For about four decades now, practitioners and scholars have been examining transnational organizations, the networks that they create, their varied activities, and the economic and political ramifications of these activities. Initially these observers mainly focused on the multinational corporations (MNCs) that gained considerable visibility and, one may say, disrepute in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, as these MNCs and inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) proliferated, investigators widened the scope of their examination to analyze such organizations’ growing variety (see, for example, Keohane and Nye; Said and Simmons; Jenkins). Later observers studied the emergence and rapid growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and various religious cults, including the admirers of the Maharishi, the Moonies, and Scientology—that have been active on the international level in such diverse spheres as ecology, human rights, and religion (Galtung; Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert; Modelski).