The Corporation in a Globalized World
The chapter addresses the nature of the power relationships between the business world and the state as seen from the perspective of a relatively new field of study called international political economy. Theories of corporate power in a globalized economy evolved along two parallel lines. On the one hand, the globalization literature of the 1990s has tended to assume there was a marked shift of power from states to markets. Recent literature questions these assumptions, not least in light of the experience of the great recession of 2007–2008. In parallel, conceptualization of power has evolved from relatively simplistic theories of relational power to theories of structural power and, increasingly, arbitrage power. Arbitrage power is the ability to arbitrate legal systems against each other, or against themselves, for pecuniary purposes.