The Collective Aspect of Corporate Political Strategies : The Case of U.S. and European Business Participation in Textile International Trade Negotiations

We deal here with the creation and exploitation of political resources in the specific context of business collectives. We argue that political resources used in such organizations are not limited to pooled resources provided by individual firm members; collectives are also able to create specific political resources, namely, democratic legitimacy, private interest government arrangements, unity among members, and trade-offs between different political goals of the collective. We then illustrate the use of political resources by business collectives through two empiri-cal studies: the involvement of the U.S. textile association American Textile Manufacturers Institute (ATMI) in the Multifiber Agreements between 1950 and 1991, and the political participation of the European textile and apparel industries to the Uruguay round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations between 1986 and 1994. These cases confirm that business collectives not only exploit individual political resources supplied by their members but also create specific ones that are key to their political success. Thus, our paper contributes to explaining why firms not only rely on stand-alone routes for political influence but also seek coalition building with their peers.