Excerpt

Billionaires against Big Business: Growing Tensions in the Republican Party Coalition. Theda Skocpol, April 8, 2016, Paper. "As the Republican Party has shifted further to the right, policy battles have broken out between business associations and conservative groups. We use data from Congressional scorecards issued between 2007 and 2014 to analyze areas of policy divergence and convergence between two major organized players in the GOP coalition: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the increasingly comprehensive and assertive political network orchestrated by libertarian multibillionaires Charles and David Koch. We show that policy splits have widened and pinpoint the issue areas where free-market advocacy by the Koch network converges with or differs from the business-friendly menu of policies promoted by the U.S. Chamber. Our findings inform research on ideological polarization and associated shifts in party coalitions. They also illuminate the political reverberations of rising economic inequality, making it clear that the goals and strategies of very wealthy individuals may not be fully aligned with those pursued by business associations." Link