Abstract

This chapter examines the role of business associations (BAs) in the policy process and, more specifically, the extent to which they conduct policy analysis, primarily focusing on activity in Canada, the UK, the US and Australia. In these countries and those with similar first-past-the-post institutional structures, most BAs are voluntary organizations whose members consist of individual firms. ¹ Reveley and Ville (2010, p. 837) define BAs as a distinctive type of ‘meta-organization’ (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2008), that is, ‘organizations whose constituent members are other organizations’. They further describe each as ‘a third party member-based organization with a brokerage role, membership of which is voluntary, and whose members retain their distinctive organization identity’ (Reveley & Ville, 2010, p. 839).