Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g7rbq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-27T23:34:39.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explaining Corporate Litigation Activity in an Integrated Framework of Interest Mobilization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Isaac Unah
Isaac Unah*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina
*
1.Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599–3265. E-mail: unah@unc.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the pluralist theory of politics predicts that the focus of organizational activity should shift to the judicial arena whenever the expectations of government as regulator and the demands of regulated interests fail to converge, there has been little systematic research focusing on the question of business litigation as a specific form of interest mobilization. This article develops an integrated organizational choice model of interest mobilization to explain corporate litigation against the United States government. I argue that a company's decision to proceed with litigation is predicated upon the company's (1) resource capacity, (2) constraints of the regulatory environment, and (3) perception of procedural unfairness of the government in the administrative process. The argument is tested with data from a survey of top U.S. business executives whose companies unsuccessfully petitioned the government for administered protection between 1990 and 1995. The argument receives strong empirical support, and suggests that U.S. corporations facing import competition consider litigation an important component of their overall political strategy for obtaining nonmarket benefits.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , April 2003 , pp. 65 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2003 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Author's note: An earlier version of this study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 1–3 September 2000. For their constructive comments, I thank Wendy Hansen, Herbert Kritzer, Thomas Oatley, Albert Yoon, and participants at the Jürg Steiner Discussion Group at UNC-Chapel Hill. I am grateful to George Rabinowitz for his assistance on imputation algorithm and to Todd McNoldy for his assistance on data gathering. The University of North Carolina Research Council provided funding. All remaining errors are my own.

References

Allison, Paul D. 2001. “Multiple Imputation for Missing Data: A Cautionary Tale.” Typescript. The University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Anderson, Keith. 1993. “Agency Discretion or Statutory Discretion: Decision Making at the United States International Trade Commission.” Journal of Law and Economics 36: 915–35.Google Scholar
Bizjak, J. and Coles, J. 1995. “The Effects of Private Antitrust Litigation on the Stock-Market Valuation of the Firm.” American Economic Review 85: 436–61.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Robert E. 1985. The Political Economy of U.S. Import Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Barclay, Scott. 1999. An Appealing Act: Why People Appeal in Civil Cases. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R. and Jones, Bryan D. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Richard A. 1983. “An Introduction to Sample Selection Bias in Sociological Data.” American Sociological Review 48: 386–98.Google Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M. 1977. Lobbying for the People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Coglianese, Gary. 1996. “Litigating within Relationships: Disputes and Disturbance in the Regulatory Process.” Law and Society Review 30: 735–65.Google Scholar
Cortner, Richard C. 1968. “Strategies and Tactics of Litigants in Constitutional Cases.” Journal of Public Law 17: 287–30.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1959. “Business and Politics: A Critical Appraisal of Political Science.” American Political Science Review 53: 1–34.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert. A. 1971. Polyarchy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Denzau, Arthur and Munger, Michael. 1986. “Legislators and Interest Groups: How Unorganized Interests Get Represented.” American Political Science Review 80: 89–106.Google Scholar
Destler, I.M. 1992. American Trade Politics, 2nd Edition. Washington, DC: Institute For International Economics.Google Scholar
Dillman, Don A. 2000. Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method. 2nd Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, InC. Google Scholar
Dillman, Don A. 1978. Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method. New York: Wiley & Sons, InC. Google Scholar
Dunworth, Terence and Rogers, Joel. 1996. “Corporations in Court: Big Business Litigation in U.S. Federal Courts, 1971- 1991.” Law and Social Inquiry 21: 497–592.Google Scholar
F.D.A. et al. v. Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation et al. 529 U.S. 120 (2000).Google Scholar
Finkel, Steven E. 1985. “Reciprocal Effects of Participation and Political Efficacy: A Panel Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 29: 891–913.Google Scholar
Freeman, Richard B. and Medoff, James L. 1984. What Do Unions Do? New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Friedrich, Robert J. 1982. “In Defense of Multiplicative Terms in Multiple Regression Equations.” American Journal of Political Science 26: 797–834.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1974. “Why the Haves Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change.” Law and Society Review 9: 95–160.Google Scholar
Gray, Virginia and Lowery, David. 1996. The Population Ecology of Interest Representation: Lobbying Communities in the American States. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Grier, Kevin B., Munger, Michael C., Roberts, and Brian E. 1994. “The Determinants of Industry Political Activity, 1978–1986.” American Political Science Review 88: 911–26.Google Scholar
Hansen, Wendy L. 1990. “The International Trade Commission and the Politics of Protectionism.” American Political Science Review 84: 21–46 Google Scholar
Hansen, Wendy L., Johnson, Renee J., and Unah, Isaac. 1995. “Specialized Courts, Bureaucratic Agencies, and the Politics of U.S. Trade Policy.” American Journal of Political Science 39: 529–57.Google Scholar
Hansen, Wendy L. and Mitchell, Neil J. 2000. “Disaggregating and Explaining Corporate Political Activity: Domestic and National Corporations in National Politics.” American Political Science Review 94: 891–903.Google Scholar
Heckman James, J., 1979. “Selection Bias as a Specification Error.” Econometrica 47 (January): 153–61.Google Scholar
Hoyman, Michele M. and Stallworth, Lamont E. 1981. “Who Files Suits and Why: An Empirical Portrait of the Litigious Worker.” University of Illinois Law Review 1981: 115–59.Google Scholar
Katz, Daniel, Gutek, Barbara A., Kahn, Robert L., and Barton, Eugene. 1975. Bureaucratic Encounters: A Pilot Study in the Evaluation of Government Services. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kaus, Robert M. 1988. “The Trouble With Unions.” In The Transformation of Industrial Organization: Management, Labor, and Society in the United States, edited by Hearn, Frank. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Susan. 1990. The Poor in Court. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Google Scholar
Liao, Tim Futing, 1994. Interpreting Probability Models: Logit, Probit, and Other Generalized Linear Models. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Lindbloom, Charles E. 1977. Politics and Markets. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Macaulay, Stewart. 1963. “Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study.” American Sociological Review 28: 55–67.Google Scholar
McGuire, Kevin T. 1998. “Explaining Executive Success in the U.S. Supreme Court.” Political Research Quarterly 51: 505–26.Google Scholar
McIntosh, Wayne. 1983. “Private Use of a Public Forum: A Long Range View of the Dispute Processing Role of Courts.” American Political Science Review 77: 991–1010.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Priest, G.L. and Klein, B. 1984. “Selection of Disputes for Litigation.” Journal of Legal Studies 13: 1–55.Google Scholar
Quinn, Dennis P. and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1991. Business Political Power: The Case of Taxation. American Political Science Review 85: 851–74.Google Scholar
Rubin, Donald R. 1987. Multiple Imputation for Nonresponse in Surveys. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Russo, John. 1995. “Corporate Restructuring and the Decline of American Unionism.” In Unions and Public Policy: The New Economy, Law, and Democratic Politics, edited by Flood, Lawrence G. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Seidman, Harold. 1980. Politics, Position, and Power: The Dynamics of Federal Organization. 3rd Edition. New York: Oxford University Press Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay L. and Tierney, John T. 1986. Organized Interests and American Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Sheehan, Reginald S., Songer, William Mishler, and Donald R. 1992. “Ideology, Status, and Differential Success of Direct Parties before the Supreme Court.” American Political Science Review 86: 475–86.Google Scholar
Smith, Richard J. and Blundell, Richard W. 1986. “An Exogeniety Test for a Simulteneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply.” Econometrica 54 (May): 679–85.Google Scholar
Songer, Donald R. and Sheehan, Reginald S. 1992. “Who Wins on Appeal? Upperdogs and Underdogs in the United States Courts of Appeals.” American Journal of Political Science 36: 355–67.Google Scholar
Songer, Donald R., Sheehan, Reginald S., and Brodie Haire, Susan. 2000. Continuity and Change on the United States Courts of Appeals. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sousa, D.J. 1993. “Organized-Labor in the Electorate, 1960–1988.” Political Research Quarterly 46: 741–58.Google Scholar
Spriggs, James F. 1996. “The Supreme Court and Federal Administrative Agencies: A Resource-Based Theory and Analysis of Judicial Impact.” American Journal of Political Science 40: 1122–51.Google Scholar
Stanfield, Rochele L. 1986. “Resolving Disputes.” National Journal (November): 2764–8.Google Scholar
Trade Act of 1974, Public Law No. 93–61, 88 Stat 1978 (1975).Google Scholar
Truman, David. 1951. The Governmental Process. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 1990. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 1994. “Governing Amid Diversity: The Effect of Fair Decision making Procedures on the Legitimacy of Government.” Law and Society Review 28: 809–31.Google Scholar
Unah, Isaac. 1997. “Specialized Courts of Appeals’ Review of Bureaucratic Actions and the Politics of Protectionism.” Political Research Quarterly 50: 851–78.Google Scholar
Unah, Isaac. 1998. The Courts of International Trade: Judicial Specialization, Expertise, and Bureaucratic Policy Making. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
United States General Accounting Office. 1988. Pursuit of Trade Law Remedies by Small Business. Washington, DC: GPO.Google Scholar
Useem, Michael. 1984. The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walters, Robert S. 1988. “U.S. Negotiation of Voluntary Restraint Agreement in Steel, 1984: Domestic Sources of International Economic Diplomacy,” Pew Case Studies Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Ward's Business Directory. Various years. Detroit, MI: Gale Research.Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E. 1975. Markets and Hierarchies. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Zemans, Frances Kahn. 1983. “Legal Mobilization: The Neglected Role of the Law in the Political System.” American Political Science Review 77: 690–703.Google Scholar