Abstract
Stephen Wilks (2013) The Political Power of the Business Corporation. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, ISBN 978 1 84980 731 9 (pbk), 315pp, £23.80
Some readers of IRAS/RISA may wonder why a book with this title should be reviewed in a journal of public administration. The short answer is that Wilks shows how pervasively the business corporation has penetrated the administrations of at least some major Western governments – in terms of ideas, practices, personnel, IT, money and general influence. In the UK, the USA and beyond, the business corporation has become a major actor in governance and in the supply of public services. Students of public administration need to understand why this is so, and how business interests tend to play out.
Wilks sets the scene by identifying the key features of the modern corporation, and showing how it increased its influence and power from the late 1980s onwards. Furthermore, he suggests that the main focus of concern and analysis should be an elite within an elite – the top managerial elite within a limited number of large, usually transnational companies (TNCs). These TNCs oligopolistically dominate most key economic sectors. The nub of his argument is that: The qualitative shift came during the 1990s in the UK and in many liberal democracies. It reflected an ideologically driven reduction in the status and responsibilities of the state, a triumph of the market system, and an acceptance of business elites as important partners for political elites. (p. 62)
This is followed by a chapter focused on the UK which records in detail the ‘rise to dominance of a financial and corporate elite operating in partnership with an electorally successful political elite’ (p. 73). Both Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair’s New Labour are said to have cooperated in undermining the traditional Whitehall model, opening up the UK civil service to outside top appointments and to private sector management consultancies on a huge scale: This transformation of a great institution [traditional Whitehall], enjoying administrative discretion, employing due process and animated by ideals of public service; into a managerially dominated, quasi-corporation is one of the most remarkable developments of 21st-century British politics. (p. 104)
Next, Wilks outlines what he deduces to be the dominant strategy pursued by the corporate elite in its dealings with governments. He shows how far implementation of the doctrines of privatization and partnership have gone – not only in the ‘Anglosphere’ but in other countries as well. He outlines the components of a new ‘public services industry’ to which these doctrines have given rise. Social and health care, the prisons, education, police support, employment services, the provision of major government IT systems – there is hardly any corner of the public sector that has been immune from corporate penetration. From here he turns to the international stage and analyses how TNCs have enlarged their role as partners with national governments and inter-governmental bodies in global governance. Then he examines the evolution of corporate cultures and, in particular, the much-discussed notions of corporate social responsibility and good corporate governance. The concluding chapter is titled ‘Fairy-tales, facts, foci and futures’, and ends with some speculations as to which directions things could take from here.
In his analysis Wilks calls upon a vast range of scholarly evidence. His case is founded on a deep familiarity with relevant research, and an admirable talent for synthesizing diverse sources into a coherent narrative. The book has plenty of detail, but essentially what the author is after is ‘the big picture’.
The book has its weaknesses. The text, though usually sober enough, is occasionally punctuated by dramatic flourishes that are in danger of overstating a very good case. It is self-confessedly largely UK focused, although there are some fascinating quick comparisons with German and Japanese models of corporations and corporate responsibility, which appear to be rather different.
However, one does not have to agree with all Wilks’ conclusions, or with his future scenarios, or with the choice of neo-elitism as his prime theoretical vehicle in order to see the wide relevance of this text – for teachers and scholars of public administration and management. In a traditional PA curriculum the treatment of the roles, constitutions and strategies of private corporations is usually somewhere between marginal and non-existent. The number of articles in top PA journals that directly address the activities of corporations in public policymaking and implementation is small. Even among the many articles published on the subject of PPPs (Public–Private Partnerships) the main emphasis is usually on the decisions and activities of the public authorities. Similarly, the vast majority of published material on open government and transparency focuses on the public authorities and not on the corporations who may be shaping and carrying out public policies, very much including the collection, storage and dissemination of data about citizens, while at the same time claiming commercial confidentiality for key aspects of their own activities. In one sense, academic public administration may even have gone slightly backwards in this respect. In the 1950s and 1960s, when PA was often located within university political science departments, and debates about the nature of pluralism and elitism were raging in those same departments, there was perhaps a greater likelihood that at least some PA scholars would examine the multiple interactions and connections between different actors in the process of governance – including the private sector. Since the 1980s we have witnessed a pair of paradoxical trends: first, an increasing interest by PA practitioners and academics in private sector-sourced ideas and techniques but, second and simultaneously, a dwindling of the (never large) flow of research that tries to ‘get inside’ the roles of private corporate actors in the field of public services and public policy. Wilks’ book shows that we need to pay more systematic attention to the role of the private sector at the very heart of public policy and implementation.
The Political Power of the Business Corporation should be widely read by PA academics and practitioners alike. It is not a perfect book, or even a modern classic, but it is a truly important work, which shines light on a corner – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a whole territory – which has, for too long, remained in shadow.