This article analyses the challenges to business associated with the rise of right-wing populism. It discusses how the populist turn has weakened key underpinnings of business power in the neoliberal era, notably the prevalence of quiet politics and network governance. This article analyses the complex strategic dilemmas these challenges create for business. Extending Hirschman's classic model of exit, voice and loyalty, it develops a novel typology of five business responses to the rise of populism: exit, soft voice, loud voice, explicit loyalty and implicit loyalty. The extended typology highlights two key dilemmas related to the appropriate degree of engagement with politics which business faces in the populist era and which are reflected in the contrast between two types of voice and loyalty. The article analyses the factors shaping which strategy businesses are likely to choose and reflects on the broader implications of this analysis for state-business relations and business power.

This chapter studies the origins of varieties of capitalism in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. It develops a theory of network-promotion and network-disruption to explain the emergence of LME and CME institutions. This theory is examined in the context of two countries in the region, Estonia and Slovenia, which are shown to be very good examples of liberal and coordinated market economies. This chapter focuses on industrial relations and wage bargaining in these two countries. It shows how inherited economic institutions and strategic policy choices in early transition have shaped networks and emerging varieties of capitalism.

This article analyzes business power in the context of noisy politics by comparing business involvement in two British referendum campaigns: one about membership in the European Communities in 1975, and the Brexit referendum about European Union membership in 2016. By exploring these two contexts, the article seeks to identify the conditions under which business elites can and cannot be effective in a context of noisy politics. Three key factors are identified as determinants of business influence during periods of noisy politics: the incentives to get directly involved in noisy politics; the legitimacy of business involvement; and, finally, the capacity to act in a cohesive way. The article shows that these factors have changed substantially over the last four decades because of wider changes in the nature of capitalism, and their impact on business power in the United Kingdom and more generally is discussed.

This paper examines the political economy of Estonian trade policy in the 1990s. Estonia is a unique case in the world economy, in that the country rapidly implemented unilateral free trade after regaining independence and sustained it right through the 1990s. We analyse the circumstances, interests, ideas and institutions that have shaped Estonian trade policy during the past decade. Our stress is on institutions, particularly the national decision-making setting for trade policy. Through this prism we try to understand how a free trade regime was implemented and sustained, and what this experience suggests for the feasibility of tree trade elsewhere. We also look at the increasingly 'multi-track' nature of Estonian trade policy through bilateral free trade agreements, WTO accession and, especially, the movement towards EU accession. Although the other trade policy tracks to some extent provide a lockin for unilateral reforms, we argue that EU accession is undermining the simple, classical liberal trade policy regime that existed during the 1990s. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

Slovenia stands out as the only post-communist country to have established a corporatist system and centralized wage bargaining at the national level in the 1990s. This article analyses the emergence and sustainability of Slovenian corporatism as well as the ways in which it has shaped policymaking during the economic crisis. Drawing on recent advances in institutional analysis, this article develops a coalitional argument to account for the emergence of centralized wage bargaining in the 1990s and for decentralization in more recent years.