TITLE:
Multinational Corporations in Transnational Networks: Theoretical and Regulatory Challenges in Historical Perspective
AUTHORS:
Michèle Rioux
KEYWORDS:
Multinational Corporations, Transnational Networks, Cooperation, Regulation, Governance, Theory
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.4 No.3,
July
11,
2014
ABSTRACT: Multinational corporations (MNCs) have become the most powerful drivers
of integration and structural changes in today’s global economy. MNCs have not
completely subordinated States and markets in shaping the global economy, but
they have transformed the world and given rise to a new set of economic,
political, social, cultural and legal problems. Yet, quite ironically, MNCs are
now facing a recombination that tends
to subordinate them to transnational networks of corporate economic power. The
thorny issue of regulating the global economy is, in this context, even more
complex as regulatory systems of global governance must be built to fit those
transnational networks superseding States and firms. This article presents an
overview of the most important theories in international political economy on
MNCs in order to situate the new theoretical challenges pertaining to the
understanding of contemporary structural changes in the world economy and their
incidences on global governance. The first section presents three
configurations of globalization and concludes on the theoretical challenges of
explaining and understanding the emergence and development of transnational
economic networks. A second section discusses some current issues of
regulation. The overall statement of this article is that globalization has,
during the last decades, transformed international political economy in ways
that now require new theoretical paradigms and new modes of global regulation
that are adapted to a truly global economy made of networks rather than nations
or firms.