Power Dynamics and Corporate Power in Governance Processes: Evidence From U.S. Environmental Governance Systems

Abstract

Prior research has documented involvement of government and civil society actors in governance processes, but has largely neglected a key player: corporate business interests. Combining insights from social-ecological systems, organizational systems theory, theories of governance and power, interest group rule-making participation, and non-state alternative environmental governance, we examine corporate involvement and power in environmental governance systems. Drawing on a sample of Twitter messages about fuel economy standards, posted between 2012 and 2020, we offer a sector-level discourse analysis of corporate power and its interaction with the sociopolitical environment. The results suggest that business interests are gaining increasing power in the participation arena of U.S. fuel economy governance processes. The results likewise indicate corporations’ response to a changing political landscape in the U.S. Taken together, our analysis advances current scholarship on power dynamics in governance processes and on empirical assessment of power, offering implications for governance system design and implementation.