Though I rather doubt Carrol would look at any of these texts on big business and the political process...Full of empirical data.
Ferguson, Thomas Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems. 440 p.
"New Politics of Inequality, " by Thomas Edsall and his new one, "Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power." The latter, btw, cites David Harvey's book on "neo-liberalism"
"Elites in American History, " three volumes by Phillip Burch, Jr. And, also by him, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka/burch.htm Reagan, Bush, and Right-Wing Politics: Elites, Think Tanks, Power and Policy
"Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America, " by David Vogel.
Social Policy and the Conservative Agenda by Clarence Y. Lo (Editor), Michael Schwartz (Editor)
Clarence Y. Lo was a contributor to Kapitalistate, btw. That journal, some here might recall published many illuminating neo-marxist analyses of the State.IIRC, he also has written on California's Prop. 13.