'This volume brings together leading scholars from around the world and a cross-section of some of the most exciting and cutting edge of research on transnational capitalists. the varied contributions are timely. They provide great insight into the structures and processes behind today's international business and political headlines. It is a must read for scholars and students of the new global capitalism.' – William I. Robinson, University of California at Santa Barbara, US This absorbing book addresses the seemingly simple question of who rules the world by linking it to debates about who owns the world and what this means for the dynamics of global power distribution. Several expert contributors focus on global issues, including the role of transnational finance, interlocking directorates, ownership and tax havens. Others examine how these issues at the global level interact with the regional or nation state level in the US, the UK, China, Australia and Mexico. the books scrutinizes globalization from a fresh, holistic perspective, examining the relationship between the national and transnational to uncover the most significant structures and agents of power. Possible policy futures are also considered. Academics and researchers across a varied spectrum of fields encompassing business and management, international studies and public policy will find this book both fascinating and important.

Over the past few decades, corporations have been neglected in studies of international political economy (IPE). Seeking to demystify them, what they are, how they behave and their goals and constraints, this Handbook introduces the corporation as a unit of analysis for students of IPE. Providing critical discussion of their global and domestic power, and highlighting the ways in which corporations interact with each other and with their socio-political environment, this Handbook presents a thorough and up-to-date overview of the main debates around the role of corporations in the global political economy.

Elites are 'on trial' firstly for their role in the past and shaping the context for the crisis, secondly in terms of how they responded to the crisis and finally in terms of what role they are playing in the aftermath. This book is concerned with what happens when elites are challenged by crisis and helps us understand 'elites on trial'.

This handbook presents a comprehensive view of the current theory and research surrounding political elites, which is now a pivotal subject for academic study and public discourse. In 40 chapters by leading scholars, it displays the field’s richness and diversity. The handbook is organized in six sections, each introduced by a co-editor, focusing on theories about political elites, methods for studying them, their main structural and behavioral patterns worldwide, the differentiation and integration of political elite sectors, elite attributes and resources, and the dilemmas of political elites in this century. Forty years since Robert Putnam’s landmark Comparative Study of Political Elites, this handbook is an indispensable resource for scholars and students engaged in the study of this vibrant field.

News headlines warn of rivalries and competing nations across Asia and the Pacific, even as powerful new cross-border relations form as never before. This book looks behind the Asia-Pacific curtain: at the new forms of social, economic, and political integration taking place through a global capitalism that is rife with contradictions, inequality, and crisis. We are moved beyond traditional conceptualizations of the inter-state system with its nation-state competition as the core organizing principle of world capitalism and the principal institutional framework that shapes the makeup of global social forces. These important studies examine and debate over how there is a growing transnationality of material (economic) relations in the global era, as well as an emerging transnationality of many social and class relations. How does transnational capitalist class fractions, new middle strata, and labor undergird globalization in Asia and Oceania? How have states and institutions become entwined with such processes? This book provides insight into a field of dynamic change.

This exciting new study provides an original and provocative exposé of the crisis of global capitalism in its multiple dimensions - economic, political, social, ecological, military, and cultural. Building on his earlier works on globalization, William I. Robinson discusses the nature of the new global capitalism, the rise of a globalized production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and a transnational state and warns of the rise of a global police state to contain the explosive contradictions of a global capitalist system that is crisis-ridden and out of control. Robinson concludes with an exploration of how diverse social and political forces are responding to the crisis and alternative scenarios for the future.

This volume explores how the idea of 'culture' is used and exploited by transnational managers to further their own ambitions and their companies' strategies for expansion. It thus provides a more complex picture of culture than has previously been presented in business studies, in that it deals with the strategic value of culture within organizations rather than viewing it as a neutral concept and, through using qualitative methodologies, gives us a full picture of the lived experience of culture in a multinational corporation. It also considers the impact of global corporate activity on both national and organizational cultures, as well as looking specifically at the ways in which communications technology is used as a site of conflict and negotiation in business. This book will be an invaluable resource for both researchers and professionals, yielding important new insights into the roles of local and global cultures in the operation of transnational corporations.

Small in number but great in influence, mobile elites have shaped the contours of global capitalism. Today these elites continue to flourish globally but in a changing landscape. The current economic crisis—and rising concerns about the moral legitimacy of extreme wealth—coincides with stern warnings over the risks posed by climate change and the unsustainable use of resources. Often an out-of-bounds topic in critical social science, elites are thought of as too inaccessible a group to interview and too variable a minority to measure. This groundbreaking collection sets out to challenge this perception. Through the careful examination of the movements of the one per cent through the everyday spaces of the ninety-nine per cent, Elite Mobilities investigates the shared zones elites inhabit alongside the commons: the executive lounge in the airport, the penthouse in the hotel, or the gated community next to the slum. Bringing together the pioneer scholars in critical sociology today, this collection explores how social scientists can research, map, and ‘track’ the flows and residues of objects, wealth and power surrounding the hypermobile. Elite Mobilities sets a new benchmark in social science efforts to research the powerful and the privileged. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in mobilities, transport, tourism, social stratification, class, inequality, consumption, and global environmental change.

Does the concept of nationality apply to the economic elite, or have they shed national identities to form a global capitalist class? In Rooted Globalism, Kevin Funk unpacks dozens of ethnographic interviews he conducted with Latin America's urban-based, Arab-descendant elite class, some of whom also occupy positions of political power in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Based on extensive fieldwork, Funk illuminates how these elites navigate their Arab ancestry, Latin American host cultures, and roles as protagonists of globalization. With the term "rooted globalism," Funk captures the emergence of classed intersectional identities that are simultaneously local, national, transnational, and global. Focusing on an oft-ignored axis of South-South relations (between Latin America and the Arab world), Rooted Globalism provides detailed analysis of the identities, worldviews, and motivations of this group and ultimately reveals that rather than obliterating national identities, global capitalism relies on them.