Political Science Perspectives on Business and Government

Abstract

Four debates have been generated in the political science literature on business and government. One is the Lindblom thesis about structural business power. A second is about whether business has enjoyed unfair advantages in politics. A third is concerned with whether business-government relations can lead to suboptimal public policy. A fourth variant is that the state dominates business-government relations. Over time firms have become more sophisticated in their approaches to politics. Variations in their approaches can be analysed in terms of a number of structural variables, but what is still lacking and still needed is a political science theory of the firm. Crises in capitalism can lead to new forms of government-business relations.

Keywords: Firm, government, business, capitalism, public policy

JEL Classification: D21