Business and the New Economic Activism: The Growth of Corporate Lobbies in the Sixties

Abstract

There is wide agreement that the 1970s witnessed not only an increase in the level of political activity by business but the development of several new types of activity through trade associations, grass roots campaigns, and ad hoc coalitions across industrial sectors. This article contends that while the level of political activity by business did increase, the forms it look were all developed during the 1960s. The author argues that the forms were inspired by Kennedy and Johnson Administration efforts to encourage and to help organize business activism in order to gain greater support for their policies vis-a-vis Congress.