Acknowledgments
This book emerges from a research trajectory begun by Michael Dreiling in 1998 that sought to explain how it is that large corporations achieved such a central role in the trade advisory system under the Office of the US Trade Representative. A strictly historical answer that focused on the 1974 Trade Act was unsatisfactory, given the politics of trade globalization during the 1990s, and elevated concerns about democracy and social inequality. Understanding how the 1974 Trade Act opened the avenues for more direct corporate involvement in the making of US trade policy was certainly an interesting question. But the strong correlation between the corporate appointees to advisory posts and their membership in leading corporate policy associations raised both substantive and theoretical puzzles about the contemporary exercise of power in the wider context of democracy and globalization. The mass protests and police counter-mobilizations in Seattle 1999 spoke to these stark issues.
Derek Y. Darves joined the research project in 1999 and mastered the issues as well as the quantitative methods, as presented in his 2006 doctoral dissertation at the University of Oregon. This book incorporates many of those wonderful analyses. Collaboratively, our work embarked on a project to bring a confirmatory network approach to macro-historical questions about corporate power and globalization. We acknowledge that such an endeavor is complex and likely to face real limitations. Any shortcomings to this project, we acknowledge, are our own. We take full responsibility for any errors in the logic or consistency of our presentation. Yet, numerous people have inspired and improved this project through their comments, support, and criticism. We share our appreciation for G. William Domhoff, whose comments at a 2007 conference encouraged us to pursue the project to the end. For this, we are grateful. We are grateful, too, for the insights and methodological guidance we received from Val Burris, Ken Hudson, Mark Mizruchi, and Caleb Southworth, all of which improved the many analytic strands that come together in this research.
On the whole, this book is an improvement on all of our previously published research on the subject, expanding theoretically and empirically in a number of ways. Some of the material in this book has also benefited from the review and editorial processes at two journals. Small selections of this book were published previously. Some portions of Chapters 3, 5, and 6 appeared previously in two published articles: Michael C. Dreiling and Derek Y. Darves, “Corporations in American Trade Policy: A Network Analysis of Corporate-Dyad Political Action,” American Journal of Sociology 116(5): 1514–1563, © 2011 by the University of Chicago Press. Some selections from the following article also appear in Chapters 2, 3, and 6: Michael C. Dreiling, “The Class Embeddedness of Corporate Political Action: Corporate Leadership in Defense of the NAFTA,” Social Problems 47(1): 21–48, © 2000 by the Oxford University Press. We thank the anonymous, external reviewers of an earlier draft of this book whose comments helped clarify our presentation of network graphics and tighten our theoretical conclusions. Many colleagues at the University of Oregon sat through a colloquium or two on this topic, and we thank them, both the faculty and graduate students who supported us on our respective paths in the Sociology program. In 2012, the University of Oregon granted Michael C. Dreiling a summer research award that helped bring the final manuscript together.
To our families, friends, and children, we say thank you! From Michael, a special word of appreciation goes to Yvonne Braun for the many years of intellectual and personal inspiration, love, and perseverance. From Derek, a special word of thanks to his parents Bonnie and Gil, who have taken interest in and supported this project for many years, and to his daughter Rosalie who provides endless inspiration and joy.
