This chapter presents a systematic review of the literature that addresses the following two questions: who corporate donors are and whether corporate contributions to electoral campaigns influence policy outcomes. The material that is used in this review was obtained through a search process in the EBSCO database. In the initial search process, 436 peer-reviewed articles were identified; however, after a scrutiny process, only 40 of them reported results that are relevant to this study. This chapter offers a conceptual review of the theoretical approaches that are used by scholars and a descriptive review of the research that has been published between 2000 and 2015 that examines the two previously mentioned questions.

This article reports the results of a nested analysis conducted to evaluate whether or not electoral donations are considered legal bribes. Introduced by Lieberman, nested analysis brings together the strengths of the regression analysis and the case study research by integrating large-N approaches (LNA) with small-N approaches (SNA). The nested analysis uses a sequential sampling model (QUANTITATIVE → QUALITATIVE) and a nested sampling design (case selection “on/off the line”). Here, Lieberman’s original model was extended to deal with an apparent paradox that emerged from the analysis. This inquiry included a cross-national examination among 78 countries, denoted as LNA, followed by an intranational analysis conducted in Colombia, where an SNA survey with 302 respondents and an SNA case study were carried out.

This study examines the taxation of transnational companies from the perspective of state-corporate crime. As in Sutherland’s pioneering study on white-collar crime, the author relies, in this case, on administrative decisions issued by the European Commissioner for Competition regarding Fiat and Starbucks. According to the Commissioner, the tax advisors of these organizations prepared and submitted special tax rulings on behalf of their clients that were granted by the Luxembourg and Dutch tax authorities, respectively. However, these tax rulings were considered illegal under European law, as they constitute state aid. Therefore, the Commissioner fined Fiat and Starbucks. In this inquiry, state aid from tax rulings is conceived as a process of capital accumulation that arises from states’ regimes of permission based on the interactions between public sector and private sector actors. Thus, an observable symbiosis between tax authorities and transnational companies allowed the latter to use tax regulations in a manipulative way, while the former exercised weak/undue control. This study also unveiled the criminogenic role of tax advisors, an industry that is rarely held accountable for their actions.

This article approaches tax avoidance as a crime of globalization. Tax avoidance is not just a problem originating in the corporation. Corporate tax avoidance is a practice that involves different corporations and different territories simultaneously and, as such, it has global consequences because these corporations do not pay their fair tax in the countries in which they operate. As it is seen here, the free-market creates opportunities for tax avoidance when nations and territories strive to attract international investment by changing their tax rules in favor of powerful corporations. Tax regulations have been re-written by tax authorities, financial controls have been removed, and secrecy has been guaranteed to provide a favorable atmosphere for investors. However, tax authorities only give total exemptions to foreign and non-domiciled corporations while taking taxes from their own citizens and national corporations. In all, the tax incentives offered are not the result of less state intervention in the economy but are instead the product of more state intervention in rewriting the rules of the economy in favor of the powerful.

Purpose – This paper aims to study the roles of CEOs, board of directors and accounting/auditing firms in the adoption of tax avoidance schemas.

Design/methodology/approach – A cross-national analysis with data from 22 countries is used toexamine the relationship between tax avoidance and the ethical qualities of the top leadership of theorganizations, the firm’s profile and the tax/legal system characteristics.

Findings – The results show that the board of directors is the actor that contributes more to control taxavoidance cross-nationally, whereas the CEOs’ role to contend this practice is less relevant. Theoutcomes for accounting/auditing firms reveal that the stronger standards these firms have, the moretax avoidance is observed.

Originality/value – The methodology (cross-national analysis) and dimensions examined (role of theactors/instances of discretional power) in this inquiry offer a novel perspective to the analysis of taxavoidance, as most scholarly studies have taken a national approach and have mainly focused onstudying the characteristics of the firms involved in tax avoidance.

In this chapter, I analyze how state crimes emerge when incumbents utilize their offices to reciprocate electoral donors with undue benefits, favorable regulations, contracts, and job appointments. The problem, as it is seen here, is that (a) while electoral donations are cloaked with legality, they facilitate corruption, and (b) the delivery of undue benefits creates social harm, because it diverts the allocation of public resources and destroys confidence in the political system. Thus, I argue and demonstrate how the money delivered as electoral donations constitutes a corrupt incentive that should be classified as illegal.

Mackenzie and Green (2008) and McBarnet (2006) have argued that it is possible for white-collar crimes to emerge from actions that are cloaked in legality. In this article I study this paradox, focusing on the case of corporate donations to electoral campaigns. In particular, I will present an intra-national study on corporate funding of elections in Colombia. The case examines the electoral donations from palm oil growers’ firms to the 2002 and 2006 presidential campaigns of Álvaro Uribe. It illustrates how legal donations delivered by corporations were reciprocated by incumbents through favourable legislation and policy outcomes. Although donors were not prosecuted for giving electoral donations, since it is a legal practice, administrative and judicial authorities have demonstrated that the donors communicated with incumbents with the intention to commit fraud.

In this research I analyse how the existence of regulations that allow private funding of election campaigns have created opportunities for crime. Three specific questions are addressed here: 1. Do electoral donations increase political corruption? 2. Why do companies give electoral donations? 3. How are electoral donors compensated? To address these questions, I adopted a nested analysis. This sequential, mixed method brings together the strengths of both regression analysis and case study research, while conducting a validity check—triangulation—by convergence of results via different methods and theoretical approaches. I first conducted a cross-national comparison of 78 countries; then, I conducted a survey of 302 private companies in Colombia; and finally, I documented one case that described how campaign contributions affect the political decision-making process.

The main conclusion of this research is that electoral law creates opportunities for crime, because it legalizes the entrance of interested money into politics, disqualifies donors as perpetrators, and introduces regulations with null or limited deterrent effect on the delivery of undue reciprocities. Indeed, I demonstrated that electoral financing is used as a legal bribery by private corporations. The legal character of this political instrument is perverted when undue compensation is delivered to donors. This is not a crime with a single perpetrator; rather, donors and incumbents are equally involved. However, donors are protected by electoral law, because the money delivered as corrupt incentive is classified as legal. This suggests that the law is being used as a mechanism that neutralizes donors as perpetrators. This perspective points to the manipulative use of electoral law, or creative compliance, as the term is used by McBarnet (2006).