The Political Power of Firms

This paper presents a holistic view of the channels of political influence of large corporations in modern democracies, focusing not only on well-studied instruments, such as campaign contributions and lobbying, but also on more opaque ones, such as charitable giving, political connections, dark money, public advocacy, and employee mobilization. Our quantitative perspective draws on recent work on US politics, including congressional voting, special interest politics, corporate political connections, grassroots, and philanthropic activities. In the process, the chapter offers also a discussion of recent methodological innovations around money in politics. We conclude with some considerations on corporate political disclosure.