Political-Company Networks and the Rule of Law: Evidence from Four EU Countries

How do political connections to companies affect the rule of law? We compile data linking politicians to all publicly registered companies in Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, and Germany across multiple elections. Using active board memberships, we model political-company ties as a temporal bipartite network to measure a company's access to power. By comparing outcomes before and after elections that change companies’ access to politicians in office, we estimate how a company’s network position affects rule-of-law outcomes, as measured through legislative processes and texts. This paper contributes empirically and theoretically by providing comparable micro-level evidence on how ties between political elites and non-state actors impact the rule of law.