Recent trade wars have confronted the trade policy literature with a major puzzle. How can we explain protectionist tendencies in the context of global economic integration? In this article, I aim to provide an answer to the question why, and under which conditions, internationally oriented companies are in favor of trade restrictions. More specially, I argue that intra-industry trade (IIT) and global value chains (GVCs) give rise to internally conflicting interests on the part of firms, generating incentives to lobby for specific, targeted measures against their closest competitors. To test whether firms’ preferences are translated into trade policies pursued by governments, I use data on trade barriers imposed by Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States. I find compelling evidence that the levels of IIT and to a lesser extent trade in GVCs positively affect the decision to implement selective trade measures—such as bilateral tariffs and antidumping duties—rather than broader forms of trade protection. This result suggests that IIT and GVCs have structurally altered firms’ attitudes toward trade barriers and, consequently, the way in which countries protect their domestic markets against foreign competition.

How green are the leaders of US corporations, and are their attitudes reflected in corporate climate policy? Using data on individual contributions to green political candidates, we develop a proxy measure of the personal environmental views of directors sitting on the boards of public companies. Corporate America’s boards have become greener over time, although there remains significant variation in the number of green directors both across and within industries. Accounting for economic interests and outside pressures, firms run by green directors are more likely to make decisions that promote climate action internally—publicly reporting emissions, hiring sustainability officers, and announcing net-zero commitments—and externally, by joining pro-climate groups. The environmental beliefs of board members are robustly associated with pro-climate action, suggesting that the path to corporate sustainability runs through the boardroom.

The international investment regime provides generous protections for foreign investors against adverse legal changes in host states, and unusually strong procedural rights to enforce those protections in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Scholars have observed that the regime enables corporate capital accumulation and raises the costs of climate action, potentially deterring states from adopting ambitious climate policies. Building on this literature, we locate a key source of these concerns in the asymmetric treatment of state and investor behavior in ISDS, which allows investors to depict themselves as innocent victims of “unfair” and “unforeseeable” “political” processes, despite themselves being active political players and sophisticated political risk managers—a tactic we call feigned victimization. This tactic is employed by fossil fuel companies to achieve capital accumulation and climate obstruction goals. We illustrate our argument through an empirical case study of TC Energy’s US$15 billion ISDS claim against the United States in relation to the Biden Administration’s revocation of a permit required to construct the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Our case study also illustrates a method by which states can expose feigned victimization tactics by investors and incorporate evidence of this into their legal defenses in ISDS.

Consumers play an important role in regulating labor rights in global supply chains, either by punishing companies that violate labor rights or rewarding those that market fair labor practices. There is, however, currently limited understanding of how consumer demand can be effectively harnessed to protect freedom of association and collective bargaining (FACB) rights in garment-exporting countries. Through a series of conjoint experiments, we test the strength of consumer demand for FACB rights relative to other labor and environmental standards, and manipulate price and information frames to analyze the extent to which a business case exists to promote FACB rights. We find that consumers display willingness to pay premiums for various ethical labels around labor protections, indicating a business case for promoting ethical labor standards in supply chains. However, we also find that consumer demand for certain labor rights—including FACB rights and payment of a living wage—can diminish considerably in the context of price increases, thus limiting the profits firms might accrue by marketing labor rights protections. Our results open up the black box of consumer demand for different labor standards and evaluate the different modes through which consumers can influence labor protections in the global economy.

The trade war with China has cost US producers and consumers hundreds of billions of dollars since 2018. Yet relatively few US businesses took action to oppose it. This study reports the results of an elite survey experiment on business political activity toward trade policy. Researchers presented business managers with information about the input costs of the new tariffs to their bottom line—information that most subjects acknowledged that they lacked—and invited them to take political action to express support or opposition to these tariffs. The results suggest that the novel information on economic costs did not significantly increase managers’ propensity to contact members of Congress, donate to political campaigns, sign petitions, or join social media groups. We also found that the firm’s political culture (liberal or conservative) did not significantly influence the effectiveness of the treatment. However, descriptive analysis showed that firm political culture was strongly related to the company’s support for the trade war, suggesting that these preexisting political beliefs were resistant to new information provided in our experiment even if that information could affect the company’s bottom line.

On 1 March 2018, President Trump declared a 25% tariff on certain steel imports by invoking Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. The tariff pitted two of America’s most storied and interconnected industries, steel and auto producers, against one another and made allies out of longtime bitter political opponents on Capitol Hill. Later that same year, President Trump doubled down on the steel tariff when he initiated a Section 232 investigation on auto and auto parts imports. The auto industry blasted the proposal, while steel offered its strong support. This paper examines the congressional response to President Trump’s proposed auto tariff. Specifically, we explain why 159 MCs signed a letter opposing the tariff. After controlling for other factors, such as district interests and campaign contributions, we find that ideology matters more than party affiliation on whether legislators signed the auto letter. We also find the second dimension of the DW-NOMINATE score to matter, suggesting the strong presence of intra-party cleavages. Our findings highlight the complex nature of trade policy as a domain of bipartisan agreement amidst broader political polarization and at a time when traditional party platforms on the issue are rapidly changing.

Antitrust policy aims to reduce market concentration and increase competition among firms. Contemporary antitrust is sensitive to both domestic and international considerations. Internationally, the market is dominated by the largest firms, raising questions about the competitiveness of domestic firms and the application of antitrust against foreign firms. Domestically, public support for antitrust is needed for continued enforcement. This paper examines how international markets shape public support for antitrust in the United States. Using media analysis, we find that antitrust is increasingly in the news, and that international competition is referenced in antitrust debates. We theorize that support for antitrust is shaped by concerns for the competitiveness of domestic firms, relative to foreign competition, and that these concerns vary based on individuals’ levels of nationalism. We test our theory using a survey experiment and find that individuals are especially concerned with being placed at a disadvantage relative to foreign competitors. Interestingly, we find that using antitrust laws against foreign firms yields divergent reactions—highly nationalistic Americans increase their support for strong antitrust laws, while those with low levels of nationalism decrease support. The paper highlights the importance of global competition in shaping preferences for domestic regulation.

Although citizens value competitive markets and support small businesses, we observe substantial variation in market concentration. Why do politicians abstain from taking action to reduce concentration? We propose an often overlooked political benefit to concentrated markets: When concentration increases, competition is less pronounced and firms earn larger profits. These profits can be taxed for government revenue or used to reward business-friendly politicians. We expect politicians to impose more lenient competition policies toward firms that provide larger sources of revenue. Moreover, this relationship should be especially strong under authoritarian political institutions, where politicians only weakly value the free market and consumer outcomes and where institutional commitments to unbiased policies are weak. We derive our theoretical claims from a formal model. We draw on both cross-country evidence and evidence from Turkey at the firm and industry level to evaluate our claims. We find that as political institutions become less representative, firms that make higher tax payments tend to control more assets, operate in more concentrated industries, and engage in higher value M&As. Our study points to the weak provision of competition policies as a source of rent-seeking.

Whether China can avoid the middle-income trap has been the subject of extensive research. Currently classified as an upper middle-income country, China increasingly exhibits similar characteristics as countries currently experiencing the middle-income trap. However, using evidence from China’s coastal manufacturing city of Dongguan, this article shows how China’s approach to global value chain (GVC) participation created conditions for avoiding the middle-income trap: 1) agglomeration and manufacturing scale at multiple stages of production, 2) a mix of foreign and domestic enterprises, 3) participation in GVCs for multiple industries, 4) development of domestic demand, and 5) continuously reconfiguring government industrial policies. With these characteristics, China’s economy is likely to continue to grow, suggesting that GVC participation can facilitate a path around the middle-income trap.

Research shows that foreign asset expropriation narrows long-term bond spreads, resulting in lower borrowing costs. However, no empirical studies have investigated the effects of expropriation on sovereign bond ratings. Bondholders and sovereign bond issuers track ratings by credit rating agencies because they impact interest rates and capital costs. Using up to 59 developing countries from 1996 to 2016, we find that expropriation signals lower bond repayment, as asset confiscation blatantly violates international rule of law and discourages foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, reducing bond ratings. Mediation analysis also indicates that FDI and the rule of law mediate the relationship between expropriation and bond ratings. Further, we distinguish between direct and indirect expropriation and observe that direct expropriation has a greater probability of decreasing ratings. Our research suggests that expropriation holds economic consequences for developing countries, indicating how expropriation negatively affects sovereign bond issuers in the financial and investment community.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Japan–Korea whitelist dispute (2019–2023) embodies key features of interstate disputes related to economic statecraft ideas. Against the backdrop of the legal dispute over Japan’s “essential security interests” claim based on GATT Article 21 (Security Exceptions), this study analyzes South Korea’s response to the whitelist dispute, with a focus on its materials–parts–equipment localization policy. The findings indicate that the policy process and outcomes align with very few of the criteria suggested by the new industrial policy literature. Notably, the policy’s goals and tools were driven by ideology rather than by science, and the implementing agency—The Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy—while competent, was politically captured. In conclusion, this study suggests that policymakers should purposefully and consciously connect security with trade or implement industrial policies within a well-defined strategic framework.