Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class

Bill Carroll is a professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria, where he directs the Social Justice Studies Program. Among his recent books are Remaking Media (2006), Challenges and Perils (2006) and Critical Strategies for Social Research (2004). He has won the Canadian Sociological Association's John Porter Prize twice, for his books on the structure of corporate power in Canada. He has held visiting fellowships and appointments at the University of Amsterdam, Griffith University, Kanazawa State University, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. He is an associate editor of The Journal Socialist Studies, and a member of Sociologists Without Borders.

'Building on Fennema's pathbreaking research on corporate networks in the 1980s, Carroll and his colleagues have produced an impressive array of evidence to suggest that a transnational capitalist class is in the making.'Leslie Sklair, London School of Economics'Bill Carroll's The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class is a state-of-the art analysis of the global political-economic power structure as it has developed into the current century. I know of no author in the field who has been able to combine a mastery of empirical method in analysing corporate and planning-group interlocks on a world scale, with an incisive political analysis of the forces occupying the most central locations in the networks that emerge from this analysis.'Kees van der Pijl, University of Sussex'William Carroll provides a superb analysis of global corporate power and the complexities surrounding the issue of transnational capitalist class formation. Sensitive to the relations between the global, regional and national, the challenges posed by state capitalism, and the early impact of the global financial crisis, this will remain the definitive work on the subject for years to come.'Stephen McBride, McMaster University'The longitudinal approach, rigorous empirical research, and great theoretical sensitivity and nuance give the book a unique and exemplary quality. It raises numerous questions for further research and debate and makes a major contribution to critical social research.'Henk Overbeek, VU University'This is a truly excellent book. Carroll and his co-workers take the debates on global capitalism and the network society to a new level.'John Scott, University of Plymouth'This lucid, illuminating, and much needed analysis reveals the underlying structure of the global community of big business at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It provides valuable answers to important questions, including a measured analysis of the degree of unity and division among the most powerful corporations in the world and a vivid portrait of the role transnational policy groups in linking together the world’s largest firms.'Michael Schwartz, Stony Brook University

• IntroductionPart I: The Formation of a Transnational Corporate Community1. Is there a transnational corporate community?2. Forging a new hegemony: the transnational corporate-policy network, 19963. Global cities in the global corporate networkPart II: Into the 21st Century: The Changing Organization of Corporate Power4. Transnational accumulation and global networking5. Transnationalists and national networkers6. Billionaires and networkers: wealth, position, and corporate powerPart III: A Transnational Historic Bloc?7. Constituting corporate Europe8. Consolidating the transnational corporate-policy network, 1996-20069. Hegemony and counter-hegemony in a global fieldConclusion