ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION Global economic interdependence surged over the past quarter-century, significantly reshaping business strategies while exerting a powerful influence on international politics. The impact on business and politics is now widely recognized and generally assumed to be irreversible. Corporations adapt research, production, marketing and service strategies in an effort to “think global, act local.”1 National governments grudgingly accept growing constraints on their sovereign scope for unilateral action even as they maneuver for competitive gains from global commerce. These changes supply both the building blocks and much of the driving force behind the emergence of “globalization” as a contemporary phenomenon. Less well recognized among the effects of global interdependence is the way traditional boundaries between business and politics can become blurred, particularly where the growing impact of “foreign” ideas and products raises normative issues in diverse societies around the world.