Business Groups and the State: The Politics of Expansion, Restructuring, and Collapse

Business groups combine empirically a variety of features that have fascinated researchers from a range of disciplines. However, debate and theorizing, both generally and in relation to politics, are unlikely to progress unless the features of interest are organized in different disciplines which are clearly distinguished from each other. At a minimum, distinctions are necessary among three types of business groups—informal, pyramidal, and diversified—and the theoretical approaches associated with each. Much of this article, especially the analysis of business groups as objects of policy, focuses on the diversification dimension. Yet, not all groups pursue equally politicized strategies. Business groups vary over time, across countries, and within countries in terms of what could be called degrees of political intimacy.