ABSTRACT
Under what conditions are Employers’ Organizations (EOs) able to exercise power in the political arena? How are they able to influence state policy against the opposition of other organized groups in society? Two main approaches are described – the instrumentalist approach and the structural approach. Whilst these approaches lay a framework for understanding business power, they are insufficient in themselves as they are unable to account for the instances where EOs fail to achieve their key objectives. The paper locates the causes of these failures during recent years firstly in the increasing fragmentation of business and secondly in the politics of the period, and in particular the rise of populism in which business is seen as part of the establishment and therefore obstructive to ‘the will of the people’. The voice of business has become less cohesive and less legitimate in certain areas of policy. Both of these features have led to significant disruptions in the power of EOs to influence the state, e.g. as in the Brexit process in the UK or in aspects of Trump's policies of protectionism. The chapter argues for more detailed studies of the interaction between EOs, populism and state policy in the current era.
