Scholars studying corporate political activity (CPA) have developed a market theory that has been widely accepted. This theory's ability to predict performance, however, has been equivocal. We argue that the predictability of the market theory for CPA could improve by accounting for three kinds of constraints that limit the possible actions of the politicians, the businesses, and other interested parties as they engage in CPA. These three constraints are the politician's ideology, the nature of his or her financial contributions, and the political trends among his or her constituents. All actors are limited by these constraints, but they also could impact them. We test our hypotheses upon a unique dataset and find support for our hypotheses. We argue that using this approach to understand the pressures facing the actors involved in CPA could help scholars find a more predictable link between CPA and firm performance.

研究公司政治活动 (CPA) 的学者已经发展出一种已被广泛接受的市场理论。然而，该理论预测性能的能力一直是模棱两可的。我们认为，通过考虑三种限制政治家、企业和其他利益相关方在参与 CPA 时可能采取的行动的约束，可以提高 CPA 市场理论的可预测性。这三个制约因素是政治家的意识形态、他或她的财政贡献的性质以及他或她的选民的政治倾向。所有参与者都受到这些约束的限制，但他们也可能影响这些约束。我们在一个独特的数据集上测试我们的假设，并找到对我们假设的支持。