Business is one of the major power centres in modern society. The state seeks to check and channel that power so as to serve broader public policy objectives. However, if the way in which business is governed is ineffective or over burdensome, it may become more difficult to achieve desired goals such as economic growth or higher levels of employment. In a period of international economic crisis, the study of how business and government relate to each other in different countries is of more central importance than ever. These relationships have been studied from a number of different disciplinary perspectives - business studies, economics, economic history, law, and political science - and all of these are represented in this handbook. The first part of the book provides an introduction to the ways in which five different disciplines have approached the study of business and government. The second section, on the firm and the state, looks at how these entities interact in different settings, emphasising such phenomena as the global firm and varieties of capitalism. The third section examines how business interacts with government in different parts of the world, including the United States, the EU, China, Japan and South America. The fourth section reviews changing patterns of market governance through a unifying theme of the role of regulation. Business-government relations can play out in divergent ways in different policy and the fifth section examines the contrasts between different key arenas such as competition policy, trade policy, training policy and environmental policy. The volume provides an authoritative overview with chapters by leading authorities on the current state of knowledge of business-government relations, but also points to ways in which this work might be developed in the future, e.g., through a political theory of the firm.
Overview; PART 1: DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES; 1. Political Science: Perspectives on Business and Government; 2. Economics: Economic Theories of the Firm, Business, and Government; 3. Law and Business; 4. Business Studies: The Global Dynamics of Business-State Relations; SECTION 2: FIRM AND STATE; 5. Varieties of Capitalism and Business; 6. The Global Firm: The Problem of the Giant Firm in Democratic Capitalism; 7. Political Theory of the Firm; 8. Business and Political Parties; 9. Economic Interests and Political Representation: Coordination and Distributive Conflict in Historical Perspective; 10. Business and Neo-corporatism; PART 3: COMPARATIVE BUSINESS SYSTEMS; 11. Business Representation in Washington, DC; 12. European Business-Government Relations; 13. Business Politics in Latin America: Patterns of Fragmentation and Centralization; 14. Japanese Business-Government Relations; 15. China and the Multinational Experience; PART 4: CHANGING MARKET GOVERNANCE; 16. The Rise of the Regulatory State; 17. International Regulators and Network Governance; 18. Credit Rating Agencies; 19. International Standards and Standard Setting Bodies; 20. Taming Globalization? Civil Regulation and Corporate Capitalism; PART 5: POLICY; 21. Corporate Control and Managerial Power; 22. Corporate Social Responsibility and Government; 23. The State, Business, and Training; 24. Social Policy and Business; 25. Private-Public Partnerships in Business and Government; 26. Entrepreneurship and Small Business Policy: Evaluating its Role and Purpose; 27. Consumer Policy: Business and the Politics of Consumption; 28. Media Economics and the Political Economy of Information; 29. Environmental and Food Safety Policy; 30. Network Utilities: Technological Development, Market Structure, and Forms of Ownership; 31. Endogenous Trade Protection: A Survey; 32. Competition Policy
