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4 - What Drives Firms to Disclose Their Political Activity?
- from Section II - Transparency: Causes and Consequences
- Edited by Thomas P. Lyon, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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- Corporate Political Responsibility
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- 16 November 2023
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- 30 November 2023, pp 101-123
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Summary
Given growing worry about dark money electoral spending and covert forms of business lobbying – neither of which generally require federal reporting – a shareholder-activist movement has emerged to pressure companies to increase their voluntary political disclosures. This chapter investigates how companies are pressured for greater disclosure and how they respond. I find that firms are likely to be targeted if they are larger and more prominent, and engage in higher levels of conventional lobbying and electoral spending. Additional qualitative evidence shows that targeting follows from a firm’s receptivity to engagement and also if their spending appears contradictory to corporate values. Lastly, I investigate the likelihood that shareholder activism is successful, finding that apparent concessions are more likely after repeated targeting and during years of S&P 500 index constituency. The chapter draws conclusions about the prospects for greater transparency of corporate political expenditures in a time of uncertain government oversight.
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
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- 05 August 2015
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- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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10 - Global corporate resistance to public pressures: corporate stakeholder mobilization in the United States, Norway, Germany, and France
- from Part III - Corporations’ reaction to global corporate social responsibility pressures
- Edited by Kiyoteru Tsutsui, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Alwyn Lim, University of Southern California
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- Corporate Social Responsibility in a Globalizing World
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- 05 May 2015
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- 16 April 2015, pp 321-362
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Contributors
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- By Tod C. Aeby, Melanie D. Altizer, Ronan A. Bakker, Meghann E. Batten, Anita K. Blanchard, Brian Bond, Megan A. Brady, Saweda A. Bright, Ellen L. Brock, Amy Brown, Ashley Carroll, Jori S. Carter, Frances Casey, Weldon Chafe, David Chelmow, Jessica M. Ciaburri, Stephen A. Cohen, Adrianne M. Colton, PonJola Coney, Jennifer A. Cross, Julie Zemaitis DeCesare, Layson L. Denney, Megan L. Evans, Nicole S. Fanning, Tanaz R. Ferzandi, Katie P. Friday, Nancy D. Gaba, Rajiv B. Gala, Andrew Galffy, Adrienne L. Gentry, Edward J. Gill, Philippe Girerd, Meredith Gray, Amy Hempel, Audra Jolyn Hill, Chris J. Hong, Kathryn A. Houston, Patricia S. Huguelet, Warner K. Huh, Jordan Hylton, Christine R. Isaacs, Alison F. Jacoby, Isaiah M. Johnson, Nicole W. Karjane, Emily E. Landers, Susan M. Lanni, Eduardo Lara-Torre, Lee A. Learman, Nikola Alexander Letham, Rachel K. Love, Richard Scott Lucidi, Elisabeth McGaw, Kimberly Woods McMorrow, Christopher A. Manipula, Kirk J. Matthews, Michelle Meglin, Megan Metcalf, Sarah H. Milton, Gaby Moawad, Christopher Morosky, Lindsay H. Morrell, Elizabeth L. Munter, Erin L. Murata, Amanda B. Murchison, Nguyet A. Nguyen, Nan G. O’Connell, Tony Ogburn, K. Nathan Parthasarathy, Thomas C. Peng, Ashley Peterson, Sarah Peterson, John G. Pierce, Amber Price, Heidi J. Purcell, Ronald M. Ramus, Nicole Calloway Rankins, Fidelma B. Rigby, Amanda H. Ritter, Barbara L. Robinson, Danielle Roncari, Lisa Rubinsak, Jennifer Salcedo, Mary T. Sale, Peter F. Schnatz, John W. Seeds, Kathryn Shaia, Karen Shelton, Megan M. Shine, Haller J. Smith, Roger P. Smith, Nancy A. Sokkary, Reni A. Soon, Aparna Sridhar, Lilja Stefansson, Laurie S. Swaim, Chemen M. Tate, Hong-Thao Thieu, Meredith S. Thomas, L. Chesney Thompson, Tiffany Tonismae, Angela M. Tran, Breanna Walker, Alan G. Waxman, C. Nathan Webb, Valerie L. Williams, Sarah B. Wilson, Elizabeth M. Yoselevsky, Amy E. Young
- Edited by David Chelmow, Virginia Commonwealth University, Christine R. Isaacs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Ashley Carroll, Virginia Commonwealth University
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- Acute Care and Emergency Gynecology
- Published online:
- 05 November 2014
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- 30 October 2014, pp ix-xiv
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Contributors
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- By Lenard A. Adler, Pinky Agarwal, Rehan Ahmed, Jagga Rao Alluri, Fawaz Al-Mufti, Samuel Alperin, Michael Amoashiy, Michael Andary, David J. Anschel, Padmaja Aradhya, Vandana Aspen, Esther Baldinger, Jee Bang, George D. Baquis, John J. Barry, Jason J. S. Barton, Julius Bazan, Amanda R. Bedford, Marlene Behrmann, Lourdes Bello-Espinosa, Ajay Berdia, Alan R. Berger, Mark Beyer, Don C. Bienfang, Kevin M. Biglan, Thomas M. Boes, Paul W. Brazis, Jonathan L. Brisman, Jeffrey A. Brown, Scott E. Brown, Ryan R. Byrne, Rina Caprarella, Casey A. Chamberlain, Wan-Tsu W. Chang, Grace M. Charles, Jasvinder Chawla, David Clark, Todd J. Cohen, Joe Colombo, Howard Crystal, Vladimir Dadashev, Sarita B. Dave, Jean Robert Desrouleaux, Richard L. Doty, Robert Duarte, Jeffrey S. Durmer, Christyn M. Edmundson, Eric R. Eggenberger, Steven Ender, Noam Epstein, Alberto J. Espay, Alan B. Ettinger, Niloofar (Nelly) Faghani, Amtul Farheen, Edward Firouztale, Rod Foroozan, Anne L. Foundas, David Elliot Friedman, Deborah I. Friedman, Steven J. Frucht, Oded Gerber, Tal Gilboa, Martin Gizzi, Teneille G. Gofton, Louis J. Goodrich, Malcolm H. Gottesman, Varda Gross-Tsur, Deepak Grover, David A. Gudis, John J. Halperin, Maxim D. Hammer, Andrew R. Harrison, L. Anne Hayman, Galen V. Henderson, Steven Herskovitz, Caitlin Hoffman, Laryssa A. Huryn, Andres M. Kanner, Gary P. Kaplan, Bashar Katirji, Kenneth R. Kaufman, Annie Killoran, Nina Kirz, Gad E. Klein, Danielle G. Koby, Christopher P. Kogut, W. Curt LaFrance, Patrick J.M. Lavin, Susan W. Law, James L. Levenson, Richard B. Lipton, Glenn Lopate, Daniel J. Luciano, Reema Maindiratta, Robert M. Mallery, Georgios Manousakis, Alan Mazurek, Luis J. Mejico, Dragana Micic, Ali Mokhtarzadeh, Walter J. Molofsky, Heather E. Moss, Mark L. Moster, Manpreet Multani, Siddhartha Nadkarni, George C. Newman, Rolla Nuoman, Paul A. Nyquist, Gaia Donata Oggioni, Odi Oguh, Denis Ostrovskiy, Kristina Y. Pao, Juwen Park, Anastas F. Pass, Victoria S. Pelak, Jeffrey Peterson, John Pile-Spellman, Misha L. Pless, Gregory M. Pontone, Aparna M. Prabhu, Michael T. Pulley, Philip Ragone, Prajwal Rajappa, Venkat Ramani, Sindhu Ramchandren, Ritesh A. Ramdhani, Ramses Ribot, Heidi D. Riney, Diana Rojas-Soto, Michael Ronthal, Daniel M. Rosenbaum, David B. Rosenfield, Durga Roy, Michael J. Ruckenstein, Max C. Rudansky, Eva Sahay, Friedhelm Sandbrink, Jade S. Schiffman, Angela Scicutella, Maroun T. Semaan, Robert C. Sergott, Aashit K. Shah, David M. Shaw, Amit M. Shelat, Claire A. Sheldon, Anant M. Shenoy, Yelizaveta Sher, Jessica A. Shields, Tanya Simuni, Rajpaul Singh, Eric E. Smouha, David Solomon, Mehri Songhorian, Steven A. Sparr, Egilius L. H. Spierings, Eve G. Spratt, Beth Stein, S.H. Subramony, Rosa Ana Tang, Cara Tannenbaum, Hakan Tekeli, Amanda J. Thompson, Michael J. Thorpy, Matthew J. Thurtell, Pedro J. Torrico, Ira M. Turner, Scott Uretsky, Ruth H. Walker, Deborah M. Weisbrot, Michael A. Williams, Jacques Winter, Randall J. Wright, Jay Elliot Yasen, Shicong Ye, G. Bryan Young, Huiying Yu, Ryan J. Zehnder
- Edited by Alan B. Ettinger, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, Deborah M. Weisbrot, State University of New York, Stony Brook
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- Neurologic Differential Diagnosis
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- 05 June 2014
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- 17 April 2014, pp xi-xx
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6 - Outsourcing advocacy? Consulting for associations
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Grassroots for Hire
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- 05 June 2014
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- 03 April 2014, pp 131-152
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Summary
Introduction
Public affairs consultants are quite logical service providers for corporations. After all, corporations are built for generating profits and distributing them to their owners or shareholders, not for mobilizing public participation. Thus, when a challenge like unwelcome regulation, a community controversy, and/or a public protest comes about, corporations often find that they need to enlist public affairs consultants’ services.
Advocacy organizations, by contrast, are known for their ability to connect people to politics. Public interest groups pressing for social change on issues like the environment and climate change, abortion, poverty, taxation, or health policy tend to be far more likely to have strong inherent capacities for galvanizing mass political participation than corporations do. Why, then, do some advocacy organizations feel the need to, in a sense, “outsource” their member mobilization efforts to public affairs consultants? And what does their doing so mean for the infrastructure of civic and political organizations in a context of expanding participatory inequality, transforming communications technologies, and professionalization in the advocacy sector?
4 - Methods for mobilizing the public
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Grassroots for Hire
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- 05 June 2014
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- 03 April 2014, pp 79-107
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Summary
Introduction
We saw in the previous chapter how the field of public affairs firms was established, and how the development of these firms was in part a response to the expanded market demand for public mobilization services following the expansion of civic and business trade groups in the 1970s and 1980s. The present chapter examines how these consulting firms develop strategy in order to help their organizational clients manage their sociopolitical environments.
This chapter therefore examines organization–environment relationships on two levels.
On one level, public affairs consultants play a mediating role in helping their clients to manage public policy issues and respond to challenges that arise in their sociopolitical environments. They serve what organizational theorists refer to as a “boundary-spanning” function, connecting the organization to authorities and other core audiences on which the organization depends in order to sustain itself. They are therefore similar in many ways to other types of professional service firms (e.g., law firms, advertising companies, accountants, management consultants) in this general sense. However, they differ from most other professional service firms which do more to help their clients to comply with the demands of their legal, market, and/or institutional environments. It is in this respect that sociologists often find that legal compliance regimes are endogenous to organizational practices. While part of what public affairs consultants do is to help their clients conform to institutional pressures, they also help clients make strategic efforts to reshape those environments and resist such pressures.
Part I - Sources
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Grassroots for Hire
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Public documents referenced
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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2 - Defining the field and its implications
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Grassroots for Hire
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- 03 April 2014, pp 20-50
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Summary
Introduction
The term “grassroots” calls to mind an image of citizen politics rooted in local community. For most, the term conjures up images of local residents joining together to pressure the mayor to support urban redevelopment and affordable housing, citizens in New England getting together on Town Meeting Day to hammer out their local budget, or neighborhood activists mobilizing local parents against undesirable changes to school district policies. Grassroots participation is often seen as a populist response to the failures of markets and ineffective bureaucracies. All of these images hold in common the notion of citizen participation independent of the interests of elites, whether those elites are in government, industry, or powerful civic organizations like foundations or policy institutes. “Grassroots,” then, carries with it an air of authenticity. To be truly “grassroots” is to be taken as legitimate in our democratic system. As the late New York Times columnist William Safire once put it in his well-known Political Dictionary, the grassroots are “the ultimate source of power, usually patronized, occasionally feared.” It carries an “up-from-the-people” meaning that is deeply rooted in American politics and culture, in which the porousness of the American state and rich traditions of civic organizing continually reaffirm the value of public engagement independent of the state and the marketplace.
But that image of grassroots is today – and, to some extent, always has been – more of an ideal than a reality. Consider, for example, the fact that community organizations with greater resources and the public support of local elites are significantly more likely to survive over the long term. Much of the canvassing work done today on behalf of environmental and other public causes is carried out by paid, semi-professional canvassers. Social movements, interest groups, and other forms of citizen political activism tend to require the sponsorship, resources, and/or political support of elite patrons. However, throughout the literature on social movements and civic participation, the assumption remains that grassroots activism is predominantly a weapon of the weak, or a populist tool for everyday citizens to challenge the power of states, corporations, and other powerful organizations that make the decisions that affect their lives.
List of figures
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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Bibliography
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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- 03 April 2014, pp 245-263
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Appendix 7 - Models of consulting for trade associations
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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- 03 April 2014, pp 240-241
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Summary
Using the data from the EA, I also estimated models of the hiring of grassroots public affairs consultants by trade associations, using two subject areas of this data source: trade associations and chambers of commerce. I included the majority of the same measures as displayed in Table 6.1, although there are some differences: (1) due to concerns of missing data among these associations, the measure of budget is omitted, (2) the measure of federated structure is simplified to include only the dummy variable for the presence of state chapters (a significant predictor among other advocacy organizations), (3) it does not display results analogous to Model 2 (on non-membership associations), and (4) it adds a dummy variable for whether the association represents a highly regulated industry. Findings from these models are presented in Table A.2.
Importantly, these findings tell a largely similar story both to the model of consultant hiring by corporations and to that of hiring by associations. First, consistent with the discussion in Chapter 5, regulated industries are significantly more likely to hire a consultant. In additional analyses, I examined which regulated industry was most likely to hire a public affairs consultant; these investigations revealed that trade associations for the insurance, petroleum, real estate, and transportation and warehousing industries were among the most likely to hire a consultant. Pharmaceuticals, telecom firms, alcohol interests, and banks/credit unions also appeared regularly. Second, the organizational characteristics that were significant predictors of hiring a consultant among non-trade advocacy groups are generally the same as those that mattered for trade associations: professionalization, membership size, having state chapters, and having a headquarters in the nation’s capital.
Acknowledgements
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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Frontmatter
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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Appendix 4
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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- 03 April 2014, pp 226-227
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Summary
Interview procedures
Over the course of 2009–2012, I interviewed twenty public affairs consultants. These interviews were designed to further flesh out the findings of the survey data as well as to understand the processes behind the formation of firm–client ties and the factors that led entrepreneurs to found new consulting firms.
These interviews, ranging in length from one half-hour to over two hours, were selected to be broadly representative of the field of consultants, such that a plurality of interviews would be with nonpartisan firms, and with a roughly even split between Republican and Democratic consultants. In the end, I interviewed five Democratic, three Republican, and twelve nonpartisan firms. Firms serving predominantly corporate clients comprised twelve of the interviewed firms, whereas three interviews were with those focusing on electoral campaigns, four interviewees worked primarily with associations, and one worked mainly with government clients. Eight of the interviewed firms are located in greater Washington, DC, seven are located in the West, two are from the South, two are from the Midwest, and one hails from the mid-Atlantic. Firms varied widely in their service offerings, as described in the quotations throughout this book. Interviewed firms were slightly larger than other firms in the sample, having a median staff size of ten.
8 - Conclusion
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary
Summary
The previous chapters have shown how grassroots political action, typically understood as the exclusive purview of citizen organizers, has been adapted as a commercial practice deployed by consultants on behalf of corporations, trade associations, the wealthiest and most professionalized advocacy organizations, and electoral campaigns in their Get-Out-The-Vote efforts. Although the practice of political consulting has been around for centuries and professional consulting firms have been around at least since Whitaker and Baxter opened up their firm Campaigns, Inc. in the 1930s, it wasn’t until a variety of forces came together in the 1970s and 1980s that the field of grassroots public affairs consultants gained traction. These forces included the “interest group explosion” in which scores of new advocacy groups were founded, the rise of business political mobilization, and the widening gap between political partisans. This has now become a lucrative industry that is reshaping policymaking and Americans’ civic and political participation.
Businesses, finding themselves on the receiving end of negative public attention through public interest advocacy, social movement pressure, and the new regulatory agencies established in the 1960s and 1970s, began to find that they needed a grassroots force to respond. A more politically partisan public was, in turn, more receptive to messages about the role of government on partisan issues such as regulation, taxation, health, and environmental policy. Once the field of consultants was established, advocacy organizations and labor unions began to find that they, too, could benefit by outsourcing a certain amount of their member mobilization efforts to the grassroots consultants who borrowed their own methods of generating mass political support. Still, only the most large and wealthy associations could afford to do so.
Index
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
-
- Book:
- Grassroots for Hire
- Published online:
- 05 June 2014
- Print publication:
- 03 April 2014, pp 273-284
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Contents
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
-
- Book:
- Grassroots for Hire
- Published online:
- 05 June 2014
- Print publication:
- 03 April 2014, pp vii-viii
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1 - Grassroots from the top down
- Edward T. Walker, University of California, Los Angeles
-
- Book:
- Grassroots for Hire
- Published online:
- 05 June 2014
- Print publication:
- 03 April 2014, pp 3-19
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
The front stage of public participation
In 2010, a wave of student activism was under way on the campuses of for-profit colleges and universities across the US. Recognizing that new federal rules could effectively make many such institutions close their doors to the diverse non-traditional enrollees that call such schools home, students began to organize to make their case against the new regulations. Called the “gainful employment” rule, regulations proposed by the US Department of Education would cut off the flow of federal student loans and Pell grants to institutions in which a majority of students graduate with higher monthly student loan payments than they could be expected to comfortably repay in their selected profession. Given that student loans are the lifeblood of higher education, many students felt threatened that they would no longer be able to attend their school of choice. Indeed, the way the regulation was written, a logical interpretation for many was not that the Department of Education wanted to reform the practices of these institutions, but instead that regulators wanted to take away students’ access to loans.
One such student was Dawn Connor of Globe University in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. At the start of 2010, Dawn was just a regular college student, taking night courses to become a veterinary technician, while working during the day at a local shelter spaying and neutering dogs and cats. She had been active in a variety of leadership roles around the university, including serving as student ambassador for the Veterinary Technology program, president of the Veterinary Technology club, and playing a role in meeting and welcoming new students to campus. She had graduated from high school early, then drifted from one traditional college to another, ultimately changing majors a few times and making progress without earning a degree. Globe University, a for-profit institution with eight branches throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota, turned out to be a great fit for Connor. Despite the substantial tuition for a vocational degree – the two-year associate’s degree in veterinary technology runs to over $44,000 plus lab fees and book expenses – the school had the advantage of being located in Connor’s hometown and fit her other priorities. She especially liked that she was able to maintain a conventional job during the day while working toward her degree through night classes.