Report on the World’s Most Powerful Companies
What responsibilities should government and business have in respect of society?
Do you think, in most liberal democracies, society’s role is increasingly relevant? Alternatively, are social interests increasingly threatened?
Are you positive or pessimistic about the potential for corporate social responsibility?
Are you optimistic that corporations will respond positively to demands that they pay their ‘fair share’ of tax?
Esping Andersen (1990, p.10) makes the controversial statement that ‘liberals discovered that democracy would usurp or destroy the market’. What does he mean? Do you agree?
What are the varieties of capitalism?
Is this just a lot of nit-picking? Are capitalist relations of production inherently similar, and therefore we should analyse the ‘wood’ rather than the ‘trees’?
Do you think certain varieties of capitalism are ‘better’ than others? Why?
Are the world’s major corporations getting more or less global? In what respects?
Do you agree with Wilks (2013, p.42) that ‘corporations transcend the nation state’?
Or do you think that the world’s major corporations reflect the power of their home states? Or vice versa? What are the implications of the former versus the latter?
Why do you think that the globality, often transnationality, of the world’s major corporations is so often stressed?
How ‘real’ is the concept of globalisation? Which interpretation of it seems most relevant to you?
What does a ‘global corporation’ look like?
Where do you think they ‘fit’ in the international political economy theories? What role do they play as opposed to states and society?
How does a three faces of power approach help us to understand the power corporations possess? Give examples of the political power they possess in each of the three ‘faces’.
