The Political Power of Global Corporations

We have long been told that corporations rule the world, their interests seemingly taking precedence over states and their citizens. Yet, while states, civil society, and international organizations are well drawn in terms of their institutions, ideologies, and functions, the world's global corporations are often more simply sketched as mechanisms of profit maximization. In this book, John Mikler re-casts global corporations as political actors with complex identities and strategies. Debunking the idea of global corporations as exclusively profit-driven entities, he shows how they seek not only to drive or modify the agendas of states but to govern in their own right. He also explains why we need to re-territorialize global corporations as political actors that reflect and project the political power of the states and regions from which they hail. We know the global corporations' names, we know where they are headquartered, and we know where they invest and operate. Economic processes are increasingly produced by the control they possess, the relationships they have, the leverage they employ, the strategic decisions they make, and the discourses they create to enhance acceptance of their interests. This book represents a call to study how they do so, rather than making assumptions based on theoretical abstractions.

Business & Money

Mikler, John

Economics

Polity

Demostrates that a true liberal capitalism still has the capacity to enable personal well-being while dealing with new challenges such as pandemics, climate change, and automation.

Capitalism for All: Realizing Its Liberal Promise

Harrison, Neil E.

History

State University of New York Press

`Greening the Car Industry is an innovative book in the Varieties of Capitalism tradition. Its interviews and analysis offer rich insights into why the US car industry struggles, particularly on environmental impact, compared to Japanese and German firms. John Mikler shows that regulatory institutions matter, and how they matter. For the car industry at least, more collaborative forms of capitalism show more promise. Mikler gives us a masterpiece of regulatory scholarship.' - John Braithwaite, Australian National University 
Corporations, including those in the car industry, are increasingly keen to proclaim their green credentials. But what motivates firms to reduce the environmental impact of their products? Rather than accepting the conventional wisdom, John Mikler addresses this question in a novel way by taking a comparative institutionalist approach informed by the Varieties of Capitalism literature. 
Focusing on Germany, the US and Japan, he shows that national variations in capitalist relations of production are central to explaining how the car industry tackles the issue of climate change, because such variations are crucial for understanding the normative as well as material basis for firms' motivations. 
This ground-breaking book will be of great benefit to students and academics, particularly those with an interest in comparative politics, public policy and international political economy. It may also serve as a resource for courses on environmental politics/management, some aspects of international relations and business/management. Given the book's contemporary policy relevance, it will be a valuable reference for policy practitioners with an interest in industry policy, multinational corporations, the environment, and institutional approaches to comparative politics.

Greening the Car Industry: Varieties of Capitalism and Climate Change

Edward Elgar Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mikler, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mikler, John