Table Of ContentPower, Policy and
Profit
Corporate Engagement in Politics and
Governance
Edited by
Christina Garsten
Professor of Social Anthropology, Department of Social
Anthropology and Stockholm Centre for Organizational
Research (SCORE), Stockholm University, Sweden
Adrienne Sörbom
Associate Professor of Sociology, Stockholm Centre for
Organizational Research (SCORE), Stockholm University,
Sweden
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
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© Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
The Lypiatts
15 Lansdown Road
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 2JA
UK
Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
William Pratt House
9 Dewey Court
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939801
This book is available electronically in the
Business subject collection
DOI 10.4337/9781784711214
ISBN 978 1 78471 120 7 (cased)
ISBN 978 1 78471 121 4 (eBook)
Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
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Contents
List of contributors vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: political affairs in the global domain 1
Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom
1 Building an architecture for political influence: Atlas and the
transnational institutionalization of the neoliberal think tank 25
Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic
2 Global policy bricolage: the role of business in the World
Economic Forum 45
Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom
3 Policymaking as collective bricolage: the role of the electricity
sector in the making of the European carbon market 64
Mélodie Cartel, Eva Boxenbaum, Franck Aggeri and
Jean-Yves Caneill
4 Lobbying in practice: an ethnographic field study of public
affairs consultancy 82
Anna Tyllström
5 Firms’ political strategies in a new public/private environment:
the Boeing case 100
Hervé Dumez and Alain Jeunemaître
6 Corporate advocacy in the Internet domain: shaping policy
through data visualizations 115
Mikkel Flyverbom
7 Talking like an institutional investor: on the gentle voices of
financial giants 134
Anette Nyqvist
v
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vi Power, policy and profit
8 Leading the war on epidemics: exploring corporations’
predatory modus operandi and their effects on institutional
field dynamics 152
Sébastien Picard, Véronique Steyer, Xavier Philippe and Mar
Pérezts
9 Political chocolate: branding it fairtrade 170
Renita Thedvall
10 Preventing markets from self-destruction 186
Bo Rothstein
11 Reflections: leaving Flatland? Planar discourses and the search
for the g-axis 208
David A. Westbrook
Index 223
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Contributors
Franck Aggeri, Professor of Management Science, CGS, MINES
ParisTech, France.
Eva Boxenbaum, Professor, Centre de Gestion Scientifique, PSL – MINES
ParisTech, France.
Jean-Yves Caneill, PhD, Head of Climate Policy at Électricité de France
(EDF), France.
Mélodie Cartel, Assistant Professor, Department Management &
Technology, Grenoble School of Management, France.
Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic, Sciences Po, Centre de Sociologie des
Organisations (CSO), Paris, France.
Hervé Dumez, Professor, École polytechnique, Director of Research at I3/
CRG, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France.
Mikkel Flyverbom, Associate Professor, Department of Management,
Society and Communication, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
Christina Garsten, Professor, Department of Social Anthropology,
Stockholm University, Sweden.
Alain Jeunemaître, Professor, École polytechnique, Director of Research
at I3/CRG, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France.
Anette Nyqvist, Associate Professor, Department of Social Anthropology,
Stockholm University, Sweden.
Mar Pérezts, Associate Professor in Management, Law and Human
Resources, emlyon business school, MDRH Department & OCE Research
Center, France.
Xavier Philippe, Associate Professor in Human Resources Management
and Sociology of Work, EM Normandie & Métis Lab, France.
Sébastien Picard, Professor of Corporate Political Behavior, SCUNIV –
Singapore Corporate University, Singapore.
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viii Power, policy and profit
Bo Rothstein, Professor, Blavatnik School of Government, University of
Oxford, UK.
Adrienne Sörbom, Associate Professor, Stockholm Centre for Organizational
Research (SCORE), Stockholm University, Sweden.
Véronique Steyer, Assistant Professor in Management, i3-CRG, École
polytechnique, CNRS, Université Paris Saclay, France.
Renita Thedvall, Associate Professor, Stockholm Centre for Organizational
Research (SCORE), Stockholm University, Sweden.
Anna Tyllström, PhD, Institute for Futures Studies Stockholm, Sweden.
David A. Westbrook, Professor, School of Law, University of Buffalo,
USA.
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Acknowledgements
This book has materialized as the result of long-term and dynamic network
connections between researchers in the social sciences sharing an interest
in corporate influence on politics. Much experimentation, probing and
analysis have taken place over the five years of exchange in the Govemark
(Governance of Markets) network. We wish to thank all those who par-
ticipated with ideas and papers in the Govemark network, first of all the
contributors to this book, and also, in alphabetical order: Oana Brindusa
Albu, Jonathan Alensky, Michael Barnett, Christoph Brumann, Steve
Coleman, Jana Costas, Matilda Dahl, Colette Depeyre, Pauline Garvey,
Malin Gawell, Patty Gray, Chris Grey, Martin Gustavsson, Melissa
Fisher, Staffan Furusten, Hans Krause Hansen, Axel Haunschild, Frank
den Hond, Dan Kärreman, Anna Leander, Monica Lindh de Montoya,
Mark Maguire, Kathleen McNamara, Afshin Mehrpouya, Gwen Mikell,
Peter Miller, Miguel Montoya, Fiona Murphy, Horacio Ortiz, Josef
Pallas, Gustav Peebles, Ian Richardson, Jamie Saris, Mattias Schlögl, Ola
Segnestam Larsson, JP Singh, Jens Stilhoff Sörensen, Tom Strong, Emma
Svensson, Xavier C Tanghuy, Scott D Taylor, Steen Vallentin and Janine
Wedel. We are grateful to the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and
Social Sciences for funding the network activities of Govemark, and to the
Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (SCORE) at Stockholm
University and Stockholm School of Economics for support.
To our contributing authors – it has been inspirational to work with you
all! Thank you for sharing your research and your findings with us, for
constructive conversations and for moving the field ahead. A large portion
of the work for this book has blended in various ways with spheres other
than academia, corporations or politics –with life itself. To our near and
dear – our loving thanks.
Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom
Stockholm, February 2017
ix
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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
1
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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]h e frequently invoked opposition between governments and market
actors, in which governments are simply viewed as intrusive and inefficient,
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