Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, "State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation" (Oxford UP, 2019)

Back on the podcast for the second time in two years is Alex Hertel-Fernandez. You might recall his last book Politics at Work which examined the way employers are increasingly recruiting their workers into politics to change elections and public policy. Alex is back with his latest, State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States--and the Nation (Oxford University Press, 2019). He is assistant professor in Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

In State Capture, Hertel-Fernandez focuses on the development and political power of  three inter-locking interest groups: the Koch Brothers-run Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the State Policy Network (SPN). Drawing from an array of sources of data, Hertel-Fernandez shows how, since the 1970s, conservative policy entrepreneurs, large financial contributors, and major corporations built a right-wing "troika" of overlapping and influential lobbying group.