Determinants of Political Opposition Among Large American Corporations

Political sociologists have focused considerable attention on the extent to which corporate elites are politically unfied. Few studies, however, have examined the extent to which corporations oppose one another. This study examines the deterninants of corporate political conflict by focusing on the extent to which pairs of firms contributed to opposing Congressional candidates in the 1980 elections. Using a sample of 1,596 dyads created by relations among 57flrms, several hypotheses about the effects of interfirm social and economic relations on political opposition are tested. Variables found to decrease the likelihood of political opposition included common stockholdings, director interlocks with the samefinancial institutions, membership in the same primary industry, and market constraint relations between the industries in which firms produce. The findings are consistent with arguments that suggest the importance of social and economic networks in deterring conflict among firms. Political sociologists have focused considerable attention on the extent to which the business community in advanced capitalist societies is unified. Recent works have included analyses of large networks (Domhoff 1983; Mintz & Schwartz 1985; Mizruchi 1982; Useem 1984), iterature reviews (Berg & Zald 1977; Useem 1980), and studies of corporate political behavior (Burris 1987; Clawson & Neustadtl 1989; Clawson, Neustadtl & Bearden 1986; Mizruchi & Koenig 1986,1988; Mizruchi 1989a; Neustadtl & Clawson 1988; Whitt 1982; see all of the above for extensive citations to additional literature in this area). Some studies, especially those by Useem (1984) and Mizruchi (1989a, 1990a; Mizruchi & Koenig 1986; 1988) have examined the conditions or segments of the business community within which unity occurs. Interestingly, however, virtually none of these studies has systematically examined the determinants of corporate conflict. That is, under what conditions do corporations compete head-to-head over particular issues? Most of this work, including my own, has operated under the assumption that the absence of unity is equivalent to (or not *Researchfor this article wasfunded by two grantsfrom the National Science Foundation (SES8619230 and Presidential Young Investigator Award SES-8858669) to the author and by the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. I would like to thank Ron Burtfor his data on market constraint and Gwen Dordick, Raymond Ho, Katherine Hughes, Helen Reid, and Kambiz Sakhaifor their assistance with the collection of the opposition data. Iwould also like to thank three anonymous reviewersfor their comments. Please address correspondence to the author at the Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 0 The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, June 1990, 68(4):1065-1088 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.58 on Sat, 17 Sep 2016 05:24:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1066 / Social Forces 68:4, June 1990 analytically distinct from) conflict:' In their analysis of unity and opposition in Congressional races, Clawson, Neustadtl, and Bearden (1986) noted an interesting paradox. Political scientists specializing in business political behavior had argued that business was not unified because firms engaged in two very different strategies toward campaign contributions, which Handler and Mulkem (1982) termed "pragmatic" and "ideological." Although Cawson et al. found a considerable amount of variation in the extent to which particular firms engaged in pragmatic versus ideological strategies, they found that corporations rarely engaged in direct conflict in particular Congressional races. In only 27% of the 461 US. Congressional races in 1980 did fewer than 90% of the business contributions go to one candidate. Business contributions were less than a two-to-one ratio for one candidate in only 6.9% of the races. In other words, although corporations engaged in different strategies, they rarely engaged in opposing ones. This is consistent with Whitt's (1982) finding that corporations tend to avoid direct political conflict. The relative absence of direct conflict among firms does not mean that the conflict that exists is unimportant. On the contrary, just as situations of crisis often unmask important social conflicts that lay dormant beneath the surface (Zeitlin 1974; Mizruchi 1983), the existing situations in which firms go head-to-head may yield important insights into the sources of conflict within the business community. In this study I present and test a model that predicts the conditions under which opposing political behavior occurs. The model is tested with data on contributions to Congressional campaigns by corporate political action committees. In addition, I examine sources of interfirm conflict identified or hypothesized by theorists of corporate political behavior.