Iron Triangle in the United States

Iron Triangle in the International Business Landscape

Definition of Iron Triangle in the context of U.S. international business and public trade policy: A name for the steady, helpful relationships that often grow among a congressional committee or subcommittee, an administrative agency, and concerned interest groups.

Concept of Iron Triangle

In the U.S., in the context of Political Economy and Public Policy, Iron Triangle has the following meaning: The concept of ‘iron triangles’ (sometimes referred to as ‘subgovernments’) implies that government policy is largely made by well-defined networks of legislators, government bureaucrats, and private sector interests internally tied together by specific policy matters with which they are all concerned and externally insulated to a significant degree from other subgovernments and from oversight by other parts of government or other groups. For the most part, the public knows or seems to care little about the detail or broad outlines of policy leaving the relatively few government and private sector representatives involved with policy making considerable discretion. (Source of this definition of Iron Triangle : University of Texas)

Iron Triangle

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See Also

• Political Economy
• Public Policy