Corporate Power in a Globalizing World: A Study in Elite Social Organization

William K. Carroll uses network analysis to explore the social organization of corporate business in Canada in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Arguing that the corporate elite constitutes the leading edge of a ruling class, he traces the three distinct terrains in which its membersoperate: the organizational field of old boys' networks and finance capital, the spatial field of overlapping regional, national, continental, and global contexts, and the hegemonic field in which business extends its reach into the global public sphere to shape visions and practices beyond thedomain of capital accumulation. In a globalizing world, how are these terrains being reconfigured? How do the changing forms of corporate power define and delimit the possibilities for a democratic way of life?Unique in its systematic examination of the Canadian corporate network in the global context, this comprehensive and up-to-date analysis sheds light on issues of concern to scholars and students in a broad range of disciplines: sociological, economic, and political.