ABSTRACT
This chapter conceptualises Southeast Asian business associations as ‘contingent’ civil-society actors. While many business associations resemble other civil-society organisations (CSOs), their behaviour depends upon the profit-making model and structural power of their members. Associations that represent businesses with entrepreneurial interests and without structural power often collaborate with other non-business CSOs. In contrast, associations representing businesses with rent-seeking interests or that are in positions of structural power rarely find common cause or build alliances with a wider spectrum of CSOs, either because few CSOs share their interest in rent-seeking or because their structural power enables them to achieve their political goals without resorting to collective action. Building on this logic, the chapter distinguishes among four types of associations and hypothesises that relationships between business associations and other CSOs vary by sector and ownership. A review of recent and classic studies of business politics in Indonesia and the Philippines demonstrates significant variation in the interests and actions of business associations in Southeast Asia and raises the possibility that similar variation might characterise other lower middle- or middle-income countries where businesses wield structural power and practice rent-seeking and entrepreneurship.
