks negotiate within and between
international agreements and private regimes have emerged as pragmatic
responses in the absence of formal governance’.
This also implies that matters of accountability, transparency and
responsibility often become acute (Garsten and Lindh de Montoya 2008;
Hansen 2012; Hansen and Flyverbom 2015; Hood and Heald 2006; West
and Sanders 2003). Demands for transparency and accountability are
raised by a variety of actors. The question is whether and to what extent
corporations will take on the rights and the social obligations that accrue
to them as legal entities whose activities have far-ranging implications for
social lives. Furthermore, we may ask how these activities will be rendered
transparency and accountability. Looking beyond accountability and
transparency demands, an equally urgent question is how and to what
extent corporations and corporate-funded organizations are themselves
the architects of regulatory frameworks and governance structures. It is
from this topical question that the authors of this book investigate corpo-
rate political activities.
Earlier research, as for instance in the impressive work of James
Braithwaite and Peter Drahos (2000) regarding global economic r­ egulation
has clearly shown the importance of corporations in globalization ­processes,
as has Leslie Sklair in his analysis of what he terms ‘the new transnational
capitalist class’ (Sklair 2001). From the perspective of p ­ olitical science
and economics Karin Svedberg Helgesson and Ulrika Mörth (2013) also
discuss the concept of corporate citizenship and the political role of corpo-
rations in contemporary politics, arguing that transnational corporations
have increasingly gained authority in global governance in later decades.
Annegret Flohr and colleagues (Flohr et al. 2014) in similar terms analyse
the role of business, pointing to the importance of self-regulation in for
instance socio-economic and environmental fields when business corpora-

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 Introduction ­9

tions participate in the setting of norms. From a political economy perspec-

tive, Christopher May (2006) has explored the ways in which corporations
affect the practices and structures of the global political economy, stressing
the role of global governance for constraining the power of global corpora-
tions. Within anthropology, important contributions have been made by
for example Catherine Dolan, who shows how corporate ­engagement in
fair trade also turns into being a political affair (Dolan 2008; Dolan and
Scott 2009). Tania Lee (2007) has demonstrated the wide-ranging impact of
private interests in the domain of international ­development, which again
points in the direction of a political influence. Significant contributions
have also been made in the area of CPA, defined as the study of corpo-
rate attempts to shape government policy in ways favourable to the firm
(Baysinger 1984) in disciplines such as strategic management, sociology,
political science, economics and finance (see Hillman et al. 2004 for over-
view; Lux et al. 2011).
The current volume adds to these lines of earlier research in two main
ways. First, as will be elaborated in the next section, by introducing the
concept of corporate bricolage in the field of corporate political activities.
The concept offers a nuanced perspective as to the ways in which policy
influencing by corporations is attempted. Second, by offering a number of
empirical, mainly ethnographical studies, of these activities. Even though
ethnographic research regarding the relationship between business and
politics do exist, there is still a great need for close up studies of how cor-
porations mould their environments.

CORPORATE BRICOLAGE

In a general sense, and as outlined by Lawton et al. (2012), studies of

corporate political activity have focused rather narrowly on how firms use
their strategic political resources and capabilities to improve their profit-
ability (McWilliams et al. 2002). However, a broader interest in how a cor-
poration deploys its political resources in a concerted fashion to manage
its political environment has attracted growing attention. The relevance
of the ‘endogenous context’, in which the firm expects to be confronted
by policy decisions, stakeholders, issues or actions within a non-market
political system, has been emphasized (Kim and Prescott 2005). Facing an
unpredictable exogenous context, the corporation must react to this antici-
pated policy context through effective use of its political resources (Capron
and Chatain 2008). Corporate attempts to influence policy have long been
channelled to influence state agencies and other relevant parties by direct
use of its political resources.

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 10 Power, policy and profit

Corporate influence may also be shielded by the creation of new

organizations that more directly work to influence policy on behalf of
corporations (Barley 2010). Corporations may establish political action
committees (PACs), lobby firms, think tanks or other kinds of issue-
focused organizations that work to establish knowledge, frame problem
perceptions and shape agendas. These shielding organizations, whilst often
focused on particular problem areas or policy issues, may voluntarily or
involuntarily bar insight into the character and extent of corporate influ-
ence. An example of an influential North American PAC is the National
Beer Wholesalers Association Political Action Committee (NBWA PAC).
This is the largest PAC in the licensed beverage industry. NBWA PAC
represents nearly 3,000 licensed, independent beer distributors, who have
operations in every state and congressional district across the United
States. The organization works to strengthen and maintain the state-based
system of alcohol regulation.
Other organizations that may indirectly funnel corporate influence are
think tanks funded by corporate capital and/or foundation capital. In a
general sense, think tanks are organizations that undertake research and
advocacy on specific and often burning topics and are most often registered
as non-profit organizations. The growth of think tanks across the world
over the last few decades have meant enhanced possibilities and intensified
attempts of influencing policy (Ricci 1993; Rich 2004; Smith 1991; Stone
2000). As noted by Andrew Rich (2004, p. 153), ‘the work of think tanks
can be important to an issue beginning years before it becomes a subject
of debate among policy makers.’ It may also fluctuate along the timeline of
a policy process. And its real impact is more often than not very difficult
to trace. Think tanks may as well depend on a large and varied portfolio
of funders for their operations, which makes it difficult to trace the actual
influence of a particular corporate funder. The Competitive Enterprise
Institute (CEI), a free-market think tank founded in the US in 1984,
stands out as an example of a corporate-funded think tank. CEI takes a
significant portion of its funding from private corporations. As expressed
by Tom Medvetz (2012, p. 127): ‘. . . while CEI’s directors would not likely
embrace the label corporate think tank, neither do they make any secret of
their ultimate purposes as advocates for corporate interests’. Another case
in point, but with an entirely different structure and agenda, is the World
Economic Forum, financed by 1,000 of the world’s largest corporations
(Pigman 2007; Garsten and Sörbom 2016). Incorporated as a non-profit
foundation, the World Economic Forum aims to be ‘an independent inter-
national organization committed to improving the state of the world by
engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape
global, regional and industry agendas’ (http://www.weforum.org/content/

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 Introduction ­11

leadership-team, accessed 3 October 2013). At the meetings arranged

by the Forum, industry leaders meet with leaders from for example the
United Nations, the World Trade Organization, with prime ministers and
presidents, as well as with leaders from major civil society organizations,
including Bill and Melinda Gates and other characters with double roles.
Discussions on core global issues with high government officials take place
in meetings that are not publicly announced. The idea propelled by the
Forum, as the organizer of these meetings, is that the solutions put forth at
the discussions should be pursued in the local settings of the participants,
which also occasionally happens.
Another example of such an endeavour in the global policy domain
is the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
The council organizes 200 of the world’s largest corporations, who, as the
organization presents it, on a daily basis are in contact with 50 per cent of
the entire world’s population. Its aim is to put forth ‘business solutions for
a sustainable world’ (wbcsd.org, accessed 2 September 2013). As Patricia
Arnas at the council’s Washington, DC office declares when we meet:

We are a global organization, we aim to work at the global level. We do global,

not national, advocacy work. Not lobbying. This dictates who we are and who
we partner with. Today we target mainly UN-types of organizations as the
OECD, UNEP, UNDP, OECD and Clean Energy Ministerial. The types of
policies we work on are general, to fit the global level. For example: policy on
carbon, where we are claiming the need for a global prize on carbon. We are not
picking a type of energy source, we are just saying that there should be a cost,
and it should be global, and subsidies must be abandoned. We aim to address
issues at a higher level, at a high level of generalizability. (Interview 2014)

The Council does work in tandem with INGOs, but it also works directly
with its own member corporations in order to inspire them to take social
responsibility. The WBCSD is always invited to the WEF annual meetings
in Davos, and many of its members are also members of the WEF. In turn,
these members may turn up as the firm that an institutional investor with a
‘responsible’ profile may choose to invest in. Or, the members of WBCSD
will meet with a partner from Fairtrade International at a side event for
a UN climate change meeting, set up by WBCSD and the International
Emissions Trading Associations (IETA). IETA has in turn visited Davos
and the WEF annual meeting and are members of a WEF task force
working group on accelerated investments in low-carbon ­technologies. The
intersections between the different organizations active here are plentiful.
WBCSB is an organization that is moulding its e­ nvironment (see Barley
2010), and explicitly so at a global level.
Unintentionally, we find that most of the organizations explored in the

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 12 Power, policy and profit

volume have, in one way or another, been in contact with World Economic
Forum, by being part of their partially organized network. For example,
Susan C. Schwab, a member of a Global Action Council at the WEF, is
also a board member of Boeing. The FLO international strategic partner
HIVOS is a regular attendee at WEF-meetings. Apart from being a WEF
strategic partner, Google is commonly understood to set up the best party
during the Davos week, when WEF participants are entering the village for
its annual meeting. Participants from Atlas Transnational of course also
take part in WEF-activities.
Bringing to mind knowledge production in this manner thereby also
points to the existential phenomena of global bricolage. Just like the
economic entrepreneur recombines and makes creative use of existing
resources, capitalizing on the capacity to mobilize practical knowledge in
a way that challenges general theoretical approaches (Baker et al. 2003),
corporate actors involved in global governance mobilize by combining
resources, social as well as economic. Policy bricolage, then – understood
as a mix of disorderly processes and institutional reassemblages – is
grounded in cultural political economy and explores a cobbling together
of multiple kinds of self-organization in national blocs and is only loosely
meshed as a mode of informal global governance (Mittelman 2013).
Further, the bricolage approach offers a grammar, a way to examine the
combination of spontaneity and international groupings without one-
sidedly emphasizing the former or the latter. It thus views this experimen-
tation as glimmerings of potential modifications in ways to steer the global
political economy.
Evoking the Claude Lévi-Strauss concept of ‘the bricoleur’ (1966) in
the public policy domain we see these corporate actors as policy bricole-
urs, as ­organizations with the capacity to act both as market actors and
as ­political actors, putting together different resources in heterogeneous
forms. In the sphere where markets and politics are brought together,
the bricolage character of such organizations makes them agile enough
to manoeuvre across and combine market and political interests. The
­organizations involved in political affairs are therefore finicky to define as
either or. They can be important for markets, but they are also important
for politics and they are certainly active in combining both types of activi-
ties. Depending on the context and the interest pursued, they perform as
primarily market actors or political actors.
At the emic level organizations that are set up to exert political influence
often describe themselves in ambiguous terms, being for instance simulta-
neously foundations, non-governmental organizations and think tanks. The
WEF, for example, describes itself as simultaneously a foundation, a non-
profit organization, an international institution and a think tank. It may

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 Introduction ­13

shift flexibly between positions and roles in markets and in political circles,
thus moving readily on the grazing grounds of both corporations and
­politicians, speaking freely with corporate leaders as well as with high-level
politicians. In the same vein, as Tom Medvetz (2012) describes think tanks,
ambiguity is a resource for policy bricoleur successes. Less bound by clearly
defined roles – compared to, for example, universities and ­governments
– think tanks, NGOs, research institutes and other o ­ rganizations such as
these are able to more freely draw upon the former institutions as estab-
lished sources of knowledge, hereby establishing themselves as policy
intellectuals, doing the ‘intellectual groundwork’ (Medvetz 2012, p. 5), influ-
encing how citizens and lawmakers perceive the world. As for example the
technical or architectural bricoleur turns to the tools at hand, ­establishing
a dialogue with her/him self, the policy bricoleur draws upon existing
resources, asking new questions of them, and thereby making them into
something that carries further the sign of credibility but with a partly new
understanding of the content. These types of ambiguous organizations are
not a particularly new phenomenon. What is new is the scale and political
importance of the activities of these kinds of organizations. Both nationally
and transnationally governance outside and in between governments are
staged to an increasing, and unprecedented, level.

PROFIT, POWER AND POLICY CLOSE UP

As Stephen Barley contends (2010), organizational researchers have not

been that interested in how corporations mould their environment. They
have instead focused their attention on the internal affairs of corporations,
less so on their outward interests. This pattern is true also for research
based in other traditions and perspectives. Economists and sociologists
with an interest in corporate political activity have analysed this in order
to answer questions pertaining to why corporations may have an interest
in funding politics, which corporations fund the most and their role vis-à-
vis governmental organizations (see for instance Boies 1989; Burris 2001;
Hillman et al. 2004; Ronit 2001; Ronit and Schneider 1999; Hansen and
Mitchell 2000). Political scientists, primarily interested in governmental
activities, have had their prime interest in governmental politics and not
corporate politics (Archer 2001; Stone 2012). The strands of research on
international political economy stand out as exceptions (as seen in for
example Braithwaite and Drahos 2000; Koppel 2010).
This book answers the criticism raised by Barley, and asks questions
regarding corporations and their relation to politics. The relationship is
old, but due to the scale and the increasing importance of these kinds of

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 14 Power, policy and profit

political affairs they call for a close examination. What kinds of activities
do corporations pursue, in what forms, on what issues and with what solu-
tions put forward? How do they achieve legitimacy as actors in the global
political domain?
When looking for answers to these questions the policy bricolage concept
invites us to look for empirical examples that reflect the flexibility and
ambiguities in the organizational relations that these actors oftentimes
display. Global rules for markets do emerge from intergovernmental organi-
zations in the form of treaties and conventions. But they are also announced
by non-governmental bodies, sometimes formed by corporations or in
quasi-governmental forms where corporations in different forms are active
together with other types of organizations, for example by issuing standards
and/or recommendations (Koppel 2010, p. 8). The contribution of Power,
Policy and Profit is to analyse some of these flex organizations in motion.
First, the volume presents a number of chapters that analyse corporate
interests in shaping regulation. Mikkel Flyverbom in his chapter on advo-
cacy by corporations, Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom on the role
of corporations in the World Economic Forum, Picard et al. on corporate
governance and Anna Tyllström regarding lobbying consultancy, all give
empirical insights as to the intermixing of corporate interests for policy,
power and profit. Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic’s chapter relates to this theme
but from an interest for Atlas TI as the originator of neoliberal think
tanks. Hervé Dumez and Alain Jeunemaître’s chapter focuses on how a
large corporation attempts to cross the public–private sector divide, in
order to create increased rents, thereby altering regulations of markets (for
instance, who has the right to run schools).
Second, the volume also presents analyses of corporate interests in
‘doing good’, that is to say of business as prefigurative politics (compare
Leach 2013). As for social movements, the fundamental idea here is to
change the world by changing the means employed, internally in the
company and externally for customers. The chapters by Renita Thedvall
and Anette Nyqvist ­respectively, show how some corporations and finan-
cial institutions attempt to make money by doing the ‘right thing’, that is,
by ­politicizing their activities. In the chapter by Bo Rothstein, however, the
reversed idea is presented, when arguing for corporations being in need of
non-market based i­deology to control their activities.

OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS

Chapter 1, by Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic presents the role of Atlas

Transnational, the mother of neoliberal think tanks. Over the last 40

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 Introduction ­15

years or so, neoliberalism has become the ‘new dominant regime of truth’
(Burgin 2013; Djelic 2006) with a significant performative impact on
national policymaking (Campbell and Pedersen 2001) as well as in regards
to dynamics of transnational governance (Lee and McBride 2007). Of par-
ticular interest here is the carrier and boundary-spanning role of the dense
ecology of neoliberal think tanks and research institutes that has come
to be structured over the past four decades. These think tanks espouse a
market- and business-friendly ideology and have made it their mission to
champion, spread, defend and entrench, as widely and deeply as possible
and in a multiplicity of contexts, this ideology and its associated politics.
In the chapter, Salles-Djelic presents the historical dynamics of emergence
of this dense ecology of neoliberal think tanks. Salles-Djelic explores the
role of Atlas, that was created to ‘litter the world’ with free-market think
tanks (Blundell 2001) with a particular interest for the process through
which the organizational form of the ‘neoliberal think tank’ came to
be constructed, diffused and progressively institutionalized during that
period. Unpacking potent – albeit subtle and indirect – mechanisms of
influence that have largely been neglected in the literature Salles-Djelic
contributes to the understanding of the relationship between business and
politics. As the chapter shows, neoliberal think tanks were constructed to
shape and spread ideological, political and practice templates and to help
crystallize and stabilize them across the world both in the corporate and in
the ­political world.
Departing from an interest in the involvement of business leaders in
the sphere of politics, in the broad sense, Christina Garsten and Adrienne
Sörbom analyse the role of business within the World Economic Forum
(WEF). Many global business leaders today do much more than engage
narrowly in their own corporation and its search for profit, and the WEF
is one such arena through which firms act through to advance their inter-
ests, financial as well as political. The organization has built its position
and reputation on providing an arena for large-scale business corpora-
tions and top-level political elites, and the influence of corporations on
the structure and content of activities should not be underestimated. The
chapter indicates a number of conduits through which business may draw
upon the WEF and its platforms as a strategically positioned amplifier for
their non-market interests. However, the WEF cannot only be conceived
as the extended voice of corporations. The WEF also makes use of the
corporations to organize and expand its own agency, which doesn’t neces-
sarily coincide with the interests of multinational corporations. Garsten
and Sörbom introduce the notion of policy bricolage in the chapter as a
way to capture the ambiguous, creative and agile role of the WEF and
its relation to corporations. By way of corporate financial resources, the

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 16 Power, policy and profit

tapping of knowledge and expertise and access to vast networks of busi-

ness relations, the WEF is also able to amplify its own voice. On top, it is
through the support and engagement of business, as well as that of politi-
cal leaders and non-governmental high profiles, that the organization gets
its spin. The global policy bricolage of the WEF is thus not just a complex
form of global governance, but also an intricate system of interweaving
market and political interests, and one that both amplifies and blurs the
choir of voices.
Drawing the case of construction of the European carbon market (EU-
ETS) Mélodie Cartel, Eva Boxenbaum, Franck Aggeri and Jean-Yves
Caneill, in Chapter 3, address the question how public policies can be
designed and implemented when facing strong reluctance from both politi-
cians and private corporations? The EU-ETS was adopted in 2003 as the
corner stone of the European climate policy. The authors analyse the col-
lective dynamics of the making of the European carbon market. Based on a
rich set of archival data and interviews, the analysis reconstitutes the origi-
nal strategy deployed by the electricity sector to implement a carbon market
in Europe. Empirically, the chapter shows that during the Kyoto Protocol,
the European Commission opposed emissions trading, and the industrial
companies pleaded against any measure involving a price on carbon. In
spite of this reluctance, a handful of actors in the electricity sector believed
that a carbon market could be an effective solution to manage carbon emis-
sions at the company level. From 1999 to 2001, these actors organized two
successive experiments where they invited industrial companies to build
and test various carbon market prototypes. The chapter indicates that these
experiments triggered an intellectual shift among participants and consid-
erably fuelled the policymaking process that led to the EU-ETS.
The point of departure for Tyllström, in Chapter 4, is an interest in
giving ethnographic evidence to lobbying, something that, in spite of the
plethora of organizations devoted to political influence that has emerged
globally since the 1970s, has been conspicuous by their absence (Barley
2010). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from the realm of public affairs
consultancy, the chapter provides insights into the practical nature of cor-
porate lobbying, as well as a discussion of how these consultants practice
lobbying, and the role of lobbying may have in politics and markets. The
case describes how a powerful industry player wishes to influence policy,
hires a consultant who uses classical tools to gain political influence such
as identifying key players and enemies, good arguments and counter-
arguments. As such, the case gives a rare account of how these tools are
used by public affairs consultants. In generalized terms, the chapter shows
the lobbying of public affairs consultants to revolve around five ­practices;
information-gathering, contact management, visibility management, role-

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 Introduction ­17

switching and ideological proactivity. These five types of practice are

distinctly observable aspects of lobbying work, but they also feed into and
amplify each other. Tyllström shows how the switching roles facilitates the
establishment of contacts, which in turn enables the gathering of better,
more valuable information. Furthermore, the constant management of
boundaries between invisibility and visibility, the rich contact networks
and the constant adjustment of identities together makes it possible for
consultants to launch their own political ideas into the opinion landscape.
Understanding these qualities of practice and how they interact is crucial
to understanding the resurgent critique against lobbyism concerning its
hidden nature and role confusion. As Tyllström concludes, fuzziness is not
external to lobbying practices; it is at the heart of it.
In Chapter 5 Dumez and Jeunemaître analyse political strategies of
firms, based on the case of Boeing from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The traditional view of firms’ political strategies is that, by acting on the
state, they will protect and expand firms’ interests. But whereas in the
classic game (to prevent the vote of an adverse law for example) corporate
interests from the outset were seen as clearly defined, in the new game
companies frequently are seen as identifying their interest in the course
of actions and interactions with politicians (Woll 2008). The context
of ­political action is often deeply uncertain. Therefore, the traditional
­opposition between market and non-market strategies, and between rela-
tional and transactional political activities should be questioned, especially
in a period marked by globalization. Boeing’s strategy in the late 1990s
and early 2000s serves as an illustrating case of these tendencies. Boeing
had been accustomed to traditional strategies of lobbying (for example
in the context of its rivalry with Airbus) and financing political life. But
in the late 1990s, it developed ambitious strategies aimed at building up
influence rents. These strategies failed for Boeing, but analytically Dumez
and Jeunmaître are able to draw on the case for identifying new types of
relationships between firms and the state.
Mikkel Flyverbom, in Chapter 6, sets out to expand the ­conception of
corporate advocacy by pointing to the growing importance of k ­ nowledge,
data and visualizations. Drawing on insights from the literature on the
politics of knowledge (Rubio and Baert 2012) and the importance
of knowledge in governance (Foucault 1980; Stone 2002) Flyverbom
develops a conceptual entry point for enhancing the understanding
­
of how Internet companies engage multiple forms of k ­ nowledge and
­visualizations as resources in their efforts to shape public perceptions,
politics and regulation. To this end, the chapter uses i­llustrations from a
study of Google and Facebook. Based on interviews with policy direc-
tors, participant observations in multi-stakeholder d ­ ialogues initiated

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 18 Power, policy and profit

by the UN, as well as documentary research, the chapter discusses the

various forms of corporate advocacy that play out in this field. These
prove to be: relationship building, message crafting and data provision.
While the first two are well established, the focus on the provision of
data, algorithms and ­ technological platforms adds a new dimension
to our understanding of corporate advocacy. This typology and the
empirical illustrations serve as the basis for a conceptual and contextual
embedding of visual numbers- and data-based forms of knowledge pro-
duction and advocacy in relation to prevalent forms and understandings
of corporate political activities.
Contrary to the earlier chapters, where focus has been on how firms
and corporations attempt to diffuse their specific views and interests to
other actors, the chapter ‘Talking like an institutional investor: on the
gentle voices of financial giants’ (Chapter 7) by Anette Nyqvist, analyses
how corporate actors attempt to relate to norms and scripts for taking
social responsibility. Through analysing the talk of institutional investors
Nyqvist describes and discusses some of the ways in which organizations
with the primary goal of ‘making money’ increasingly also embark on pro-
jects of ‘doing good’. Institutional investors, such as mutual funds, insur-
ance companies and pension funds, are large shareholder o ­ rganizations
commissioned to manage other people’s money. These have in later
decades emerged as influential front figures of the responsible investment
industry, claiming to make money and make a difference and positioning
themselves as the ‘active’ and ‘responsible’ do-gooders of finance. Nyqvist
sees them as intermediary organizations that in a relatively short time have
grown in size and scope and now dominate corporate ownership globally.
They are normative and fostering financial actors that aim to, in their
view, better the way companies conduct their businesses. Nyqvist shows
how institutional investors use ‘voice’, ‘dialogue’ and ‘small talk’ with the
intent to (1) define and position themselves as a particular type of financial
market actor, (2) foster and try to change companies that they own shares
in and (3) set new standards for the investment industry.
In Chapter 8, Sébastien Picard, Véronique Steyer, Xavier Philippe and
Mar Pérezts offer a broad vision of corporate political activities, high-
lighting its institutional reach, and describing its concrete institutional-
izing effects. Drawing on Michel Lallement (2008) the authors attempt
to open the black box of the institutionalization processes of corporate
political activity and the institutional dynamics associated with this
type of activity. Using data from an in-depth ethnography in VaxCorp,
a leading corporation in the vaccine industry, the authors analyse how
the company shapes its institutional field by imposing the dominant
­‘vaccinology’ imaginary. In practice this takes shape in a modus operandi

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 Introduction ­19

that goes beyond the mere maximization of VaxCorp’s interests to organ-

ize actions and behaviours of other institutional actors (for example,
State, WHO). The analysis indicates that this imaginary emerges from
but also intertwines institutionalizing processes into a larger and coher-
ent pattern, which eventually legitimizes corporations’ dominance in an
institutional field.
Renita Thedvall demonstrates in Chapter 9 the dynamics of
standardization (Brunsson et al. 2012) when implementing fairtrade
­
­standards in a chocolate factory. What worldviews and ideals are e­ mbedded
in Fairtrade International’s standards? How are these w ­ orldviews and ideals
negotiated and navigated in relation to economic issues of m ­ arketability as
well as other political ideals present in the factory? The chapter gives ethno-
graphic insights of the attempts of the long-­established chocolate factory
to develop a product in line with the fairtrade standard. Interestingly, the
production process of conventional chocolate would be identical to the one
following the standard. However, the purchase and storage of fairtrade raw
material proved to be a challenge bringing attention to political concerns
within the chocolate factory. In fact, the factory’s choice to use an ethical
label on one of its products brought a whole set of political discussions, as
well as new priorities within the factory. The ­political in this context was
not primarily the words and values in the fairtrade standards documents
and certification criteria being implemented as part of the CSR strategy of
the chocolate factory. Instead it was the fact that the fairtrade label, and
its standards and compliance criteria, opened a space for politics in the
chocolate factory. In this way, the words and the values in the standards
documents and compliance criteria were translated and adjusted turning
the fairtrade labelled products into a political affair matching the chocolate
factory’s political ideals. Still, the negotiated fairtrade ideals did not carve
out a space for them in the milk chocolate segment. Thus, making a busi-
ness out of being fairtrade opened a space for politics within the factory
but not for business and the carefully chosen chocolate bar wrapping
including the fairtrade label was discarded and wrapping papers without
labels were put in the flowpack machine.
In the chapter authored by Bo Rothstein (Chapter 10), the focus is
set on corporations, corruption and power, thus stressing the intersec-
tion between policy and markets. The analysis starts from the term
‘legal corruption’, coined by former leading World Bank economist
Daniel Kaufmann. The term is to be understood as a problem of
collective action, leading to a social trap, in which it makes no sense
of acting legally when one does not know if other actors do too. As
Rothstein argues, corruption is one important factor in explaining the
financial crisis in 2008, and the main aim of the chapter is to present

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 20 Power, policy and profit

four ­interrelated arguments that sum up to a theory about the relation

between the logic of markets, regulation and social efficiency. The first
argument is that competitive markets are, hitherto, the most efficient
organizational form of creating a utilitarian-based economic efficiency
for the production of most goods and services. Second, Rothstein main-
tains that in order to reach this utilitarian-based efficiency, markets need
a large and quite complicated set of institutions, formal as well as infor-
mal. The third argument, however, is that we have little reason to expect
that such institutions will be created endogenously by agents acting
from the standard self-interested utility-maximization template. This is
because such efficient institutions are genuine public goods and there-
fore are prone to the well-known problem of collective action. Thus, as
argued by Rothstein, contrary to what has been taken for granted by
most policymakers in the area of financial regulation the implication
is that we should expect market agents to act in a way that either will
prevent efficient institutions to be established, or if they are established,
will try to destroy them by various forms of ‘free riding’. The fourth
argument is, therefore, that markets can only reach social efficiency if
the agents that have the responsibility to produce and reproduce the
­necessary institutions act according to a logic that is different from the
logic that market agents use when operating in the market.
David Westbrook concludes the volume stressing the points of depar-
ture for the volume as a whole, the need for ‘leaving flatland’ in the analysis
of relationships between markets and politics. In Flatland, the Victorian
author Edwin Abbott told the story of a square, prosperously living in
a society located (and understood) in a two dimensional plane, but chal-
lenged by a visitor in form of a sphere (Abbott 1884[1998]). Analogous to
Flatland, we, the social scientists, tend to commonly address a complex
fabric of relations with a very simple normative vocabulary: liberalism.
Along the same lines as Abbott, Westbrook asks how we, from within
the liberal plane, might conceive of the social, so that we might imagine
­politics in at least three dimensions? As Westbrook argues, the impoverish-
ment of political discourse as it is commonly portrayed in social sciences
may be unwise, even dangerous. Instead, Westbrook suggests that the
social sciences, and anthropology in particular, can help to foster a more
institutional, and more responsible, political imagination. While social
science may still find itself constrained to present itself as a science, the
inquiry at issue here is into collective subjectivity, and thus inherently
interpretive, rather than objective. If the new science distinguished itself
from its ancestors by abandoning teleology, it is precisely the reengagement
with teleology that is urged here, not for the study of nature, but for the
study of communities, with their constitutive norms.

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 Introduction ­21

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