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Most existing research on business political influence treats business as a homogenous group and focuses on its interaction with the state. The paper demonstrates that competitive relations between businesses can be an important factor influencing governance. The paper argues that an intra-industry conflict between pharmaceutical companies conducting research and development (R&D) of new drugs and companies manufacturing generic medicines significantly shaped the global governance of pharmaceutical intellectual property. A conceptual framework is proposed that highlights the nexus between governance and companies' competitiveness and, therefore, the possibility of business political conflict. In addition, the concept of contextual power resources is developed to explain which business interests prevailed in the conflict. The research examines three periods, in which global pharmaceutical IP governance evolved: the negotiations of the WTO TRIPS Agreement (1986-1994); the debate on TRIPS and public health (1996- 2003); and the negotiations of US Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) (2000-2007). The outcomes of the TRIPS and FTA negotiations benefited R&D-based companies, the outcome of the debate on TRIPS and public health benefited generics companies. The paper argues that the variation in outcome can be explained by variation in the contextual power resources available to the two business groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within an altered economic environment, companies are trying to survive. To do so, companies will use 'Business Diplomacy' (BD) which comprise representation, communication and negotiation towards other stakeholders to defend company interests. Managing these relations is seen as useful because it enables the chance to avoid unnecessary and unwanted conflicts. Also, the external environment wherein a company acts is made more susceptible to their specific interests'. This paper shows why BD is different from interest representation of pressure groups which are mainly studied by political scientists. Also, acknowledging the fact that companies use 'diplomacy' is by no means shared by all scholars. Therefore, the concept of BD is defined and positioned within the body of diplomatic studies. Through the introduction of 'Corporate Political Activity' (CPA) as a part of this relatively new concept of BD, this paper aims to expand the understanding about the prerequisites stimulating the use of BD. Also, it deepens the insights on how BD functions and how it can be organized, both internal and external, by companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written in recent years about the challenges of achieving effective mechanisms of global economic governance in the face of the emerging disjuncture between the formal authority of the state and the spatial reach of contemporary systems of production, distribution and exchange. However, while some regard such transformations in global distributions of power and authority as threatening to intensify the exploitation of workers in the global south by expanding the power of unaccountable multinational corporations, others talk instead of the promise of strengthened citizen-based mobilization and transnational political activity as a means of empowering southern workers through new forms of ?civil regulation?. This paper presents an empirical analysis of these complex changes within the institutions governing transnational economic relationships, and evaluates their implications for the empowerment of workers in the global south, based on an in-depth study of supply chains within the global garment industry. The garment industry is characterised by structures of production and exchange in which the transnational scope of supply chains connects some of the world?s poorest workers with affluent and powerful consumer markets and corporate entities in the global north, and analysis draws on extensive field research conducted at all levels of the supply chain, from the production phase in Nicaragua, to consumer markets in Europe and the US, and the sites of investors and civil society advocates spanning the US, Europe and East Asia (Taiwan and South Korea). This industry has also been the subject of increasing attention from highly visible actors within global civil society, who have politicized many important decision-making processes within the global garment industry through their promotion of the agenda of defending core labor standards. The paper documents established and emerging non-state governance initiatives driven by both citizen-based and private sector actors, and analyses the interaction of such mechanisms with traditional governmental and inter-governmental forms of regulation. These new patterns of governance are shown to reflect both the fragmentation of governance functions and capabilities between an expanding range of non-state actors, and a broadening of mechanisms employed in the exercise of governance, incorporating both expanded forms of network-based non-state governance, and the increasing importance of norm-based or ?soft-law? governance mechanisms. The paper then evaluates the impact of these changes upon southern workers using a conceptual framework of empowerment, which places power at the centre of the analysis of structural dynamics of north-south economic relationships, and highlights the importance of not only material improvements in wages and working conditions, but also the agency of workers at the bottom of global supply chains to participate in processes of decision-making that impact so profoundly upon their lives. The paper concludes by commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of existing non-state governance mechanisms, and their potential to contribute to the development of global economic governance regimes better able to serve the interests of workers in the global south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The links between business and politics are a vital issue for post-communist states. While it is widely agreed that personal networks are stronger than business associations in Poland, there has been little systematic research on networks of politicians and businesspeople. This paper uses survey data and separately conducted qualitative interviews to evaluate three hypotheses about the links between business and politics in Poland: state domination, party-politicisation and personalisation. It finds substantial support for the enduring state domination of Polish business. It provides relatively firm evidence against the idea that Polish businesspeople are associated with clearly separated political groups. The conclusion is that, while the Polish business elite is highly politicised is not party-politicised. Rather networks of politicians and businesspeople are more strictly personal, idiosyncratic and decentralised. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the resources the business community brings to bear on the political process. Past research has focused overwhelmingly on campaign contributions as the main source of corporate power. In this paper I speculate that corporations also influence legislators with another little-recognized resource: social, environmental, and philanthropic contributions made in the name of corporate social responsibility. I offer a preliminary theory about why lawmakers may reward good corporate citizens with access and benefits. To test this theory, I examine the determinants of one measure of access: congressional hearing appearances by Fortune 500 companies in the 105th and 106th sessions. Among other things, I control for firm PAC contributions, soft money contributions, and lobbying expenditures. The key empirical finding is that a reputation for corporate social responsibility is a significant predictor of firm hearing appearances. As an important aside, lobbying dollars and soft money contributions are also associated with testimony, though PAC contributions are not. Theoretically, this research suggests that analyses of business political power and interest group dynamics should take into account corporate responsibility efforts. This source of influence is unique to the business community and unmatched by any other interest group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the legitimacy of governance contributions of transnational corporations in or related to governing zones of violent conflict. In these zones of conflict the state is often either not willing or not able to provide a sufficient level of governance to its citizens. The paper develops a concept of corporate governance contributions distinguishing between unilateral, collective, and multistakeholder initiatives and between different levels of governing. Research indicates that companies provide a variety of governance contributions that are directly or indirectly related to the provision of peace and security in zones of conflict. Whenever private actors contribute to governance and exercise authority, questions concerning the desirability and legitimacy of private governance arise. The legitimacy of governance arrangements will be assessed by using five criteria: effectiveness, responsiveness, reliability, self-determination, power-control, and authority.Examples from the extractive industry are used to illustrate different governance contributions and to assess their legitimacy. The selected examples are community development programmes run in oil-producing regions in Nigeria, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. These governance arrangement suffer from different legitimacy deficits. But it is also shown that there is more legitimacy potential inherent in corporate contributions to governance than merely state-centered criteria would suggest. However, the role of the state is still essential in providing a framework to ensure more reliability and transparency with regard to non-state governance contributions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about political parties and democracy is presented which is prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Conference, in Toronto, Ontario, on September 2-6, 2009. The paper discusses topics including the political mobilization of business interests, how business associations influence electoral politics, and the links between business associations and political parties.

The debate on corporate power and the political nature of corporations has taken on an unprecedented momentum. In the corporate sphere, corporate citizenship (CC) has emerged as a prominent term in the management literature dealing with the social role of business. This paper critically examines the content of contemporary understandings of CC and locates them within the extant body of research dealing with business-society relations. The paper is based on the observation that the debate on CC has only paid little attention to the actual notion of citizenship. We explore, first, a better understanding of the political role of corporations through the lens of citizenship theory. Using traditional notions of (nation state based) citizenship as well as contemporary notions of identity based, ecological and cosmopolitan citizenship we analyse the political nature of the corporation. Second, we attempt at contributing to our understanding of citizenship highlighting the pivotal influence of business firms on the dynamics and changes of the very notion of contemporary citizenship itself. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the discourses and policy options of state and business leaders on economic integration and their implications for communities across the Americas, this paper will analyse the alternative discourses and practices of the Via Campesina and some of its 142 affiliated organizations. Created in 1993, la Via Campesina is a transnational social movement that brings together small and medium-scale farmers, rural women, peasants, indigenous communities, and agricultural workers from 56 countries in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. As Annette Aurélie Desmarais (Pluto Press, June 2007) explains, «it is a leading force against the globalization of a neo-liberal and corporate-led model of agriculture». Their members call for greater social justice, food sovereignty, gender equity, and a peasant-based, sustainable model of agriculture, respectful of the environment.As part of a larger research project, the paper will interrogate the ways in which neoliberal structures of governance are being challenged, and perhaps reshaped by resistance from popular movements. Through critical, empirically detailed research, I will address two basic questions: 1) How are states shaping, and being shaped by international economic agreements and political governance mechanisms in the area of agriculture? 2) How far and in what ways are civil society organizations (CSOs),including business groups, unions, social movements and NGOs, seeking to influence or transform governance mechanisms, and are shaped by those very mechanisms? For example, it is often assumed that democratization is led by dominant forces, from governing elites, business, or worker organisations. It is also assumed that in time, democracy may spread to the countryside, although the peasantry and indigenous peoples are rarely viewed as active agents in the making of democracy. Evidence from various organizations in the Americas, however, would suggest that democratization and innovations in governance mechanisms can emerge from peasant and indigenous organisations. Indeed, after years of struggles and despite numerous setbacks, indigenous peoples from the Brazilian Amazon have spearheaded environmental movements and have succeeded in expanding people=s control over agricultural development. Another key example is the landless peasant movement (MST) in Brazil who has used the power of collective action to take control over the most fundamental resource in their lives: land. The MST has produced innovations in democratic governance, such as participatory decisionmaking and collective action. This movement also shaped global grassroots movements and fora such as the Via Campesina, and the World Social Forum (WSF), while it played a key role in the election of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and the Brazilian Workers Party. In Canada, the Union paysanne and agricultural migrant workers are also organising and challenging the dominant model of governance and regional integration. These examples highlight the complex interaction, north and south, within and between various civil society actors and the states, in the processes of trade liberalisation and «deeper» regional integration. In this way, empirical research of such pressures for new forms of governance and agricultural practices can enable us to paint a compelling picture of recent political action in the Americas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the political influence of business in capitalist democracies. The analytical approach is to compare three distinct sources of power that are frequently found in the literature: business' capacities for organization and effective mobilization, a structurally privileged position in the policy process, and informational advantages in lobbying. Despite their prominence, few systematic assessments of the relative contribution of these factors as determinants of political outcomes exist to date. This paper aims to fill this gap by testing the explanatory contributions of the three sources of business power in the context of environmental politics. In addition to providing a systematic analysis of the sources of business influence, the paper aims to contribute to research on environmental regulatory regimes. Here, the focus has been on economic conditions and political factors such as democracy and political parties while the contribution of business influence has not yet been systematically examined. Using structural data on thirteen countries at a similar number of time points, the paper examines to what extent business' organizational resources, structural privilege, and informational advantage affect the strength of countries' environmental regulatory regimes. The results highlight the importance of organizational strength and structural constraints in government-business relations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how interest group pressure influences the choice of trade negotiation strategies. Political economy studies have largely focused on explanations of protectionism, and export promotion has received less attention. Similarly, institutional studies give more attention to why states choose to violate or comply with international rules, without examining the decision by states to use an institutional venue to challenge violations. Yet the reciprocal nature of trade policy and member driven enforcement of trade rules both depend upon actions by states to pressure trade partners for market access. This paper presents a framework for understanding how lobbying by interest groups influences the choice of negotiation forum for trade disputes. I argue that governments use choice of negotiation forum to signal commitment to resolve a dispute. I show that this dynamic pushes the most politicized trade problems into WTO fora, while other issues are likely to be dealt with in other negotiation venues. Governments choose the WTO fora because the binding commitments and enforcement mechanism of the WTO show domestic lobby groups that their issue is receiving priority. Industries with high political contributions use their influence to buy litigation to gain market access. The argument is tested with statistical analysis of an original dataset of trade barriers and the selection of negotiation strategies by the United States. Evidence shows that U.S. selection of WTO disputes follows a political logic favoring industries that are highly mobilized in the U.S. and where there is strong opposition by protection interests abroad. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proponents of globalization contend that European countries are now converging on an Anglo-American model of capitalism. Contrary to this prediction, this paper will show that in Spain globalization and EMU have promoted rather that undermined coordination among economic actors. Unable to escape from economic interdependence the Spanish economic actors have developed coordinating capacities at the macro and micro levels to address and resolve tensions between economic interdependence and political sovereignty. In this paper I show that institutional change is a political matter and therefore it is possible to develop coordination capacities in countries that lack the strong tradition of Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs). The main claim is that in the industrial relations realm the trajectory of chance in Spain parallels development in the CMEs more closely than those in the Liberal Market Economies (LMEs). The central argument is that successful coordination depends not only on the organization of the social actors but also on their interests and strategies. This paper looks at the evolving interests of capital and the structural and political constraints within which employers define and defend their interests. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know a considerable amount about the political activities of individual corporations in the US. However little, if any, systematic research on the lobbying and campaign financing activities of business groups has been done. Scholars have long held well-defined theoretical expectations about which groups are likely to be most active. Collective action theory is quite specific about the market structure that should facilitate the formation and endurance of these sorts of groups, but empirical work remains to be done. In this paper we analyze lobbying, PAC and soft-money contributions of business associations for the 1999-2000 election cycle. With support from the Joyce Foundation and the help of the Center for Responsive Politics we have data on all business associations and their levels of political activity. We will examine both economic and political explanations of associational activity. Are more concentrated industries more likely to generate politically active associations? What other industry characteristics influence a ssociation political activity? What influence do other groups in the interest group system have on association activity? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world that is both rapidly homogenizing and simultaneously fragmenting, diaspora populations have created new strains of nationalism. These new nationalisms rely heavily on metaphorical space and specially held conceptions of time, and are deeply rooted in historical memory. To Armenian diasporic communities in the United States and Canada, historical memory of the Ottoman Turkish and Kurdish genocide of Armenians in April 1915 is a central nationalist fetish. Modern diasporic Armenian existence orbits around a specifically conceived memory of this violence that bridges time_space gaps in existence and creates a sense of interstate and inter_temporal continuity across diaspora communities. In its centralized/centralizing role, the Genocide embeds itself into quotidian diasporic Armenian existence, aids in identity formation, and informs the collective political agenda. Importantly, diasporic Armenian nationalism invokes nostalgia for a time and place that are lost. Yet (unlike previous diasporic Armenian nationalisms), rather than calling for the reclamation or reconstruction of this place, or for retributive violence, contemporary Armenian diasporic nationalism creates a metaphorical surrogate for a lost physical counterpart, and looks toward political lobbying for redemptive purposes. This paper examines diasporic Armenian nationalism through a reading of several important examples of discourse. The theoretical basis draws on diaspora and nationalism theories from anthropology, as well as Pierre Nora’s concept of the lieux de memoire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper artgues that lobbying firms seek to expand horizontally (more services, international venues) and vertically (buyouts of lobbying firms both large conglomerate PR firms or venture capital firms). These trends reinforece each other for business reasons, and in the ne potential principal-agent problems are created when firms must answer to both their clients and their corporate bosses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians care about tax revenues in part because they pay for transfers or public goods which are important to voters, and which are thus important for the politician’s reelection. When economic sectors differ in their taxability, i.e. the degree to which tax revenues can be extracted by the state, politicians will thus have an incentive to allocate their support for business activity unevenly across sectors. Formalization of this idea shows that politicians will be more inclined to favor high-taxability sectors when transfers or public goods are highly valued by voters, but less likely to do so when a country’s overall tax capacity is high. Further, the allocation of support will depend on the relative size of the low- and high-taxability sectors, but not on the number of recipients of government transfers. Drawing upon a survey of firms in twenty-three postcommunist countries - where overall tax capacity is in many places quite low, differences in taxability across sectors is typically high, and government support for business is often lacking - the model’s predictions are shown to hold generally in countries with well-developed political rights and civil liberties, but only partially in the rest of the postcommunist world. Politicians in more democratic countries seem to be motivated by the electoral concerns central to this paper, while their counterparts in less democratic states appear to be motivated by revenue considerations for nonelectoral reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the literature on institutions and growth by studying the commitment problem of growth in the context of a dictatorship. I present a theoretical framework that makes two claims about the nature of commitments in dictatorships: (1) dictators will offer protection of property rights on a more selective basis than democracies; (2) economic policy can only be credible if economic groups are crucial to the dictator's stay in power or if they can resort to a powerful third party enforcer. Organized economic groups from large-scale industries are more likely to keep the government in check. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chimerical state is not only a hybrid state. It is also a state of obscure powers. As the classical chimera, much of its strength comes precisely from its invisibility and hence the difficulty tied to investigating or critiquing it. The paper traces the origins of this difficulty to the role the public-private divide plays in hiding chimerical power. It does so with reference specifically to the security area. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the performance of business confidence surveys is weaker under the left. Firms use them to publicly signal preferences to left governments, while they have more effective, private, means to signal preferences to right governments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to identify and examine certain institutional properties and policy processes that highlight the relational interaction between formal institutions and local social, political and economic settings, emphasizing key relational properties that characterize the state's "partnership" with private economic actors in promoting systemic market competitiveness and industrial development. The case of regional economic development policy in Northern Ontario is used to examine the relationship and nature of interaction between the bureaucracy and business and community groups. Thus, we evaluate the capacity and integrity of existing institutions in light of current exogenous or strategic challenges facing the economic sustainability of less-developed regions in Canada. The analysis also allows for an examination of state-society relations in Canada as part of the broader strategic environment shaping the culture and capacity of the Canadian state in policy formulation and implementation ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists seek to understand why business firms contribute to politics, which firms contribute, and the nature of corporate political strategy itself. This paper applies methods of causal inference to explore reasons behind the political strategies and behaviors of corporate actors. A unique data set, pattern matching methods, and Tobit and Heckman models enable an exploration of the causal relationship between firm ownership structure and corporate political behavior. Preliminary findings suggest a causal relationship between the presence of a principal owner and the decision to contribute to ideological politics. I conclude that ownership structure should be included as a variable in future studies of corporate political behavior. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the link between factories and politics in municipal and parliamentary elections in the 'Transnistrian Moldovan Republic' (hereafter Transnistria) in 2005. The study is based on ethnographic field research conducted between 2004 and 2006 in the urban-industrial, ethnically mixed town of Rybnitsa (population 32,000) in northern Transnistria. Here the line between factory and politics is a blurred one. Most major private enterprises are owned or operated by a state or municipal politician. The workplace and unions are important sites of election campaigning and vote winning. Campaign practices like gift-giving to constituents are common. Instead of being considered manipulative or 'undemocratic', everyday persons regard such practices as ways of re/moralizing and domesticating an abstract quasi-state. Campaign politics also function to constitute as sense of difference between left and right-bank peoples in wider Moldova. Through a range of methods, from participant observation at factories and polling stations to semi-structured interviews with voters and election candidates, this study argues that elections and politics must be seen as embedded within local, legitimating notions of 'moral economy'. In Transnistria, the elections are a way for persons to re-imagine themselves as 'citizens' connected to an ideology of state paternalism, from which, I argue, Transnistria gains its legitimacy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A divided and largely hapless small business lobby failed to advocate effectively on behalf of small firms in the post-New Deal era. While interest group scholars have accepted collective action based arguments for patterns of under-mobilization, this paper challenges conventional wisdom by examining historical and institutional causes of small business political development. It shows a fractured small business community emerging out of the populist era, and subsequent policy developments institutionalizing divisions and rivalries among competing factions. During the New Deal, when opportunities arose to forge a new consensus among small business groups, policymakers instead followed old scripts and reinforced received identities. Consequently, small business never came to occupy an important space in the post-New Deal political order. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of business in state environmental politics. Although business interests can enjoy advantages in state politics, this study analyzes the mitigating effects of recent developments in state environmental policymaking on the political power and influence of business. State initiatives in areas such as greenhouse gas releases and renewable energy have resulted in policies that require businesses to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. These developments have taken place in the context of three significant changes in state environmental politics: the maturation of state governments, the political ambition of elected state officials, and the recognition of the connection between environmental protection and economic development. Policy outcomes vary among states. In some cases, the environment trumps business, while in others, business trumps the environment. This analysis explores and explains these outcomes ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Innovative Industry strategy of EU reinforces the role of Public Private Partnerships to focus on key technologies and their implementation through federated projects. The European Commission has made large investments into Public Private Partnerships to enable a long-term, strategic approach to innovation, research and development, as well as to reduce uncertainties by allowing for long-term commitments. Taking into account the European experience, the article analyzes the feasibility, possibilities and directions of applying of public-private partnership for the development of resource regions of Russia. The paper shows that in the case of Russia the innovative development of resource regions based on the principles of smart specialization should be accompanied by a significant amount of investment. A large part of the Russian regions are enclave, which is a characteristic of the economic and infrastructure isolation of the region from macro-regional and Russian economic ties. This isolation takes place primarily due to the localization of mineral natural resources in hard-to-access areas with harsh natural, economic, geological and extraction characteristics. Such regions are not able to attract private investment to a considerable extent. In these conditions, the relevant task is to use the Public Private Partnerships principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars argue that large constituencies greater heterogeneity causes them to orient politicians away from ‘distributive’ or ‘pork-barrel’ politics. Asserting that protectionism is an example of such politics they attribute the relatively free-trading stance of the U.S. Presidency vis-a-vis the Congress and the Senate vis-a-vis the House to differences in constituency size. I argue in contrast that trade politics cannot be usefully be understood as distributive because lobbies are active on both sides of the issue. Larger constituencies ought to include lobbies on both sides of trade issues. By contrast, smaller ones should be more apt to be dominated by one camp, but no more or less protectionist on average. Empirically I show that state size is largely uncorrelated with trade policy positions among Senators, that Senators are less protectionist than Representatives even when constituency size is controlled for and even when they represent the same constituency. I show that the inter-cameral difference however is, like the inter-branch one, a post-war phenomenon, unlike constituency differences that purportedly explain it Having rejected the distributive/constituency size theory, I argue that the size of the job rather than the size of the district explains inter-cameral differences on trade. Senators’ and Presidents’ smaller numbers give each greater power which encourages them to act ‘responsibly’, reduces collective action problems and makes backers’ threats of punishment less credible. This factor, like constituency size, is not new, but only became crucial in the postwar era as elite opinion was won over to free trade and trade policy ceased to link groups to parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market competition has always been a central goal of European integration. The European Commission claims that its competition policy benefits the lives of European Union (EU) citizens. Yet the EU citizen is poorly equipped to engage EU institutions to promote these benefits. As a consumer or tax-payer, the citizen is denied standing to challenge suspect practices. Only as an entrepreneur is an EU citizen capable of mounting legal claims based on EU competition rules. This stymies decentralized private enforcement, limiting efforts to enforce "dormant" treaty provisions or apply innovative European Court of Justice (ECJ) interpretation broadly. Because many economic sectors were originally "exempted" from the rigors of competition within the common market, the exclusion of individuals from legal arenas insulates enterprises and member states from a source of pressure for change, enabling them to reach compromises that privilege the interests of producers over consumers and tax-payers. This chapter explores the intersection of law, politics, and society in the air transport market. Acting on the basis of promising ECJ case law in the 1970s, the European Commission proved incapable of opening air transport to competition. A "consumer" legal challenge with the same goal was rejected by the ECJ. It was only the legal challenges of the European Parliament, entrepreneurs, and major carriers that resulted in the ECJ pressing other EU organizations to take action. Many legal barriers to competition dissolved in the aftermath of the three liberalization "packages" that the Council adopted between 1987 and 1992. But, global economic pressures, restrictive international agreements, and ongoing discriminatory access to airport infrastructure and services have limited the achievements of the Single Market in this field. The degree of competition that has developed reflect the limits of the law in achieving change and the voices who regularly gain effective access to EU decision-making channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian state at fifty presents a picture of considerable strength fringed with traces of fragility. Its strength and durability are evident in its ability to maintain a reasonable degree of internal security and external defence. Regular, free and fair elections have endowed the authority of the state with a high degree of legitimacy. Nevertheless, the authority of the state is far from secure. Put to the acid test of religious fanaticism, this authority has often collapsed. Democracy itself collapsed in the authoritarian interlude of the Emergency rule of 1975-77. The Congress party, long an effective institution based on consensus and accommodation, drawing its strength from its ability to intervene between conflicting primordial identities, has left the centre stage of the state, bowing down to a motley collection of over a dozen different political parties. At the centre of this ruling coalition is the Bharatiya Janata Party whose advocacy of bharatiya samskriti as the core of India’s politics is seen by many students of India as the portent of what is wrong with India’s politics today. The direct entry of social ritual into the political arena, without its necessarily long apprentice to modernity, is seen as an assault on the secular structure of the state. On the other hand, the fact that culture and ritual, in their multiple local and regional ways have steadily voted their way into the public space, is an indication of the vibrancy of the political process that has steadily expanded the scope and depth of modern institutions. Often at odds with human rights activists, advocates of free trade and cross-border terrorism with the tacit support of the plebiscite lobby, the Indian state has shown itself capable of endurace and new initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]