Nicholas Harrigan

1

• Nicholas Harrigan
• Nuffield College and Australian National
  University
• 31 January 2008

For Party or for Power? Social networks and
corporate political strategy.
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For Party or for Power? Social networks and
corporate political strategy.

• Purpose of presentation
• The most comprehensive dataset on corporate
  political, social and economic characteristics
  available today.
• Show the fundamental mechanisms driving corporate
  political strategy.
• Discuss the implications for politics in modern
  liberal democracies.

3
For Party or for Power? Social networks and
corporate political strategy.

• This analysis was not possible a decade ago
• Growth of computer power and availability of
  large social, political and economic databases.
• maturation of social network analysis as a
  methodology.

4
The question

• What are the fundamental social mechanisms which
  drive the political strategies of corporations?
• Why should we care?
• Two major pressures on political elites
• who votes for them.
• who funds them.

5
Party Voting Party Funding

• We have a comprehensive understanding of voting
  behaviour
• detailed empirical modelling
• major cleavages and categories
• social, economic and ideological mechanisms
• We cannot say the same about the major funding
  group corporations
• 50-80 of funding is private (Aus UK)
• Corporations are the largest donors
• We dont know the fundamental categories, or
  mechanisms.

6
Data

• Test all major hypothesis, one model, largest,
  most comprehensive and most recent dataset

• Directors, councils and policy committees of the
  four major business associations
• 200 richest persons
• 40 largest defence contracts
• And National Schools Database, census data for
  all 40,000 census collection districts,
  socio-economic status data for parents of all
  schools, school fees, school sporting
  associations, club reciprocal membership, etc.

• 2,000 largest enterprises
• 7,500 directors in 10,000 directors positions
• profitability, revenue, employees, industry, etc.
• 20 largest shareholders
• 33,000 persons in Whos Who
• school attendance
• club membership
• 8,000 political donations
• 350 government committees and enterprises
• Directors of major conservative think tanks

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Case Study

• One fundamental division
• Partisan corporations donate only to the
  conservative parties (The Coalition)
• Hedging corporations donate to both major
  parties.
• Note there are virtually no Labor-only donors.
• How do these divisions relate to the social
  networks and attributes of corporations and
  directors?
• What does this reveal about corporate political
  strategy?

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Conceptual Model
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Results
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Implications

• Given these dynamics within the funding
  constituency, what are the implications for
  party strategy?
• Labor Parties
• Labor party money is bad money
• Political rent unearned profits from
  controlling levers of state power
• From the core of the corporate community, (large,
  regulated, membership of government committees)

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Implications

• Conservative Parties
• No preferential treatment by the centres of
  corporate community
• Still receive rent but no advantage
• Traditional upper class and directors
  institutions do not provide coherence for
  collective action clubs and schools
• Clubs and schools bolster hedging corporations

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Implications

• Conservative Parties Advantages
• Smaller corporations outsiders
• No self-interest in state except the collective
  interest
• Not large enough or in right industry to enter
  into symbiotic relationship with state
• Conservative Think Tanks
• Bolster conservative partisanship amongst the
  centre of the corporate community
• Super-Rich
• Autonomy to act ideologically
• Example Lord Michael Ashcroft.

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Conclusion

• We know who votes for our political parties
• But what are the political dynamics of those who
  funds our parties?
• This methodology and substantive findings present
  promising way forward
• Interdisciplinary research politics, sociology
  and economic behaviour ideally suited to
  Nuffield College.