Corporate Power, American Democracy, and the Automobile Industry

A critical history of government policy toward the US automobile industry, assessing the impact of the large corporation on American democracy.

Stan Luger (Author)

9780521631730, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 December 1999

218 pages, 1 b/w illus. 2 tables
23.8 x 16.1 x 2 cm, 0.44 kg

"...a scholarly study of the history of the power and influence of the automobile industry on governmental policies and the interactions of government, automobile industry, and societal pressures...the author does a creditable job of presenting the material. For readers interested in policymaking with respect to the automobile industry, it is a jolly good read." The Flying Lady, Rolls-Royce Owners' Club.

This book offers a critical history of government policy toward the US automobile industry in order to assess the impact of the large corporation on American democracy. It offers the first book-length treatment of the power of the nation's largest industry. Drawing together the main policy issues affecting the automobile industry over the past forty years - occupant safety, emissions, fuel economy and trade - the work examines how the industry established its hegemony over the public perception of vehicle safety to inhibit federal regulation and the battle for federal regulation which succeeded in toppling this hegemony in 1966; the subsequent efforts to include pollution emissions and fuel economy under federal mandates in the 1970s; the industry's resurgence of influence in the 1980s; and the mixed pattern of influence in the 1990s. The analysis seeks to uncover factors that enhance corporate political influence, and those that constrain corporate power, allowing for public interest forces to be successful.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Studying power in America
2. The structure of the auto industry
3. Corporate political hegemony and its decline: 1916–66
4. The politics of compromise: 1967–78
5. The resurgence of corporate power: 1979–81
6. The triumph of corporate power: regulatory policy, 1981–8
7. The triumph of corporate power: trade policy, 1981–5
8. Interregnum: 1989–96
Conclusion: corporate power and American democracy
Index.

Subject Areas: Road vehicle manufacturing industry [KNDR]