Corporate Lobbying – The Tradeoff Between Payback, Accountability/Responsibility, and Democracy

Abstract

The U.S. has perfected a legal system that is considered corruption in other countries of the world, thereby giving corporations an excellent avenue for revenue enhancement. This phenomenon is also a result of the continued degradation of corporate governance, the Principle–Agent accountability, and a dissolution of the boundaries between corporations and their political pendants, i.e. democracy. This paper attempts to lay out a general framework of democracy and the role of economic actors within this framework drawing on the principles of corporate governance and the checks and balances of the Principle-Agency theory.