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What conditions hinder the success of business’s attempts to shape responses to economic crisis? During both the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, the German government drafted growth packages. Twice the automotive industry aimed for the inclusion of a vehicle scrappage program, investing considerable effort into ensuring the measure was implemented. Yet, only one of these attempts was successful. To explain this puzzling outcome, I apply business power theory within a comparative process-tracing design, arguing that in contexts of high issue salience, business’s success depends on its ability to control the framing of an issue and win framing contests. I find that this ability was constrained in 2020. The study contributes not only to the literature on business power but also to the broader understanding of who governs in times of crisis, highlighting that taking business and its power into account is crucial to understand crisis response.
Jonas L. Horn (Tue,) studied this question.