This chapter discusses what makes a coalition of interest groups powerful with elected officials, and why a coalition builder is necessary to turn a disparate set of Interests into an influential coalition. The chapter also provides a tool called Coalition Dashboard which, for a given policy agenda, helps to visually assess the power of pro and con coalitions.

The technical and market knowledge a business possesses -- its Information, in the language of the 4Is -- can be an important asset in advocating with regulators. Information can be leveraged in two ways. First, the business can share Information that is mission-relevant for the regulator. Doing so helps regulators avoid crises and, therefore, helps regulators cultivate their reputation for technical competence. Second, alternatively, the business can threaten to attack the regulators reputation for competence. Both strategies leverage the regulators desire to preserve and increase their reputation for technical competence.

The key question this chapter addresses is which countries are the most receptive to Chinese foreign infrastructure spending? I theorize electoral autocracies will be the most avid recipients. This chapter analyzes Chinese foreign spending since the introduction of the BRI at the end of 2013 with data from the China Global Investment Tracker (CGIT) dataset. Multivariate tests indicate electoral autocracies are the major recipients during the BRI timeframe, from 2014 to 2019. Extending the timeframe to 2005 to 2019, the findings indicate a substantive difference in the relationship between Chinese foreign construction spending and electoral autocracies that occurs with the initiation of the BRI. Logistics performance indicators also show electoral autocracies display the greatest improvement from before to after the introduction of the BRI. While the share of Chinese exports flowing to electoral autocracies increases during the BRI time period, it is not possible to conclude this is a deviation from previous trends; more time is needed to establish confidence for these effects. The main takeaway is the exceptional role electoral autocracies play in attracting Chinese foreign spending in the context of the BRI, especially when the leaders have an insecure hold on power.

This chapter describes who elected officials are, what motivates them, and how corporations advocate with them.

‘Work’ is a contested concept and so is the notion of ‘meaningful work’. The debate on work is hundreds of years old, while the discussion about meaningful work is recent. The historical discussions about the concept of work show, however, not just conceptual and value-free disagreements about the content and form of work, but also, and more fundamentally, its meaning for workers and society. This chapter discusses different approaches to the concept of work in the field of meaningful work. We contrast this scholarship with debates in the realm of job satisfaction and job quality. This allows us to embed the meaningful work discourse in alternative debates in the research on work and its meaning.

This chapter examines whether the patterns observed for political regimes and Chinese infrastructure spending are also manifested by foreign aid and exports of Chinese digital technologies that promote the adoption of Chinese standards. Analysis of several different datasets consistently show electoral autocracies are the major recipients. The datasets include Chinese smart cities technologies exports, foreign aid in the information and communications technology sector, and foreign deals for Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and e-government services. These quantitative findings are supplemented by case studies of Malaysia (electoral autocracy) and Greece (liberal democracy).

To explain what drives the demand for Chinese infrastructure spending and the adoption of its digital standards among low- and middle-income countries, we must begin by considering how they effectively address market failures. A first set of market failures regards impediments to private investment for building infrastructure. Western multilateral development banks such as the World Bank commonly impose liberalizing conditionalities on recipient states. These can be politically problematic for rulers of autocratic countries that rely on state controls to retain their hold on power. China, by contrast, has an explicit policy of noninterference in the domestic politics of foreign nations. China’s own political motivations coupled with huge dollar reserves have enabled it to effectively address the market failures of autocracies in a politically palatable way. A second type of market failure regards transaction costs and coordination failures. These can be addressed via the adoption of digital technologies. China can leverage its preferential access to autocracies for infrastructure spending in order to promote the adoption of its digital and related technical standards.

Voters are the MVP of any coalition if they are engaged with the coalitions Agenda. How should a business publicly articulate its agenda in order to maximize voter engagement? Or, alternatively, how can messaging reduce the publics engagement with the opposing coalitions agenda? This chapter deals with these questions.

In this chapter I address two related questions: would it be desirable to restrict the business sectors ability to advocate? And, should corporations be encouraged to interface with society in a different way? I make the case that, if business was restricted in its ability to communicate with government officials, the officials would likely make decisions less accurately, but not any more independently of business. Furthermore, I argue that allowing relatively unfettered business advocacy can help ensure that regulations are innovation-friendly and, moreover, that in comparison to other political systems, the USs openness to business advocacy actually promotes innovation. These two arguments, when taken together, amount to a cautious case against restricting business advocacy. I then discuss a different way in which business organizations operate in the political arena: namely, the leveraging of the business organizations relationship with its customers, suppliers, or workers to pursue societal goals not directly tied to its own business. I argue that this behavior, despite being well-intentioned and popular with a segment of public opinion, should be approached with some caution by business corporations.

The introduction sets the mise en scene for the book in a narrative introduction, raising some of the questions the book will be addressing around: crisis of the university, higher education, student protest, intercollegiate athletics, tuition, governance, the cost of higher education and student debt, liberal arts and humanities, the defunding of public universities, sexual assault, sexual harassment, free speech, hate speech, race, intellectual diversity, college closures, culture wars, neoliberalism.