State-Business Relations – Concepts and Methods
Analysing the Politics of State Business Relations – a methodological concept note on the historical institutionalist approach
The study of state business relations is hardly new in the social sciences. It can be traced back to Adam Smith, as least, and many political scientists and economists since then. As Charles Lindblom has put it: 'certain questions about governmental-market relations are at the core of both political science and economics, no less for planned systems than for market systems' (Lindblom, 1977: ix).
The cluster on State Business Relations (SBRs) is one of the key components of the IPPG programme. It seeks to deepen our understanding of the provenance, evolution and forms of both formal and informal institutional interactions between states and businesses; to identify the factors which affect the relations between states and business and which shape the institutions (both formal and informal) which govern them; and to measure the effects of different configurations of SBRs on economic growth. SBRs may be said to be of interest to institutional theory to the extent that the pattern/s of these relationships are governed by either or both formal and informal rules, that is regular or institutionalised practices which govern how states and businesses interact; or – to be more precise – how the relations, dealings and interactions of organisations representing business, on the one hand, and the state (or its specific departments or agencies), on the other hand, are structured by institutional arrangements. It is the nature of these arrangements that is of institutional interest.
Adrian Leftwich (York), 2009.
Analysing the Economics of State-Business Relations – a summary guide
It is often suggested that the way in which state and business are organised and interact drive economic performance, but a major research question is how this can be substantiated (this is a companion piece to Adrian Leftwich's analysing the politics of state-business relations, above). The political science and governance literatures suggest what can be considered as good characteristics of SBRs – in contrast to the long established view that state-business relations in poor countries are collusive and rent-extracting (see e.g. Doner and Schneider on the role of business associations in growth). A major challenge for economic research on SBRs is to understand the relationship between state-business relations and economic performance. This note suggests how this might be done, but does not aim to be prescriptive.
Dirk Willem te Velde (ODI), 2009.
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Last modified: 31 March 2009