Global Cities in the Global Corporate Network

Abstract

Since the 1980s two separate literatures—one focused on global cities, the other on transnational corporate interlocking—have explored issues of hierarchy and networking within the global political economy. I present an analysis of how major cities and interlocking corporate directorates are articulated together into a global network. Findings indicate that the network is concentrated in the main world cities in a way that reinforces the northern transatlantic economic system. However, the structure of the network is more nationally focused, and more complex, than that predicted by global cities theorizations. To account for the structure, I present a multifactoral framework featuring sociohistorical processes as well as spatiotemporal constraints. In conclusion, I explore implications for sociological analysis of a ‘new network bourgeoisie’, invested with several kinds of corporate power and exercising agency both within and beyond the boardrooms of the world's major corporations.

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