'Had Winston Churchill been an economist, he might have said, 'Capitalism is the worst form of economic organization, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time'. In [this book] Timothy Werner goes beyond the 'which?' when it comes to government or market, and directs the reader towards 'how?' … Werner argues that business groups are partly strategic, but business political action is also partly just defense. Interestingly, it turns out that business today has more leverage over the formal state, but is less powerful in the larger civil society … Werner slays a few sacred cows, on both the left and the right. This is the sort of book America needs if we are going to redirect politics away from partisan bickering and toward solutions.' Michael C. Munger, Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program, Duke University
1. Introduction; 2. The firm as political actor and a theory of private policymaking; 3. Unveiling the public roots of private policymaking; 4. The public, the state, and corporate environmentalism; 5. Public opinion and gay rights in the workplace; 6. Total executive compensation and regulatory threat; 7. Conclusion; Appendix: data sources and variable measurement by chapter.