Multinational Corporations and the Politics of International Trade in Multidisciplinary Perspective

From the technical analyses of wide ranges of scholars to the public dis-course backlashes against globalization, there is a huge volume of work historiciz-ing, quantifying, and problematizing the complex role of multinationalcorporations (MNCs) in international trade. The body of literature is so largethat most readers rely on disciplinary boundaries to narrow the catalog, causingthem to miss out on important synergies acrossfields. By bringing the work ofhistorians, lawyers, and political scientists working on MNCs and internationaltrade into conversation, we offer an expanded perspective. Our collectivecontribution highlights the political dimensions of MNCs within the frameworksof global economic governance, in which corporations seek to influence tradepolicies amid rising protectionism and coordinate their activities within industryassociations while regulators struggle to hold MNC parent companies accountableto international human rights violations across their value chains. Especially in thismoment of re-evaluation—and possible de-globalization following the shock ofCOVID-19—our multidisciplinary analysis explains how MNCs exerted politicalpower over trade regimes in the past, by what means they seek to shape regulatoryframeworks in the present, and what the possible futures might be for big businessoperations in a more or less global economy