The presence of global corporations has a distinct affect on the sovereignty of nations in terms of how they navigate legislation of a state. They control the means of production and have an impact on the division of labor within a national market, yet they themselves are not subjegated to any legal jurisdiction as they are borderless entities. As borderless entities, they can avoid particular legal jurisdiction in one country by moving certain operations to other countries with less strict legislation. Professor Jackson used the example of a global corporation selling goods to a rich market that has strict laws regarding workers’ rights but creating the goods for that product in a country which may have more lax regulation in the matter and exploit individual workers’s rights for the sake of expediency or efficiency in production. Countries which have more regulations regarding the environmental impact of production would also face a similar situation.
These global corporations also yield significant political power as well. These corporations have the capabilities to support one candidate over another in certain elections through campaign financial contributions and through lobbying. This type of influence has an impact on legislation that is passed and the extent to which it is enforced, and limits a state’s capacity to make decisions autonomously.
Surprisingly, I felt like the topic of campaign finance from international corporations wasn't really addressed much in our class discussion today. It is an excellent point to make when thinking about how corporations might threaten or undermine state authority. Corporate agendas have the potential to be more damaging to international cooperation than a political candidate or party which makes it even more important to find a way to hold them accountable. Is lobbying lobbyists a thing yet?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Victoria that I was surprised we did not really discuss corporations' role in politics vis-a-vis campaign financing. I touched on this in my own blog, as when I think of corporations and their relationship to politics, my first thought is the financial support we see large corporations provide to political campaigns. In this way, corporations have a huge role to play in the proliferation of policy or political agendas that suit their needs and, in turn, politicians' have an incentive to avoid implementing regulatory policies which would disadvantage their corporate donors. I feel that the corporate-political relationship is reminiscent of the separation of church and state debate; should public authority operate independently of private industries?
ReplyDeleteIn my post I go into a similar line of logic linking their autonomy and political power as well. There is one point, however, I'd like to make and that is that, while it's true that once formed corporations act rather freely in the international system, they also need states to survive. Just as states derive their authority and statehood from other states looking around and also recognizing them as states. In this vein the power and reach of corporations should not be overstated as these corporations at the end of the day are subordinate to the power of the state.
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