Business and politics may seem to exist separately: Businesses primarily focus on strategies and policies to improve operations and increase the profitability of companies. Politics, on the other hand, play in a different arena, delving into the creation of public policies for the advancement of constituents and the country.
However, upon close examination of how businesses and politics truly work, a connection between both becomes apparent. The two influence each other.
According to a 2004 study of Congressional representation made by Larry M. Bartels, a political scientist from Princeton University, senators were more receptive to standpoints of wealthy constituents rather than to those belonging to the middle or lower tier of income distribution. Bartels calculated the political contributions of donors under five groups of representation, namely: Businesses, Unions, Lawyers/Lobbyists, Ideological, and Others. Results indicated that for both Republican and Democratic parties, contributions from the business sector, covering 58.1% of the total contributions, dominated over all the other sectors, even exceeding the sum of the other four sectors by twenty eight percent. Based on this analysis, the funding of electoral campaigns in the United States for both parties depend largely on corporate funding, thus giving the business sector the power to set the terms of politics.
Politicians need the financing from businesses, while businesses depend on these public officials as they need their backing to obtain certain government projects and licenses. Businesses also expect politicians to lobby for laws and policies that protect and support their businesses. One concrete example was in 2006, when Thelma Drake, a Member of Congress from Virginia, allowed oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, after having received funds from the Oil & Gas Industry the day before she voted for it.
Moreover, they also effectively keep one another in check: politicians set laws and policies that regulate certain business functions and/or operations while particular industries fervently support advocacies for political transparency.
