Transnational Corporations and National Governments

Crossing the boundaries between theories of development, globalization, and economic diplomacy, this course introduces students into the politics of transnational corporations, and their interaction with host governments and domestic capital mainly but not exclusively in developing countries. Several frameworks of analysis will be studied, including varied concepts of the developmental state, the global commodity chain approach, and models of bargaining between the transnational firm and local actors. What are the political consequences of the transnationalization of mining, textiles, automobiles, and computer industries? How do industrial attributes, oligopolistic competition, country size, and features of the national political economy shape governments’ capacity to bargain for development? What roles can less advanced economies play in the world of globally organized production? What are their chances for catching up with the leaders?
Rather than focusing on a particular geographic area, the discussed cases include automobile manufacturing in Mexico and East Asia, natural resource industries across the globe, computer industry in the USA, Ireland, and India, textiles & garment industries in Italy and South Asia. Whenever possible, we shall address these cases’ relevance for the current problems of the postcommunist world.

Topics and Required Readings:

Part I: The Developmental Role of Firms and States

Week 1: Advantages of Backwardness?

Gerschenkron, A. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. Cambridge and London 1976/1962: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 5-30.

Landes, D. “Does it Pay to be Late?” In Batou, J. ed., Between Development and Underdevelopment. Geneve: Publications du Centre D’Histoire Économique Internationale de L’Université de Geneve 1991: 43-66.

Week 2: Dependency and its Critics

Smith, T. “The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory.” In Kohli, A., ed. The State and Development in the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1991: 25-66.

Stallings, B. “International Influence on Economic Policy: Debt, Stabilization and Structural Reform.” In Haggard, S. and Kaufman, R. R. eds., The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints, Distributive Conflicts, and the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1992: 41-88.

Week 3: Developmental States

Evans, P. “The State as a Problem and Solution: Predation, Embedded Autonomy, and Structural Change.” In Haggard, S. and Kaufman, R. R. eds., The Politics of Economic Adjustment 1992: 139-181.

Ó Riain, S. “The Flexible Developmental State: Globalization, Information Technology, and the Celtic Tiger.” Politics and Society. Vol. 28 No. 2. (June 2000): 157-193.

Part II: States and Transnational Firms in the Global Economy

Week 4: ‘The State is Dead … Long Live the State’

Dicken, P. Global Shift. Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications 2003: 122-163.

Week 5: TNCs: Primary Movers and Shapers of the Global Economy

Dicken, P. Global Shift 2003: 198-237.

Week 6: Global Commodity Chains

Gereffi, G. “Global Production Systems and Third World Development.” In Stallings, B. ed., Global Change, Regional Response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995: 100-142.

Part III: The Interplay of Firm Strategies and State Policies

Week 7: How the West Competes?

Berger, S. How We Compete. What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make It in Today’s Global Economy. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday 2005: 1-55.

Week 8: Is the “Rest” Dependent?

Moran, T. H. ”Multinational Corporations and Dependency: A Dialogue for Dependentistas and Non-Dependentistas.” International Organization (Winter 1978): 79-100.

Bruszt, L and Greskovits, B. “Transnationalization, Social Integration, and Capitalist Diversity in the East and the South” Studies in Comparative International Development (July 2009): xxx.

Week 9: How the “Rest” Competes?

Kohli, A. “Nationalist versus Dependent Capitalist Development: Alternative Pathways in a Globalized World Studies in Comparative International Development (July 2009): xxx.

Sklair, L. And Robbins, P. T. “Global Capitalism and Major Corporations from the Third World.” Third World Quarterly, 23, No. 1 (2002): 81-100.

Part IV: Industry-specific patterns

Week 10: Resource-based Industries

Shafer, M. D. “Capturing the Mineral Multinationals: Advantage or Disadvantage? In Moran, T. H. ed., Multinational Corporations (1985). 25-53.

Ross, M. J. “The Political Economy of the Resource Curse.” World Politics 51 (January 1999): 297-322.

Week 11: Capital- and Technology-Intensive Industries

Naeyoung, L. and Cason, J “Automobile Commodity Chains in the NICs: A Comparison of South Korea, Mexico, and Brazil.” In Gereffi, G. and Wyman, D. L., eds., Manufacturing Miracles. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990: 223-243.

Bennett, D. C. and Sharpe, K. E. “Agenda Setting and Bargaining Power: The Mexican State versus Transnational Automobile Corporations.” In Kohli, A. ed., The State and Development in the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1991: 209-241.

Week 12: Small Firm Networks, and Sweatshop Plants

Best, M. The New Competition. Institutions of Industrial Restructuring. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1990: 203-226.

Harrison, B. Lean and Mean. The Changing Landscape of Corporate Power in the Age of Flexibility. New York, N. Y. Basic Books 1994: 75-105.

Elson, D. “Uneven Development and the Textiles and Clothing Industry.” In Sklair, L. ed., Capitalism & Development. London and New York: Routledge 1994: 189-210.