Business associations and the representation of business interests in post‐war Lebanon: the case of the association of Lebanese industrialists

2000 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami E. Baroudi
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne

This chapter adds to the book’s understanding of the shifting nature and great challenges confronting environmentalism, especially more radical strands. A glance at the history of Greenpeace reveals sharp differences as the organization was forming in the 1970s; even today the activism of Paul Watson, who left Greenpeace to spearhead the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, draws the ire of Greenpeace leaders. Since the war on terrorism took root after September 11, 2001, radical activists such as Watson have been increasingly marginalized, with the US government even declaring him an “eco-terrorist.” As this chapter notes, though, many environmentalists who challenge state and business interests face even greater threats, with hundreds murdered over the past two decades. State security agencies are not the only group sidelining radical environmentalists, however; so are business associations, media outlets, and mainstream environmental NGOs.


2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott D. Taylor

Formal institutions such as business chambers have been assumed to be a key indicator of the health of state-business relations (SBR). Yet in Africa these organizations have seldom risen to the level of access and influence enjoyed by some of their counterparts elsewhere in the developing world. A number of recent studies of SBR in Africa continue to overstate the importance of business associations (BAs). Yet despite the widespread marginality of BAs in Africa, the receptiveness of African states to leading firms and business interests has increased markedly. While this poses certain risks of increased corruption, collusion and monopoly, the institutional and political environment for doing business has also improved, thereby fostering new opportunities for further business-related growth and business sector development among bona fide firms. Drawing on evidence from Zambia and elsewhere, this paper finds that the benefits provided to individual firms who enjoy state access can, paradoxically, contribute to an improved environment for other private sector actors whose interests are directly represented only in moribund formal associations. Even without strong BAs, when aided by the state, individual firms, and/or international actors, Africa's improved business environment has a salutary impact on growth.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Roberta Rodrigues Marques da Silva

ResumoEste artigo tem como objetivo analisar a articulação das entidades representativas do empresariado rural contra a cobrança das retenções móveis durante o governo Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a fim de identificar a formatação de uma coalizão de oposição à estratégia neodesenvolvimentista adotada, com particular atenção à distribuição dos custos da elevação da capacidade tributária. Argumentamos que um conjunto de fatores permitiu a emergência de uma coalizão oposicionista liderada pelo empresariado rural. Modificações observadas ao longo da trajetória histórica, no plano da definição dos interesses – transformações na estrutura fundiária, que permitiram aproximação entre os interesses do empresariado rural – e do relacionamento Estado/empresariado rural no marco da política setorial – a substituição da coordenação pelo Estado, mesmo durante o longo período de instabilidade institucional, pela coordenação via mercado, no período neoliberal – ajudam a explicar as razões por trás do conflito entre o empresariado rural e o governo, expresso não somente no rechaço à cobrança das retenções móveis, mas também na rejeição do próprio modelo neodesenvolvimentista (por parte da SRA e CRA) e à ausência de esforços para reconstrução das capacidades estatais na definição de uma política agropecuária capaz de reverter o legado negativo deixado pelo período predecessor (dirigidas pela FAA e CONINAGRO).Palavras-chave: Argentina; retenções; trajetória histórica; empresariado rural***ResumenEl objetivo de este artículo es analizar la articulación de las organizaciones representativas de los empresarios rurales contra el cobro de retenciones móviles en el gobierno Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, con el fin de identificar la construcción de una coalición de la oposición a la estrategia neodesenvolvimentista adoptada y, especialmente, la distribución de los costos asociados al incremento de la capacidad tributaria. Sostenemos que una serie de factores condujo a la aparición de una coalición de la oposición liderada por los empresarios rurales. Los cambios observados a lo largo de la trayectoria histórica, en los ámbitos de la definición de los intereses – como los cambios en la estructura de la tierra, lo que permitió el acercamiento entre los intereses de los empresarios rurales – y del relacionamiento Estado/empresarios rurales en el marco de la política sectorial – la sustitución de la coordinación por el Estado, incluso durante el largo período de inestabilidad institucional, por la coordinación a través del mercado, en el periodo neoliberal – ayudan a explicar las razones detrás del conflicto entre los empresarios rurales y el gobierno, expresado no sólo en el rechazo de la carga de las retenciones móviles, sino también en el rechazo de SRA e CRA al modelo de neodesenvolvimentista y en las críticas de FAA e Coninagro respeto la ausencia de esfuerzos para la reconstrucción de las capacidades estatales en el ámbito de la política agrícola, que pudiera revertir el legado negativo dejado por el período anterior.Palabras clave: Argentina; retenciones; trayectoria histórica; empresarios rurales***AbstractThis articles aims at analyzing the articulation of rural business representative associations against the retenciones móviles collection during Cristina Fernández de Kirchner government, in order to identify the construction of an opposing coalition against the new developmentalist strategy, with particular attention to the distributive costs associated to the rise of tax collection. We argue that a range of factors allowed the emergence of an opposition coalition led by rural business. Changes observed throughout the historical trajectory, in terms of the definition of interests – transformations in land tenure, which allowed rapprochement between rural business’ interests – and in the relationship state/rural business in terms of sectorial policy – replacement of the coordination by the state, in place even during the historical period of long institutional instability, for the market coordination during the neoliberal period – help to explain the reasons behind the conflict between rural business associations and the government, which was expressed not only in the repulse of the retenciones móviles collection, but also in the rejection of the adopted new developmentalist model itself (by SRA and CRA) and the criticism to absence of efforts to reclaim state capacities in the definition of an agricultural policy able to reverse the negative legacy left by the previous period (addressed mainly by FAA, but also by CONINAGRO).


1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Elliott ◽  
David McCrone

In Britain, as in many other western countries, there emerged in the mid-1970s a variety of business associations, policy and research institutes and political leagues, committed not only to the restoration of a Conservative government, but also to a much broader refurbishing of conservatism. A network of organizations, individuals and ideas grew up that became identified as the New Right. The New Right, which clearly has an international character, was generated by economic and political crises, but it was nurtured by a variety of resentments and discontents whose roots lay in structural and cultural changes that had developed over the whole post-war period. Drawing, in part, upon interviews with leaders of the organisations that did most to mobilize opinion behind the New Right in Britain, the article examines the major changes – particularly those in class structure and in culture – to which the new conservatives were reacting. It explores the major ideological strands – libertarian, neo-liberal and conservative – and looks at the attempts by the New Right to use these to produce changes not only in economic policy but in the cultural and moral fabric of society.


2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hidetaka Yoshimatsu

AbstractThis article aims to articulate business representation in the process towards creating a unified market by comparing the regional integration process in Europe in the 1980s and in Southeast Asia in the new millennium. Both the European Community (EC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) adopted the creation of a single market as a feasible strategy to respond to an economic hardship. In this process, US business associations played a critical role in identifying problems and issues in promoting actual integration. As for local business, the existing business associations did not function effectively and a new association comprising individual business executives was formed. Importantly, an initiative to create a new association came not from the private sector in Europe but from the member states in Southeast Asia. This difference led to disparities in the relative influence of the two associations on the actual integration processes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
NILS ARNE SØRENSEN ◽  
KLAUS PETERSEN

AbstractThe history of Coca-Cola in Denmark in the early post-war years offers a fascinating case for studying the close links between Cold War politics, business interest and cultures of consumption. In the early 1950s, the well-organised Danish beverage industry lobbied effectively to protect their home market against the American soft-drink giant. The result was a special cola tax that made production of cola drinks unprofitable in Denmark. This tax came under growing pressure in the late 1950s and was eventually abandoned in 1959. Resistance to ‘America's advance’ continued after 1959 as the Coca-Cola Company came to face strong competition from the local Jolly Cola brand, produced by exactly the same business interests that had lobbied for the cola tax six years earlier.


1988 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Meredith

This article examines the actions of the British Colonial Office and British business interests in the international marketing of cocoa from Ghana and Nigeria in the later 1930s, when problems in cocoa marketing were brought to head by the expatriate firms forming a ‘Pool’ and the farmers responding to this — and to a sudden fall in their terms of trade — with a ‘hold-up’, which was followed by a British commission of inquiry, and during the second world war and immediate post-war era, when the C.O. imposed a marketing system designed by the expatriate merchant firms and subsequently decided to make it into a permanent peacetime reorganization. The close contact between the CO. and British firms such as the United Africa Company and Cadbury Bros. is brought out, as is the support given by the officials to these companies before and during the war. A further theme is a certain antipathy displayed by the officials for African capitalists in general and cocoa traders in particular and the way in which the war-time scheme squeezed African and other non-British small cocoa-export firms in many cases out of business.The war-time scheme convinced the C.O. that a peacetime system of fixed buying prices which were set well below the world price was desirable as a means of eradicating ‘middleman abuses’ and of building up large ‘stabilization funds’ to protect the cocoa farmers in future years when prices might fall. Continuation of the scheme was thus seen as an act of trusteeship. It was also attractive to the British Treasury because it maximized U.S. dollar earnings for Britain from the sale of West African cocoa. In contrast to interpretations put forward by some other historians, this article argues that the Colonial Office had close, day-to-day contact with the leading British firms involved, that it strongly supported the ‘Pool’ system before and during the early stages of the war, and that the post-war marketing structure was an outcome of the war-time scheme and not of the Nowell Commission report of 1938. Finally, having lost in an unequal struggle with the expatriate firms and the Colonial Office between 1937 and 1944, African international shippers of cocoa were permanently excluded.


Author(s):  
Jimena Valdez

Under what conditions are governments able to liberalize labor markets? I leverage the cases of Portugal and Spain, two countries hit by the Eurozone crisis and constrained in their policy options, that diverge in the key measure mandated by international creditors to recover—the decentralization of collective bargaining. Against the common assumption that the liberalization of labor is widely embraced by capital, I show that governments are only able to advance labor reforms when there is a leading industrial export sector that benefits from it and provides a powerful domestic social partner. I test this argument with in-depth qualitative data collected during twelve months of fieldwork in both countries, including 129 interviews with politicians, policy-makers, and members of business associations and labor confederations, among others.


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