Corporations, Politics, and Democracy: Corporate political activities as political corruption

Corporate involvement in democratic processes typically takes the form of corporate political activity (CPA). In this paper, I develop a framework of political corruption to explain the corroding influence of CPA on democratic processes. CPA corrupts democratic processes by excluding (a) citizen representation from political decision making, (b) citizens’ voices from public deliberation, and (c) citizens’ interests from private deliberations about political preferences. By attending to the power relations within the three key democratic spheres in society—political, public, and private—I explain how corporations influence democratic processes and how these processes in turn become dependent on corporate involvement. My theorization explicates the corporate capture of democratic processes and provides a nuanced understanding of corruption in Western liberal democracies. Finally, I suggest ways to halt this process and thereby defend democracy as a system of governance from undue corporate interests.