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Employer associations: Climate change, power and politics

Author

Listed:
  • Caleb Goods

    (University of Western Australia, Australia)

  • Bradon Ellem

    (The University of Sydney Business School, Australia)

Abstract

How employer associations deploy their power resources to frame and pursue members’ interests in the making of public policy is of marked importance in many economies. This is strikingly so in Australia where employer associations have, over a 30-year period, shaped a critically important industrial relations policy space – climate change. In exploring this issue, in this article the authors combine studies from industrial relations and political science to show that, despite suggestions of employer association decline, these organisations exert influence over policymaking in both ‘noisy’ and ‘quiet’ ways. These forms of influence can be understood as linked to specific sources of power – structural, associational, institutional, societal – as employer associations define and pursue members’ interests.

Suggested Citation

  • Caleb Goods & Bradon Ellem, 2023. "Employer associations: Climate change, power and politics," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(2), pages 481-503, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:44:y:2023:i:2:p:481-503
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X221081551
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Sheldon & Raoul Nacamulli & Francesco Paoletti & David E. Morgan, 2016. "Employer Association Responses to the Effects of Bargaining Decentralization in Australia and Italy: Seeking Explanations from Organizational Theory," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 160-191, March.
    2. Culpepper,Pepper D., 2011. "Quiet Politics and Business Power," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521118590, November.
    3. Chris F. Wright, 2017. "Employer Organizations and Labour Immigration Policy in Australia and the United Kingdom: The Power of Political Salience and Social Institutional Legacies," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 347-371, June.
    4. Stephen Bell & Andrew Hindmoor, 2014. "The Structural Power of Business and the Power of Ideas: The Strange Case of the Australian Mining Tax," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 470-486, May.
    5. Bradon Ellem & Caleb Goods & Patricia Todd, 2020. "Rethinking Power, Strategy and Renewal: Members and Unions in Crisis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 424-446, June.
    6. Schmitter, Philippe C. & Streeck, Wolfgang, 1999. "The organization of business interests: Studying the associative action of business in advanced industrial societies," MPIfG Discussion Paper 99/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    7. Culpepper,Pepper D., 2011. "Quiet Politics and Business Power," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521134132, November.
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