Academic literature on the topic 'Corporations, International; Imperialism'

Socialists at the turn of the century explained modern imperialism as an attempt to escape the crisis of monopoly capitalism. “Super-profits” that could be secured in the periphery, according to Lenin, were necessary to offset declining rates of return in the advanced economies. Today, radical theorists stress the role of the multinational corporations in accounting for neocolonialism. If great national power does produce material benefits for foreign investors, this should be apparent in two cases: the experience of British capitalists in the “high age of imperialism,“ 1870–1913, and the operations of U.S. multinational corporations abroad after World War II. But rates of return on foreign investments have not been significantly different in the developed and less developed regions of the world—a finding that is relevant not only for theories of imperialism but also for understanding development and modernization, the operation of the multinational corporation, and international capital markets.

In 1964, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy wrote an essay entitled "Notes on the Theory of Imperialism" for a festschrift in honor of the sixty-fifth birthday of the great Polish Marxist economist Michał Kalecki.… [T]he essay offered the first major analysis of multinational corporations within Marxian theory. Parts of it were incorporated into Baran and Sweezy's Monopoly Capital in 1966, two years after Baran's death. Yet for all that book's depth, "Notes on the Theory of Imperialism" provided a more complete view of their argument on the growth of multinationals. In October and November 1969, Harry Magdoff and Sweezy wrote their article "Notes on the Multinational Corporation," picking up where Baran and Sweezy had left off. That same year, Magdoff published his landmark The Age of Imperialism, which systematically extended the analysis of the U.S. economy into the international domain.… In the analyses of Baran, Sweezy, and Magdoff, as distinct from the dominant liberal perspective, the multinational corporation was the product of the very same process of concentration and centralization of capital that had created monopoly capital itself.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

AbstractDuring the last decade, we have seen an increased opposition to globalization. Within this wave of criticism, firms and more specifically multinational corporations have been major targets, accused of multiple wrongdoings, such as social dumping, fiscal evasion, job cuts, trade deficits, abuses of power, and environmental damages. In many respects, this debate echoes the one that took place during the 1970s with respect to oil shocks, de-industrialization, and imperialism. At that time, several international organizations, such as the OECD, ECOSOC, ILO, and the European Community started to address the issue of multinationals and international investments, and advocated for the creation of guidelines to regulate their activities. The following paper explores the reactions of Swiss multinationals to these attempts, as well as their strategies for protecting their latitude in conducting business. Relying on archival material of the Swiss Union of Commerce and Industry and of the Federal Archives, this paper shows how the biggest companies in the pharmaceutical, machine, and food processing industries—all of them still being global players —decided to create a task force to deal with these emerging regulations at the international level.

The early part of the sixties witnessed a rapid decolonization of several parts of Africa even though many have argued that these were mere placations otherwise referred to as flag independence. The seventies and thereafter have witnessed the re-colonisation of African States or in proper terms, the neo-colonisation of Africa by Western Powers. That African States since their qualified independence have been in bondage was never in doubt. Subtly but seriously, the Western Powers through its hydraheaded multinational corporations, in conjuction with international institutions and conventions, have taken over the affairs of African States ranging from politics through economics to culture. While these were going on, the Organization of African Unity stood aloof concerned with nothing in particular or perhaps helpless or on another note used as a tool by Western imperialism. It is the contention of this paper that Africa was neo-colonized by Western Powers mainly because there was no collective resistance that should have been envisaged and given by the Organization for African Unity. The formation, structure, financing and the objectives of OAU at the outset were inadequate to foresee and attack Western surreptitious moves to further imperialism in the seventies and beyond. Consequently, the OAU not only folded its arms while Western perpetrators went away with their imperialistic loot but was also consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirecly, covertly or overtly used in the course of the neocolonisation of African States.

In this most recent era of transnational movements of labor, commodity, capital, and information, distinctions among cultures and conditions of exile, diaspora, nationality, ethnicity, and race are both elusive and in need of elucidation. That need is particularly strong when such cultures and conditions are articulated in and through mass media. Studies of globalization and transnational media corporations in communications and media studies have rarely examined the continuing legacies of colonialism and imperialism. In turn, studies of postcoloniality, whose strongest disciplinary connections have been to literature, history, and anthropology, have been noticeably reluctant to address the realm of mass-mediated culture. Yet postcoloniality is routinely animated by the political economy and representational practices of mass-media technologies. Consider how the following mass mediated representations weave a tangled web of postcolonial relations. On the one hand, the nuclear bomb-toting terrorists of the “Crimson Jihad” in the recent blockbuster movie True Lies represent “peoples of the ‘Middle East’ ” by violently condensing Armenians, Turks, Lebanese, and Azeris along with, for example, Palestinians, Libyans, and Iranians. On the other hand, Armenian and Azeri war tactics in Karabakh are partly driven by international media coverage while that same war is consumed through mass media in Long Island and Los Angeles. To complicate the picture even further, Los Angeles-based institutions of mass media are driven by that city’s surplus labor pool of working-class immigrants from the “South.”

What type of capitalism do we live in today? My answer to this question draws upon two interrelated lines of argument. Firstly, I will argue that we inhabit an epoch of global capitalism. The precursors of this kind of capitalism originated from the late nineteenth century when the development of telegraph networks, modern transport systems and world time zones provided a global template for industrialisation and Western imperialism. From about 1980 a confluence of global events and processes bought a fully-fledged global capitalism into being. These included the collapse of Fordist Keynesianism, national Keynesianism and Soviet Communism along with First, Second and Third World demarcations; the international proliferation of neo-liberal policy regimes; the growth of transnational corporations in all economic sectors; the predominance of financialisation and the reconstitution of global workforces. Secondly, I will argue that the shift from organic surface energy to underground fossil energy intertwined the time of the earth with the time of human history as nature was being instrumentalised as a resource for humanity. Understanding the capitalist relations of power involved here requires that we rethink the emergence of industrial capitalism in the historical context of a world system built upon unequal socio-ecological exchange between core and periphery. Today, global capitalism has intensified the anthropogenic feedback loops associated with CO2 emissions and climate change and universalised the organisational frameworks of profit extraction and socio-ecological destruction. I refer here to the transnational systems of fossil fuel capitalism along with their interlinkages with financialisation and advertising/commodity fetishism. From the preceding lines of argument I will briefly outline the intra-capitalist and planetary-ecological crises out of which transnational coalitions of opposition might emerge.

This article tackles the evolution of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation international distribution strategies at the intersection of the contemporary television landscape, by providing a context and definition for Canadian content (CanCon) rules, so as to consider more recent debates on the positioning of foreign streaming services in Canada in relation to existing broadcasting companies. The aim is to problematize media policies, by outlining the present state of the debate and updating the conversation to include global streaming TV players. Key questions are explored, such as whether CanCon rules are outdated forms of cultural protectionism or still represent viable answers to the risks of media imperialism.

Haiti’s new Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation.By JUSTIN PODUR. Pluto Press, 2012. $29.95Reviewed by Natali DownerThe controversial book Haiti’s new Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation is a significant contribution to current discussions around globalisation, political economy, development, post-colonialism, and human rights. Podur’s work provides welcome insight and a critical perspective on the struggle for sovereignty in modern day Haiti. The author takes the reader through Haiti’s political history, beginning with the slave revolution of 1804, which established Haiti as the world’s first independent black Republic. The historical account grounds the reader in Haiti’s reality—the ongoing battle for economic and political sovereignty within its borders. Since its independence, Podur argues, the successful slave revolt in Haiti has been an ontological challenge to those who would seek to impose colonialism; it is the challenge they posed in 1804 and today.Podur sections the book into historical eras, including the Duvalier dictatorship followed by Haiti’s popular movement and Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which act as signposts for his study. In Podur’s analysis of the second and pivotal coup against Aristide in 2004, he argues that the new dictatorship was imposed and solidified under the control of the U.S., Canada, France and later, the United Nations. Specifically, under the guise of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (the new iteration of the “White Man’s Burden”,) western countries employed the old colonial pretext in order to “overthrow Haiti’s elected government and replace it with an internationally constructed dictatorship.” Drawing on Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s concept of dictatorship, as the use of violence and centralization of power, Podur adds “impunity” to the description as it characterizes how violations by the regime and its supporters go unpunished. Podur categorises the new international variety of dictatorship as a “laboratory experiment in a new kind of imperialism.”Podur discusses the contradictory role of the domestic and international media as contributing to the success of the coup. He argues that the media misrepresented the details surrounding the kidnapping and replacement of a democratically elected prime minister with the dictatorship of the United Nations. He describes the “media disinformation loop” as part of the coup infrastructure by shaping beliefs and actions. Podur’s work is an attempt to publicize an alternative to corrupt mainstream reporting.The media did not question the legitimacy of the coup regime or the United Nations’ Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Podur argues that the occupation of Haiti by the MINUSTAH occurred under peculiar justifications. He reports that, “in Haiti an internationalized military solution is being offered for what even the UN admitted were problems of poverty and social crime that occur in many places.” He argues that violence and murder rates are higher in other countries, including the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Trinidad, and Jamaica. The mainstream rationale for UN occupation in Haiti has evaded inquiry.Podur’s analysis of the coup extends to the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the new dictatorship. In Haiti, Podur argues, NGOs perform tasks that belong in the hands of a functioning public service, accountable to the people. Instead, NGOs operate in the interests of their donor countries—“offering wealthy countries a morally responsible way of subcontracting the sovereignty of the nations they exploit.” Making NGOs “less non-governmental and more ‘over governmental’” and revealing the determinant role of external intervention in corrupting sovereignty.NGOs are responsible for the bulk of disaster response in Haiti. Podur’s analysis of the earthquake of 2010 reveals a stunning account of how well-meaning donors are part of a feedback loop that (in part) finances a corrupt system. This system of local elites, international enterprises, and NGOs acts with impunity as they create and reinforce vulnerabilities because funds are controlled by western technocrats and corporations (particularly in times of crisis). Rather than geographic factors, Podur argues that social factors are the major cause of Haiti’s horrific death toll following disasters. The decapitation of Haiti’s government and the subsequent program cuts demobilizes the public service while it enables the rise of the “republic of NGOs” and the UN Dictatorship. As Haiti lacks the sovereignty to orchestrate its own disaster response, the failure to rebuild after the earthquake marks the failure of the new dictatorship and not the people of Haiti.Podur illustrates the character of the new dictatorship allowing readers to understand the truly gruesome nature of the post-coup occupiers. Podur’s report leaves the reader spinning from accounts of murder and corruption; page after page the reader experiences Haiti’s grim reality in the new imperialist regime. While the lists of events in the book become disorienting to read, they serve to demonstrate the brutality of actions performed by western nations, the Haitian elite, and armed factions.In this book Podur argues that Haiti is engaged in a historical struggle for democracy against external control. Podur’s work on Haiti reveals how a multilateral violation of sovereignty is organized and carried out, and exposes the “new face of dictatorship in the twenty-first century global order.” However, the larger project of this book suggests a call to action. Podur recounts the illegitimacy of the occupation and its atrocities so that widespread recognition can be achieved and policies changed. Podur challenges us to consider what it truly means to help Haiti, to face the consequences of our “do-good” attempts at aid and instead aim to assist Haitians to reclaim national sovereignty.Work CitedTrouillot, Michel-Rolph. Haiti, State Against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990. Print.~NATALI DOWNER is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Her research explores the contradictions of capitalism as expressed in the twin crisis of peak oil and climate change.

Many analyses of U.S. foreign policy after September 11 have rested upon readings of the U.S. as a traditional imperialist power. In so doing, the constructions of Al Qaeda as a decentralized corporation and a virtual network are often ignored. Corporate and network constructions place less stress on conventional threats to the nation-state and instead portray terrorism in distinctively post-Fordist terms. This in turn helps explain the short-lived and partial patriotic responses to the terrorist attacks, as well as the contradictory place of race in portrayals of the threat facing the U.S. Together these discourses point to new ways of thinking about U.S. nationalism and terrorism in the twenty-first century.

This thesis is concerned with jurisdictionally evasive European corporations in the Atlantic region. In the wake of renewed interest in trading companies in the historical literature on empires and colonies, this study explores the claims of corporations to foreign lands, the dispossession of pre-existing populations, and the emergence of legal conflicts out of these events and other related extra-European processes. To that end, this thesis engages with medieval legal and economic history, to explain the origin of the modern corporate form, the changing patterns of landholding and commerce across Europe, and the response of canonistic and civilian legal traditions to these developments. After emphasising the importance of the coastal region stretching from Lisboa to St. Petersburg, where trading companies thrived, each of the individual corporations involved in the colonisation of America is introduced. An intellectual history is then presented, covering relevant legal thought; here, the focus moves from patents and jurisdiction to the Roman law of property and in particular the idea of prescription, to contracts, and finally to war. These, I argue, are the ideological contexts most relevant in a legal history of corporations and early modern imperialism. The narrative which then follows is based upon primary research conducted in archives from across the globe. Here, special attention is given to English, French, Dutch, and Swedish corporate activity in the early modern ‘Atlantic World’ (1603-1673). Regionally, the main focus is drawn towards Ireland, North America, and South Africa, where corporations established their claims against other Europeans and against indigenous communities through a combination of separate means. Private law was more practical on the ground, while public law justifications tended to be more spurious and ambivalent, even if there was never a clean formula adoptable when it came to the acquisition of territory by European corporations away from Europe, and might was invariably right. This argument is presented before returning, finally, to the European context. The legal history of colonialism in the seventeenth-century Atlantic has never been presented so stringently from the corporate perspective for the purpose of contrast to the European diplomatic context; the result of such an approach is a new way to consider the origins of private international law in world history.

The original purpose of this thesis is to explore the possibility of setting up a school in Aotearoa (New Zealand) that operates according to the principles and philosophies of Summerhill School in Suffolk, England. An examination of Summerhill School is therefore the purpose of this study, particularly because of its commitment to self-regulation and direct democracy for children. My argument within this study is that Summerhill presents precisely the type of model Māori as Tangata Whenua (Indigenous people of Aotearoa) need in our design of an alternative schooling programme, given that self-regulation and direct democracy are traits conducive to achieving Tino Rangitiratanga (Self-government, autonomy and control). In claiming this however, not only would Tangata Whenua benefit from this model of schooling; indeed it has the potential to serve the purpose of all people regardless of age race or gender. At present, no school in Aotearoa has replicated Summerhill's principles and philosophies in their entirety. Given the constraints of a Master's thesis, this piece of work is therefore only intended as a theoretical background study for a much larger kaupapa (purpose). It is my intention to produce a further and more comprehensive study in the future using Summerhill as a vehicle to initiate a model school in Aotearoa that is completely antithetical to the dominant neo-liberal philosophy of our age. To this end, my study intends to demonstrate how neo-liberal schooling is universally dictated by global money market trends, and how it is an ideology fueled by the indifferent acceptance of the general population. In other words, neo-liberal theory is a theory of capitalist colonisation. In order to address the long term vision, this project will be comprised of two major components. The first will be a study of the principal philosophies that govern Summerhill School. As I will argue, Summerhill creates an environment that is uniquely successful and fulfilling for the children who attend. At the same time, it will also be shown how it is a philosophy that is entirely contrary to a neo-liberal 3 mindset; an antidote, to a certain extent, to the ills of contemporary schooling. The second component will address the historical movement of schooling in Aotearoa since the Labour Party's landslide victory in 1984, and how the New Zealand Curriculum has been affected by these changes. I intend to trace the importation of neo-liberal methodologies into Aotearoa such as the 'Picot Taskforce,' 'Tomorrows Schools' and 'Bulk Funding,' to name but a few. The neo-liberal ideologies that have swept through this country in the last two decades have relentlessly metamorphosised departments into businesses and forced ministries into the marketplace, hence causing the 'ideological reduction of education' and confining it to the parameters of schooling. The purpose of this research project is to act as a catalyst for the ultimate materialization of an original vision; the implementation of a school like Summerhill in Aotearoa. A study of the neo-liberal ideologies that currently dominate this country is imperative in order to understand the current schooling situation in Aotearoa and create an informed comparison between the 'learning for freedom' style of Summerhill and the 'learning to earn' style of our status quo schools. It is my hope to strengthen the argument in favour of Summerhill philosophy by offering an understanding of the difference between the two completely opposing methods of learning.

This thesis draws on David Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” and an international political economy (IPE) approach centred on the institutional arrangements and power structures that privilege certain actors and values, in order to critique current capitalist practices of primitive accumulation by the global corporate extractive industry. The thesis examines how accumulation by dispossession by the global extractive industry is facilitated by the “free entry” or “free mining” principle. It does so by focusing on Canada as a leader in the global extractive industry and the spread of this country’s mining laws to other countries – in other words, the transnationalisation of norms in the global extractive industry – so as to maintain a consistent and familiar operating environment for Canadian extractive companies. The transnationalisation of norms is further promoted by key international institutions such as the World Bank, which is also the world’s largest development lender and also plays a key role in shaping the regulations that govern natural resource extraction. The thesis briefly investigates some Canadian examples of resource extraction projects, in order to demonstrate the weaknesses of Canadian mining laws, particularly the lack of protection of landowners’ rights under the free entry system and the subsequent need for “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC). The thesis also considers some of the challenges to the adoption and implementation of the right to FPIC. These challenges include embedded institutional structures like the free entry mining system, international political economy (IPE) as shaped by international institutions and powerful corporations, as well as concerns regarding ‘local’ power structures or the legitimacy of representatives of communities affected by extractive projects. The thesis concludes that in order for Canada to be truly recognized as a leader in the global extractive industry, it must establish legal norms domestically to ensure that Canadian mining companies and residents can be held accountable when there is evidence of environmental and/or human rights violations associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. The thesis also concludes that Canada needs to address underlying structural issues such as the free entry mining system and implement FPIC, in order to curb “accumulation by dispossession” by the extractive industry, both domestically and abroad.

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the Huawei prosecution have revealed a mounting battle for high-tech supremacy between the United States and China. The ongoing technology war and the trade war are merely one dimension of a far-reaching and accelerating imperialist rivalry. The changing reality on the world stage has urged a reconsideration of the thesis of transnational capitalist class (TCC) and theory of globalization in general. By reviewing the historical debate between the globalist and critical realist schools, I argue that William Carroll’s theoretical frame of global capitalism grounded in corporate network research through emphasizing a dialectical process of the ‘making’ of the TCC is better equipped to explain the unfolding Sino-U.S. conflict. Following Carroll’s multilayered approach to corporate network research, I conduct a corporate network analysis to examine the directorate interlocks of 40 Chinese transnational corporations (TNCs) selected from the Fortune Global 500 list. My study has found that the transnational networks of Chinese TNCs have remained considerably sparse, contained within condensed national networks. The globalization of Chinese TNCs and Chinese corporate elite has been modest and has not undermined or replaced the national base. This is due to two crucial reasons: the statist character of Chinese capitalist class and the regionalized development of global capitalism and class formation. In concordance with Carroll’s network research of Western companies, my study of corporate China reaffirms the fragility of the TCC, its internal friction, and potential decomposition. It also provides a material ground for analyzing the Sino-U.S. inter-imperialist rivalry as a structural development out of global capitalism and its class relations. My thesis study, therefore, offers the first attempt to draw a direct linkage between corporate network formation and geopolitical conflict.
Graduate

This book examines postcolonial filmmakers adapting Victorian literature in Hollywood to contend with both the legacy of British imperialism and the influence of globalized media entities. Since decolonization, postcolonial writers and filmmakers have re-appropriated and adapted texts of the Victorian era as a way to 'write back' to the imperial centre. At the same time, the rise of international co-productions and multinational media corporations have called into question the effectiveness of postcolonial rewritings of canonical texts as a resistance strategy. With case studies of films like Gunga Din, Dracula 2000, The Portrait of a Lady, Vanity Fair and Slumdog Millionaire, this book argues that many postcolonial filmmakers have extended resistance beyond revisionary adaptation, opting to interrogate Hollywood's genre conventions and production methods to address how globalization has affected and continues to influence their homelands.

At the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, which brought together major figures such as Billy Graham and Samuel Escobar, American evangelicals were stunned by the intensity of global critiques. Sparked by the Latin American Theological Fraternity and a wildcat “Discipleship Caucus,” over 500 dissenting evangelicals from the Global South denounced American imperialism. They cited devastation caused by Western armies and corporations, and they described attempts to separate evangelism and social action as demonic. Their advocacy was successful; the resulting Lausanne Covenant underwent telling revisions in the wake of global dissent, and their activism began to reshape American institutions. Going forward, missiology would no longer develop in North American isolation.

After 1945, and especially after 1989, the United States wielded overwhelming power on a previously unimaginable global dimension. The scale and reach of America’s unprecedented power transcends the normal confines of the nation-state. US officials, often in conjunction with private corporations and non-governmental organizations, manage a vast international network of political alliances, legal obligations, diplomatic treaties, economic relationships, and military commitments, all for the purpose of maintaining a world system established by presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman during the 1940s. It is this dominant position that has led observers to describe the United States in imperial terms. This view of the modern United States as an imperialist power is based on the theory that empire does not have to be based on the control of territory. In this sense, if the twentieth-century United States was an imperial power, it was an extra-territorial one. However, this theory of empire is not universally shared, and so this chapter also assesses the competing historiographical and theoretical claims as to whether the modern United States has been an empire; and, if it is, what kind. The most common type of imperialism associated with the modern United States is liberal empire.

Oil has been the lubricant of international relations and industry since the turn of the twentieth century. The fabulous wealth it has generated for a clutch of individuals, states, and corporations has skewed global politics, fed human greed, fuelled conflict, and brought as much destruction as delight in its wake. The struggle for access to and control over oil was central to the final stages of imperial expansion, and the Middle East saw a regional equivalent of the ‘scramble for Africa’. European powers sought to carve up the area as the twentieth century turned, their eyes fixed on oil as the main prize. Central to our argument is that empire followed natural resources, in unpredictable ways. It created commodity frontiers that had enormous implications for routes of expansion and relations with local societies. The future of the Middle East, then under the sway of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, was already of great concern to Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century. But oil provided a new urgency, and shaped patterns of intervention; the history of the Middle East over the next century would have been profoundly different without it. Although capital became more mobile from the late nineteenth century, some of the most valuable natural resources in the twentieth-century Empire proved to be rooted to specific regions. In this sense, oil as a natural resource shaped the geography of empire, as had fur and forests before it. But the specific character of oil and of imperialism in the region (our focus is on Kuwait), resulted in rather different outcomes for local societies than those experienced on some other earlier commodity frontiers. Although the oil companies were largely foreign-owned, Middle Eastern people were, to a much greater degree, beneficiaries of resource extraction. In this respect, there are parallels with Malaysia. An important concern in this chapter is to chart the impact of oil on Bedouin pastoralists in Kuwait, their use of the desert, and its environmental implications. We also explore briefly other environmental impacts of oil exploitation. These are issues less frequently rehearsed than the political and economic consequences. The energy needs of the metropolitan world led to increasing demands for oil as the twentieth century advanced.