Recent work has offered competing explanations for the long-term evolution of corporate political action in the United States. In one, scholars have theorized that long-term structural changes in the American political and economic landscape may have radically transformed inter-corporate network structures and changed the political orientation of corporate elites. In another, a small group of corporate elites continues to dominate government policy by advocating for class-wide interests through occupying key positions in government and policy planning groups. We offer new evidence of patterns in and predictors of political strategies among the nation’s elite corporate directors. We utilize an original dataset (the Longitudinal Elite Contributor Database) linked with registries of corporate directors and their board memberships. We ask: (1) has the political activity, unity, or pragmatism of the corporate elite declined since 1982; and (2) are individuals who direct multiple firms more pragmatic in their political action? Evidence suggests that corporate elites are more politically active and unified, and continue to exercise pragmatic political strategies visa-vis their campaign donations. Using randomand fixed-effects models, we present evidence to suggest that becoming a member of the inner circle has a significant moderating effect on elite political behavior. We offer an alternative mechanism of elite coordination that may help explain the continued political cohesion of the corporate elite. K E Y W O R D S : corporate elites; political donations; political behavior; inner circle; fractured thesis. The concentration of wealth coupled with the concentration of political activity has fostered a drastically unequal political system in the United States. In contrast to other wealthy Americans, corporate elites are unique in their control over billions of dollars in economic assets and the employment of The authors acknowledge and appreciate support from the National Science Foundation, the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, and the Russell Sage Foundation. Direct correspondence to Jennifer Heerwig, Department of Sociology, SUNYStonybrook, Stonybrook, NY 11794. Email: Jennifer.Heerwig@stonybrook.edu 1 For instance, the Center for Responsive Politics finds that almost two-thirds of money in U.S. politics comes from just 0.5% of the adult population: http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/donordemographics.php?cycle1⁄42012 The Sunlight Foundation finds that 0.01% of Americans contribute almost a quarter of money to political campaigns and that this population is largely made up of rich corporate executives, lobbyists, lawyers, and investors: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/12/13/the-political-one-percent-of-the-one-percent/ VC The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com 580 Social Problems, 2019, 66, 580–608 doi: 10.1093/socpro/spy014 Advance Access Publication Date: 21 August 2018 Article D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /socpro/articlact/66/4/580/5077454 by Pedicals D ivsion user on 05 D ecem er 2019 tens of millions of workers. As a consequence, their decisions have wide-ranging impacts on the lives of working Americans. As stewards of the economy and a crucial source of tax revenues, their interests are given extra weight by policymakers (Clawson, Neustadtl, and Scott 1992; Mizruchi 2013). Furthermore, the corporate elite may be uniquely unified and oriented around a class-wide rationale when compared to the rest of business (Useem 1984). Business may even maximize these advantages by dominating campaign finance—in fact, the campaign finance system has been cited as a key potential mechanism of elite influence in American politics (Gilens 2012). Indeed, recent research suggests that, while the preferences of average Americans have little or no impact on policy outcomes, the preferences of business groups and economic elites are consistently reflected in government policy (Achen and Bartels 2016; Gilens and Page 2014; Page and Gilens 2017). Given the centrality of corporate interests in both campaign finance and government policy, it is important to understand the political strategies of the corporate elite. For instance, are the corporate elite distinct in their political actions from the rest of big business? What type of candidates do they give to? Are they pragmatic or ideological, partisan or bipartisan, unified in their actions or fragmented? Have their orientations and strategies changed over time? Surprisingly, we know very little about the political activity of the corporate elite. This is because almost all recent research on political donations has examined business political action committees (PACs), rather than individuals. However, individuals are, by far, the largest source of campaign cash to candidates in federal elections (Jacobson 2004). In this vein, studies from the 1980s and 1990s utilized campaign finance disclosure records to answer key questions about the political behavior of the business community. These studies primarily sought to understand the strategies corporate PACs use in the campaign finance system and under what conditions donations from these sources are politically unified (Burris 1987; Burris 2010; Clawson and Neustadtl 1989; Clawson, Neustadtl, and Bearden 1986; Su, Neustadtl, and Clawson 1995). These early studies often examined the percentage of donations to incumbents and support for Democrats as their primary measures of political strategy with higher percentages to incumbents and Democrats indicating a more pragmatic orientation toward politics (Burris 2010). Although this literature has offered important insights into the predictors of pragmatic political action among corporate PACs, it suffers from two significant limitations. For one, nearly all of these studies have been limited to examinations of elections in the 1970s and 1980s with many, in fact, concentrating on the election of 1980 alone (Burris 2005; Clawson and Neustadtl, 1989; Mizruchi, 1989). And second, although the political donations of corporate PACs may be one measure of elite political alignments, important theories of elite action that we detail below actually seek to explain individual behavior rather than the behavior of corporate PACs, per se. Despite the lack of systematic quantitative evidence on the political behavior of corporate elites, other forms of evidence (i.e., polls of political attitudes, policy statements, historical anecdotes, and corporate and policy planning networks) have been marshaled to build two new opposing theories of the political behavior of the corporate elite: 1) the fractured elite thesis (Chu and Davis, 2016; Davis and Mizruchi 1999; Mizruchi 2010, 2013; Waterhouse 2014), which argues that long-term structural changes in the American political and economic landscape have resulted in a dis-unified corporate elite concerned with its own narrow interests; and 2) the corporate dominance thesis (Domhoff 2014, 2015; Dreiling and Darves 2016; van Apeldoorn and de Graaff, 2016), which argues that a small group of corporate elites continues to dominate government policy by advocating for class-wide interests through their occupation of key positions in government and policy planning groups. These theories, however, have not been systematically tested, despite their potential implications for understanding the current political context. For instance, Mizruchi (2013:4) links the theorized fracturing of the American corporate elite to the so-called “crisis of American democracy” whereby corporate elites pursue their narrow, parochial interests at the expense of the common good. In this paper, we follow in the tradition of early work on corporate PACs to measure the political strategies of the corporate elite as revealed in campaign finance disclosure records using data on campaign donations from individual elites in federal elections. To do so, we utilize an original database Political Strategies of the Inner Circle 581 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /socpro/articlact/66/4/580/5077454 by Pedicals D ivsion user on 05 D ecem er 2019 called the Longitudinal Elite Contributor Database (LECD) linked with registries of the corporate elite. Using this novel data source, we ask three inter-related questions derived from the fractured elite and corporate dominance theses: (1) has the political activity of the corporate elite declined in recent years?; (2) has there been a decline in elite pragmatism or political unity since 1982?; and (3) are individuals who serve on the boards of directors of multiple firms more pragmatic in their political action? To answer these questions, we examine the political behavior of corporate elites in four election cycles spanning nearly 20 years. By following the same elites over time, we provide more robust estimates of the mechanisms of elite political strategies. We offer evidence to suggest that individual elites are not less pragmatic or more fractured and, in fact, may have become more unified and politically active since 1982. Taken together, our findings cast some doubt on the tenability of the fracturing thesis. In the next section, we turn to explaining our definition of corporate elite before introducing, in detail, the fractured elite and corporate dominance theses. After elaborating on the key insights of these new theoretical paradigms of corporate political action, we derive a series of hypotheses that allow us systematically to test for changes in the political activism, pragmatism, and unity of the corporate elite since 1982. D E F I N I N G C O R P O R A T E E L I T E The corporate elite can be conceptualized as either individuals affiliated with corporations or corporate organizations themselves. Although organizational behavior (manifest as cor

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美国企业内部圈子的政治战略和团结：来自政治捐赠的证据，1982-2000

最近的工作为美国公司政治行动的长期演变提供了相互矛盾的解释。一方面，学者们认为美国政治和经济格局的长期结构变化可能已经从根本上改变了企业间网络结构并改变了企业精英的政治取向。另一方面，一小部分企业精英通过在政府和政策规划小组中占据关键职位来倡导全阶级利益，从而继续主导政府政策。我们提供了国家精英企业董事的政治战略模式和预测因素的新证据。我们利用与公司董事及其董事会成员登记册相关联的原始数据集（纵向精英贡献者数据库）。我们问：(1) 自 1982 年以来，企业精英的政治活动、团结或实用主义是否有所下降；(2) 领导多家公司的个人在其政治行动中是否更务实？有证据表明，企业精英在政治上更加活跃和团结，并继续对他们的竞选捐款采取务实的政治策略。使用随机和固定效应模型，我们提供了证据表明成为核心圈子的成员对精英政治行为有显着的调节作用。我们提供了另一种精英协调机制，可能有助于解释企业精英持续的政治凝聚力。关键词：企业精英；政治献金；政治行为；内圈；断断续续的论文。财富的集中加上政治活动的集中，在美国造成了极度不平等的政治制度。与其他富有的美国人相比，企业精英在控制数十亿美元的经济资产和就业方面是独一无二的 作者承认并感谢国家科学基金会、社会、行为和经济科学理事会以及罗素的支持贤者基金会。直接与 Jennifer Heerwig，社会学系，SUNYStonybrook, Stonybrook, NY 11794 通信。电子邮件：Jennifer.Heerwig@stonybrook.edu 1 例如，响应政治中心发现，美国政治中几乎三分之二的资金仅来自 0.5 % 的成年人口：http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/donordemographics。php?cycle1⁄42012 Sunlight Foundation 发现 0.01% 的美国人为政治竞选贡献了近四分之一的资金，而这一人群主要由富有的企业高管、说客、律师和投资者组成：http://sunlightfoundation.com /blog/2011/12/13/the-political-one-percent-of-the-one-percent/ VC The Author(s) 2018. 牛津大学出版社代表社会问题研究学会出版。版权所有。如需许可，请发送电子邮件至：journals.permissions@oup.com 580 Social Problems, 2019, 66, 580–608 doi: 10.1093/socpro/spy014 Advance Access Publication Date: 21 August 2018 Article D ow naded rom http/academ ic .p.com /socpro/articlact/66/4/580/5077454 由 Peedicals Divsion 用户于 2019 年 12 月 5 日发布，数千万工人。作为结果，他们的决定对工作的美国人的生活产生了广泛的影响。作为经济的管理者和税收的重要来源，他们的利益受到政策制定者的额外重视（Clawson、Neustadtl 和 Scott，1992 年；Mizruchi，2013 年）。此外，与企业的其他部分相比，企业精英可能是独一无二的统一并围绕全阶级的基本原理而导向（Useem 1984）。企业甚至可以通过支配竞选资金来最大化这些优势——事实上，竞选资金系统被认为是美国政治中精英影响力的关键潜在机制（Gilens 2012）。事实上，最近的研究表明，虽然普通美国人的偏好对政策结果影响很小或没有影响，商业团体和经济精英的偏好始终反映在政府政策中（Achen 和 Bartels 2016；Gilens 和 Page 2014；Page 和 Gilens 2017）。鉴于企业利益在竞选资金和政府政策中的中心地位，了解企业精英的政治战略非常重要。例如，企业精英的政治行动与其他大企业有区别吗？他们给什么类型的候选人？他们是务实的还是意识形态的、党派的还是两党的、行动上是统一的还是支离破碎的？他们的方向和策略是否随着时间的推移而改变？令人惊讶的是，我们对企业精英的政治活动知之甚少。这是因为最近几乎所有关于政治捐赠的研究都考察了商业政治行动委员会 (PAC)，而不是个人。然而，到目前为止，个人是联邦选举候选人的最大竞选资金来源（Jacobson 2004）。在这方面，1980 年代和 1990 年代的研究利用竞选财务披露记录来回答有关商界政治行为的关键问题。这些研究主要试图了解公司 PAC 在竞选财务系统中使用的策略以及在什么条件下这些来源的捐赠在政治上是统一的（Burris 1987；Burris 2010；Clawson 和 Neustadtl 1989；Clawson、Neustadtl 和 Bearden 1986；Su、Neustadtl ，和克劳森 1995）。这些早期的研究经常检查对现任者的捐赠百分比和对民主党人的支持，作为他们政治战略的主要衡量标准，对现任者和民主党人的捐赠百分比较高表明对政治更加务实（Burris 2010）。尽管这些文献对企业 PAC 中务实政治行动的预测因素提供了重要的见解，但它受到两个重大限制。一方面，几乎所有这些研究都仅限于对 1970 年代和 1980 年代选举的考察，事实上，许多研究仅关注 1980 年的选举（Burris 2005；Clawson 和 Neustadtl，1989；Mizruchi，1989）。其次，虽然企业 PAC 的政治捐款可能是衡量精英政治联盟的一种措施，我们在下面详述的精英行动的重要理论实际上试图解释个人行为，而不是公司 PAC 的行为本身。尽管缺乏关于企业精英政治行为的系统量化证据，但其他形式的证据（即政治态度调查、政策声明、历史轶事以及企业和政策规划网络）已被整合起来建立两种新的对立的理论。企业精英的政治行为：1) 分裂的精英论文（Chu and Davis, 2016; Davis and Mizruchi 1999; Mizruchi 2010, 2013; Waterhouse 2014），它认为美国政治和经济格局的长期结构性变化导致企业精英只顾自己狭隘的利益；和 2) 公司支配地位论文 (Domhoff 2014, 2015年；Dreiling 和 Darves 2016；van Apeldoorn 和 de Graaff，2016 年），他们认为一小群企业精英通过占据政府和政策规划小组的关键职位来倡导全阶级利益，从而继续主导政府政策。然而，这些理论尚未经过系统检验，尽管它们对理解当前的政治背景有潜在的影响。例如，Mizruchi (2013:4) 将美国企业精英的理论分裂与所谓的“美国民主危机”联系起来，即企业精英以牺牲公共利益为代价追求狭隘、狭隘的利益。在本文中，我们遵循企业 PAC 早期工作的传统，使用联邦选举中个别精英的竞选捐款数据来衡量企业精英的政治战略，如竞选财务披露记录中所揭示的那样。为此，我们利用 Pedicals D ivsion 用户于 05 年 12 月在 http/academ ic.p.com/socpro/articlact/66/4/580/5077454 上的原始数据库政治策略的内圈 581 D ow naded rom 2019 年称为纵向精英贡献者数据库 (LECD)，与企业精英的登记处相关联。使用这个新颖的数据来源，我们提出了三个相互关联的问题，这些问题源自精英阶层和企业支配地位的理论：（1）近年来企业精英的政治活动是否有所减少？(2) 自 1982 年以来精英实用主义或政治团结是否有所下降？(3) 在多家公司董事会任职的个人在其政治行动中是否更加务实？为了回答这些问题，我们考察了企业精英在跨越近 20 年的四个选举周期中的政治行为。通过随着时间的推移跟踪相同的精英，我们对精英政治策略的机制提供了更可靠的估计。我们提供的证据表明，个别精英并非不那么务实或更分裂，事实上，自 1982 年以来，他们可能变得更加统一和政治上更加活跃。总而言之，我们的研究结果对分裂论点的有效性提出了一些质疑。在下一节中，我们先解释我们对企业精英的定义，然后再详细介绍分裂的精英和企业主导论。在详细阐述了公司政治行为的这些新理论范式的关键见解之后，我们得出了一系列假设，这些假设使我们能够系统地测试自 1982 年以来公司精英的政治激进主义、实用主义和团结的变化。精英可以被概念化为隶属于公司的个人或公司组织本身。虽然组织行为（表现为cor 定义企业精英 E 企业精英可以被概念化为隶属于企业的个人或企业组织本身。虽然组织行为（表现为cor 定义企业精英 E 企业精英可以被概念化为隶属于企业的个人或企业组织本身。虽然组织行为（表现为cor