The current conflictual dynamics underlying high-tech rivalry between China and the United States and the management of collateral damages by middle-power countries emanate from the clashes of techno-statecraft. Each country’s pursuit of technological superiority for its own prosperity, security, and prestige through deep and wide state intervention has aggravated the situation. Against this backdrop, our paper attempts to elucidate the dynamics of techno-statecraft of China, the United States, and South Korea. First, we examined the concept of techno-statecraft, which can be differentiated from that of economic statecraft, as an analytical framework of the paper. Second, we looked into China’s technological challenge as shaped by its techno-statecraft. Third, we traced the American threat perception of China’s technological rise and its techno-statecraft response. Fourth, the paper discussed the dilemmas Asian countries are currently facing and their choices through a case study of South Korea. Finally, it draws some theoretical, empirical, and policy implications.

This article introduces “epistemic business power” as a distinct facet of corporate influence. Epistemic business power refers to the strategic communication of firms to influence the perceptions and beliefs of policymakers, experts, media, and the public regarding which issues, goals, norms, methods, and instruments to be politically considered. Rather than influencing decision-making and policy formulation directly, this form of power enables firms to intermediate the anticipatory dynamics of structural forms of business power and shape issue salience as well as the definition and recognition of topics as political problems. The article explores the scope conditions of epistemic business power, detailing the interaction of material aspects, corporate communication and issue salience dynamics. Based on quantitative and qualitative content as well as reception analyses, ownership data and interviews, a case study of the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock illustrates how today’s finance capital can use epistemic channels with regard to fundamental questions about the role of state capacity and private enterprise in capitalist democracies. By foregrounding the political nature of corporate public relations, the conceptual endeavor and its empirical illustration contribute to a deeper understanding of corporate power and its multifaceted role in shaping politics in capitalist democracies.

Business actors play increasingly important roles in global governance and international regulation. This paper considers how regime complexity influences the roles of businesses and impacts opportunities for business influence on international regulatory regimes. We conducted a scoping literature review of 243 articles from the International Regime Complexity (IRC) theory literature to explore if and how complexity affects the roles of businesses and their influence on international regulation. We found that complexity presents opportunities for businesses to regime shift and exploit knowledge asymmetry in order to influence international regulation. Further, IRC theory illustrates how the roles of businesses interact and leverage one another in order to create better opportunities for influence in specific international regulatory regimes. This paper contributes to IRC theory by building on the existing non-state actor discussions and offering specific theorization of business behavior, thus starting to bridge the gap between the empirical and theoretical understanding. Second, it contributes to existing discussions in business and politics literature by developing existing knowledge on the roles of businesses in global governance to better reflect the added dimension of complexity.

Policy specialization in the U.S. Congress benefits the institution collectively and members individually. Yet members of Congress (MCs) are insufficiently specialized to optimize lawmaking success (Volden and Wiseman 2020). In this paper, we demonstrate the increasing propensity of MCs to generalize legislatively is driven largely by an expansion of MC legislative agendas in business domains. We then offer and test an explanation for this trend whereby business’s increasing demand for congressional attention (Drutman 2015) has outpaced the supply of congressional capacity to serve business needs (Crossen, Furnas, LaPira, and Burgat 2020; McKay 2022). This unmet demand incentivizes MCs to expand their business portfolio, which results in increased campaign contributions from business political action committees (PACs). We provide evidence consistent with this theory, showing that under conditions of access scarcity, MCs benefit financially (in terms of increased business PAC contributions) by broadening the number of business domains they are active in legislatively.

Recent controversies over “woke” businesses have challenged traditional partisan political alignments, leading to increased criticism on the right of corporate political activity. This paper explores how the public evaluates corporate political activity, focusing specifically on whether individuals believe corporations are doing too much (or too little) to advance social and political goals. We are especially interested in how social identities and pocketbook considerations shape perceptions of corporate political activities not explicitly tied to social issues. Does racial resentment, for example, influence perceptions of corporate political activity designed to increase worker wages or improve health care? Or are the effects limited to efforts to achieve racial equality? We find that racial resentment and hostile sexism have spillover effects, affecting perceptions of corporate political activity across issue areas. Partisan affiliation, political ideology, and personal pocketbook considerations, in contrast, play a more limited role. Previous research has demonstrated the effect of racial resentment and sexism on support for welfare policies. We add to this literature by showing that racist and sexist opposition extends to corporate political activities that might not be explicitly identified as socially progressive.

Digital governance is a public concern, yet under private control. After numerous scandals, all stakeholders in the European Union (EU) agreed to establish a “novel constitution for the internet” that would effectively constrain the power of large platforms. Yet the Digital Services Act (DSA) ultimately legitimized and institutionalized their position as the gatekeepers of the internet. Why? We argue that platforms prevailed thanks to their ability as intermediaries to quietly shape the available policy options. Our “platform power mechanism” combines institutional and ideational sources of business power to show how big tech drew on its entrenched position as an indispensable provider of essential services and promulgated the idea of itself as a responsible and neutral intermediary. We follow the unfolding of platform power through a process-tracing analysis of Google and Meta’s activities with respect to DSA legislation from its announcement (2020) to its adoption (2022). Besides contributing a reconceptualization of the DSA as a regulatory capture, we integrate the notion of platform power into a “regulator–intermediary–target” model and demonstrate how gatekeepers have exploited information asymmetries to share “the public space.” Our analysis thus supplements established approaches that have derived regulators’ deference to platforms from the tacit allegiance of consumers.

State-sponsored cyber attacks are increasingly attracting attention in the literature, with many analysts interested in the firm-level economic implications of these attacks. Nevertheless, the bulk of these studies focus on firms directly targeted in the attacks. In this paper, I examine the broader, often overlooked ripple effects of these attacks on third-party entities like cybersecurity service providers who are frequently at the frontlines of dealing with these attacks. Leveraging data on cyber attacks and stock market returns for a sample of U.S. based cybersecurity defense contractors from 2000 to 2020, I empirically demonstrate that an escalation in the intensity of state-sponsored cyber attacks prompts a behavioral shift among investors and regulators, leading to increased co-movement in firms’ stock returns. This paper thus adds a novel dimension to our understanding of the complex interplay between state-sponsored cyber attacks and the market dynamics of cybersecurity defense contractors, with important implications for national cybersecurity.

Research on platform power indicates a preference alignment between consumers and platforms against regulation. However, recent scandals have changed public opinion toward platforms and undermined their structural coalition with consumers. I argue that amid the techlash, platforms need to actively mobilize the public and face an uphill battle in doing so. Based on the outside lobbying literature, I expect that platforms’ success in reframing the debate and signaling public discontent to policymakers depends on the perceptibility of the target audience (the bonding surface) and the characteristics of competing interest groups. I test my expectations by analyzing platform outside lobbying against the 2019 European Copyright Directive. I combine process-tracing and time-series analysis with textual data. A comparison between the German and French debates revealed that platform outside lobbying failed because negative media reporting, public opinion, and a creative economy dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in France provided a favorable bonding surface for the frames of pro-copyright groups. Pro-copyright groups could credibly criticize platforms’ exploitative practices and demand fair artist remuneration, while platforms’ frames did not stick. This study demonstrates that claims of structural platform power are exaggerated and that careful attention needs to be paid to lobbying dynamics.

Space as a domain of economic and security competition between great powers has risen to become an arena of active statecraft for middle powers in the twenty-first century. It has set a high-stake stage for not only continuing struggles for catch-up industrialization of late developers but also offering opportunities to capture commercial gains of technological breakthroughs and globalization of markets. We examine these challenges for Taiwan and Thailand, surveying major trends in the emerging space industry and exploring four analytical perspectives on how government-business relations shape adaptive national industrial policies in high-technology sectors with proliferating end-users. We argue that the Asian developmental state model is evolving in response to specific challenges of a global supply chain for commercial space activities dominated by leading space firms and government regulatory actions in the United States. Significant differences in Taiwan’s and Thailand’s space and industrial policy approaches will likely create divergent technological trajectories and reinforce current constraints on improving national security. The longer-term prospect for middle spacepowers remains contingent on the space race between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

Scholars have called for additional research into the antecedents to corporate political activity (CPA), including why firms may engage in specific kinds of CPA. In response, in what we believe to be a first-of-its-kind study, we rely on upper echelons theory to explore the relationship between CEO personality and the kind of CPA in which a firm engages. In particular, we argue that certain traits will be related to ideological CPA (iCPA) that is less beneficial to the firm but which will appeal to CEOs with those traits. We also propose that managerial discretion will moderate the relationship between CEO personality and this form of opportunistic CPA. We test our hypotheses using a unique database combined with a variety of archival sources, resulting in a sample of 329 publicly traded firms from the S&P 500 for which we had complete records that engaged in CPA 63,142 times over a ten-year period (2011–2020). We find that CEO agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism will be negatively related to iCPA, while CEO openness will be positively associated with it. We further find that managerial discretion moderates the relationship of CEO extraversion and openness with iCPA, however in opposite directions. Finally, we discuss theoretical and managerial implications and propose directions for future research.

Businesspeople are expected to invest in political connections when the institutions are weak. Using an original dataset from Russia in 2003–2010, we document changes in political connections of the richest businesspeople and show that within the institutional environment of a fledgling autocracy political engagement stops paying off, and the businesspeople retreat from politics. The businesspeople’s political disengagement reveals their insider assessment of the quality of Russian political institutions, indicating that as autocracy consolidated in Russia, its political institutional structure was in decay. This finding contributes to our understanding of authoritarian institutions, suggesting that even though autocracies nowadays might be institutionalized to a much higher degree, in the short-run autocracy is still detrimental to institutionalization.

Housing is a critical part of every state’s infrastructure. However, in most advanced economies the state no longer builds very much of it, leaving it instead to private housebuilders. Because of their control over the supply of land, and the barriers to entry into the housebuilding industry, private housebuilders have potentially major structural power over the state. At the same time, private housebuilders are also tied to their land, and face other barriers to exit, thus limiting their ability to relocate capital elsewhere. Drawing on a range of secondary data sources, including earnings calls transcripts, annual reports and government policy documents, this paper demonstrates how the three largest volume housebuilders in England leveraged their structural power to shape the mortgage market support schemes that were introduced in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. These schemes have since underpinned their exceptional levels of profitability. We conclude, though, that far from being an absolute resource, this structural power was only enabled by the prevailing neoliberal, home-owning Anglo-liberal ‘growth model’ in which these housebuilders were embedded.

Using archival material from states, international organizations, and business actors, this paper explores how the Association for the Promotion and Protection of Private Foreign Investments (APPI), a transnational business interest association (BIA), liaised with different international institutions to lobby for better foreign investment protection. We zoom in on the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Bank to examine how APPI influenced the global institutional landscape during its heydays from 1958 until 1974. We show that business actors, particularly oil and banking corporations, created APPI as a nimble, efficient alliance that could move faster than existing BIAs. We further demonstrate how companies “forum shop” between different BIAs, and how APPI injected its ideas into the policymaking process, using the framework of the three faces of power. By shedding light on the role private business actors played in foreign investor protection, the paper contributes to a better understanding of the emergence of global economic governance in the second half of the 20th century.

Business power is thought to increase over time when private actors are involved in the provision of public goods and services. This paper argues that this is partially true—and that in certain circumstances, state actors can even swiftly regain control of sectors previously ceded to private interests. When the latter fulfill some public functions on behalf or as delegates of the state, policymakers face ever greater pressures to sustain a relationship flawed by principal-agent problems—allowing business actors to derive appreciable political benefits. However, these conditions do not hold true after deregulation—when state actors retreat from a sector and attempt to direct the newly created market through licensing, norms, and standard setting. We demonstrate that deregulation sets the stage for a more competitive environment, making it harder for private interests to cooperate. This, in turn, can allow policymakers to enhance regulatory capacities and seize opportunities to highlight the shortcomings of private provision. After establishing this argument theoretically, we illustrate its implications through the comparative historical analysis of the health insurance sector in two European countries—Belgium and France. Despite their initial similarities, they experience contrasting developments regarding the welfare state’s dependency on private insurers for the provision of crucial collective goods.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is one of the most important mega-regional trade agreements signed to date. Yet, it failed to include an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism in its investment chapter. What explains this omission? To unpack this, we examine international negotiations as a two-step process. In the first stage, we theorize that initial preferences towards ISDS are based on countries’ orientation toward foreign direct investment (FDI), experience with ISDS, and past treaty practice. Second, we theorize that during protracted negotiations, adverse regime developments and domestic politics can have a profound impact on treaty design. To test our framework, we examine the RCEP negotiations. Our analysis shows that mounting cases as well as the eroding norm of ISDS in other treaties lowered support for ISDS as the negotiations progressed. Then, a change of government in Malaysia shifted that country’s position dramatically, which tipped the balance against ISDS in the final round of negotiations. Our findings have important implications for the international investment regime. They highlight the factors that determine countries’ initial preferences while also demonstrating the importance of developments during the negotiations, which can lead to the abandonment of the institutional status quo.

Defense contractors play an essential role in US security operations. Among other responsibilities, contractors manufacture arms, manage logistics, analyze intelligence, and carry out cybersecurity operations. Historically, defense contractors were either publicly traded corporations or privately owned companies. The past two decades, however, have seen a major shift in the ownership structure of the US defense industry. Private equity firms—once niche actors in the US national security marketplace—have carried out over 1,500 deals involving defense contractors since 2000. This study employs a mixed-methods research design to assess the effects of private equity investment on the financial stability of the US defense industry. Using data on over 8,000 defense contractors, the inquiry finds that contractors with private equity backing experience bankruptcy at higher rates than contractors with no prior private equity investment. In addition, the study evaluates private equity activity in the military satellite services market—a field of growing importance in the strategically important domain of outer space. The inquiry’s findings have notable international security implications. Given the US’ role as a lynchpin in numerous alliances around the world, higher rates of bankruptcy among defense contractors have the potential to affect the security of the United States and its allies.

Public decision-makers incorporate algorithm decision aids, often developed by private businesses, into the policy process, in part, as a method for justifying difficult decisions. Ethicists have worried that over-trust in algorithm advice and concerns about punishment if departing from an algorithm’s recommendation will result in over-reliance and harm democratic accountability. We test these concerns in a set of two pre-registered survey experiments in the judicial context conducted on three representative U.S. samples. The results show no support for the hypothesized blame dynamics, regardless of whether the judge agrees or disagrees with the algorithm. Algorithms, moreover, do not have a significant impact relative to other sources of advice. Respondents who are generally more trusting of elites assign greater blame to the decision-maker when they disagree with the algorithm, and they assign more blame when they think the decision-maker is abdicating their responsibility by agreeing with an algorithm.

Why do voters shun some business tycoons yet elect others into power? As structural conditions facilitate the entry of super-wealthy actors into politics, the differential electoral support across business elites suggests a puzzle. We conceptualize four mechanisms behind the popular support for “tycoon candidates”: competence signaling, framing, fame, and clientelism. To test their relative efficacy, we leverage an experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey in South Africa, an important developing democracy where certain tycoons are successfully running for office. We find that, across distinct electoral appeals by tycoon candidates, clientelism is particularly effective, especially for mobilizing support from the less affluent voters. Racial framing significantly decreases support among white voters. Meanwhile, tycoons’ competence signaling or fame do not help them at the ballot box. By identifying the micro-level underpinnings of voter support across tycoon candidates, our study contributes to the literatures on business and politics, voting behavior, and clientelism.

The rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and its application by businesses has created a potential need for governmental regulation. While the federal government of the United States has largely sidestepped the issue of crafting law dictating limitations and expectations regarding the use of AI technology, US state legislatures have begun to take the lead in this area. Nonetheless, we know very little about how state legislatures have approached the design, pursuit, and adoption of AI policy and whether traditional political fault lines have manifested themselves in the AI issue area. Here, we gather data on the state-level adoption of AI policy, as well as roll call voting on AI bills (classified on the basis of consumer protection versus economic development), by state legislatures and analyze the political economy of AI legislation. We find that rising unemployment and inflation are negatively associated with a state’s AI policymaking. With respect to individual legislator support, we find that liberal lawmakers and Democrats are more likely to support bills establishing consumer protection requirements on AI usage. The results suggest that economic concerns loom large with AI and that traditional political fault lines may be establishing themselves in this area.