Multinational Corporations and the Politics of International Trade in Multidisciplinary Perspective

This article serves as the introduction to the special issue on multinational corporations (MNCs) and the politics of international trade. We bring together the work of historians, lawyers, and political scientists working on MNCs and examine the various dimensions of MNCs’ role in the global economy. Our multidisciplinary analysis explains how MNCs exerted political power over trade regimes in the past, by what means they seek to shape regulatory frameworks in the present, and what the possible futures might be for big business operations in a more or less global economy.