Organized Business Interests in Changing Environments : Introduction

Abstract

During the last few decades the environment of political systems in advanced industrial society has changed dramatically. Growing international expansion of economic transactions, in large part driven by a revolution in communication technologies, has led to an unprecedented degree of mobility in capital, goods, and services. It has also caused national polities to be increasingly dependent on political and economic processes that are beyond their immediate control. Although this did not lead to the end of the nation state as some alarmist accounts predicted, it undoubtedly resulted in a change within power structures and the division of labor in political systems. A growing strand of literature argues that control is increasingly being transferred to the international level and that private actors such as trade associations, multinational corporations, and social movements are gaining in importance within political processes.