Political Representation in Concentrated Industries: Revisiting the “Olsonian Hypothesis”
- 1 November 2003
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Business and Politics
- Vol. 5 (3), 261-286
- https://doi.org/10.2202/1469-3569.1077
Abstract
This paper considers whether highly concentrated industries are better represented in the political process, as Olson's Logic of Collective Action suggests, and, if they are, whether this is so for the reasons that the Logic claims. It begins with a review and critique of the quantitative literature that has largely tried and failed to substantiate Olson's view. The bulk of the paper consists of five longitudinal case studies of firms that dominate or have dominated industries: IBM, Intel, Microsoft, America Online, and Cisco. The cases suggest that there is merit to the Olsonian view, but that alone it does not constitute an adequate political theory of the concentrated industry or the dominant firm. Additional variables drawn from organizational and institutional theory need to be incorporated into such a theory, including variables that bear on the allocation of attention, threat perception, and information flow within dominant firms.Keywords
This publication has 40 references indexed in Scilit:
- Are PAC Contributions and Lobbying Linked? New Evidence from the 1995 Lobby Disclosure ActBusiness and Politics, 2002
- Endogenous Lobby Formation and Endogenous Protection: A Long-Run Model of Trade Policy DeterminationAmerican Economic Review, 1999
- Interview with Pepon OsorioRadical History Review, 1999
- Reconceptualizing Pac FormationAmerican Politics Quarterly, 1997
- Microsoft futuresVINE, 1997
- Business Political Power: The Case of TaxationAmerican Political Science Review, 1991
- Interest Representation: The Dominance of InstitutionsAmerican Political Science Review, 1984
- The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational FieldsAmerican Sociological Review, 1983
- An Economic Theory of AlliancesThe Review of Economics and Statistics, 1966
- American Business and Public Policy. The Politics of Foreign TradeRevue Française de Sociologie, 1965