ABSTRACT

Our job in this chapter is to look in greater depth at business within the statebusiness-labour relationship and the contours of its organisation in the regional political economy. The first thing we need to do, therefore, is clarify precisely what is understood by the term ‘business’. It is deployed here as an umbrella term which includes a conception of what is generally referred to in the models of capitalism and globalisation literatures as ‘capital’. Our understanding of ‘capital’ refers broadly to sets of assets, encompassing both industrial and financial capital and the range of associated investments. The term ‘business’ is used to encompass the people that represent and act on behalf of capital —in effect, the political organisation of business interests. Capital, that is, is not an actor and cannot ‘act’, and this is why we need to direct our focus more broadly to ‘business’ in order to accommodate and further our concerns with agency, interests and politics.