European State Formation and its Impact on Associational Governance: Will Business Interest Association (BIA) Systems become Centralised at the EU Level?

Frans Waarden

Chapter 3 in The Effectiveness of EU Business Associations, 2002, pp 30-45 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Organised private interests have often been seen as threats to the common good, particularly in the US. James Madison, one of the founders of the American state, talked already of the ‘mischiefs of faction’. Ever since, American economic and political science literature has abounded with descriptions, analyses and criticism of the private abuse of public power. The choir of critics has been politically diverse, from Marxists (Baran and Sweezy, 1968) to liberals sociologists (Wright Mills, 1956; Domhoff, 1967, 1970), political scientists (Schattschneider, 1962; Bachrach and Baratz, 1970; Shonfield, 1982; Chubb, 1983), ‘capture’ theorists (Bernstein, 1955; Mitnick, 1980) to conservative representatives of public choice theory (Buchanan et al., 1980; Olson, 1982) and the economic theory of regulation (Stigler, 1971; Posner, 1974). The common thrust of these approaches has been to view economic interest associations are rent seekers, and any influence of them on public policy tends to pervert such policy. They abuse public authority for their own particularistic interests at the expense of the common good. Rather than a democratic state there is a capitalist state, a trade union state, an automobile association state, or a corporatist state, depending on ones political prejudices. At the very best, the influence of opposing particularistic interests may offset each other, allowing public authorities to follow their own course, serving the public interest.

Keywords: Trade Union; Political Entrepreneur; Political Science Literature; European Regulatory Agency; Liberal Sociologist (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-62937-0_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230629370

DOI: 10.1057/9780230629370_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().