Disaggregating and explaining corporate political activity: Domestic and foreign corporations in national politics

Corporate political activity is usually operationalized and analyzed as fin ancial contributions to candidates or political parties through political a ction committees (PACs). Very little attention has been paid to other dimen sions, such as lobbying, in a systematic way. On a theoretical level we add ress the issue of how to conceive of PAC contributions, lobbying, and other corporate activities such as charitable giving, in terms of the strategic behavior of corporations and the implications of "foreignness" for the diff erent types of corporate political activity. On an empirical level we exami ne the political activities of Fortune 500 firms, along with an oversamplin g of U.S. affiliates of large foreign investors for the 1987-88 election cy cle.