Parties, Interest Groups, Firms – How Corporate Actors Shape Democracy and How Democracy Shapes Them

Abstract

Political parties have long cultivated (more or less openly) relationships with other corporate actors such as unions, churches or firms. While the importance of these relationships are widely recognized for party building and organization, party government and policy-making generally, we still know little about why and how these relationships are cultivated and what their consequences for democratic politics are. Similarly, a lot has been said about the complementary role of parties’ and groups’ respective contributions to interest representation in a democracy but empirical research to date tends to focus either on one or the other. This panel brings together research on those corporate actors central to democracy such as parties and interest groups with a specific interest in the multiple relationships that are cultivated between political parties and unions, firms and religious organizations respectively, how they affect and how they are affected by democracy.

Title	Details
Why social democrats don't appoint trade unionist ministers anymore	View Paper Details
Cover stories? Triangulating party-firm relations in the case of the property industry and the UK Conservative Party	View Paper Details
Parties as Transmission Belts: How well do parties in Germany represent citizens and influence the government agenda?	View Paper Details
Boosting civil society or enhancing clientelism in Poland? Law and Justice’s links with civic organisations.	View Paper Details
Party-Interest Group Ties and Influence	View Paper Details