Corporate Leviathans: Business Networks and Statecraft in U.S. Foreign Policy

Throughout the twentieth century, the United States used its economic and military power to protect American corporations abroad. In doing so, decisionmakers often jeopardized their strategic goals and support at home. In this dissertation, I found that corporate power lies at the heart of many of these cases, as well as much of U.S. statecraft, and provide a framework for understanding the conditions under which a corporation can influence statecraft in pursuit of profit. Using archival and historical sources, I assess six cases of U.S. statecraft in South America, the Middle East, and Asia from 1900 to the present. I show that a corporation’s social network position is a crucial element of its power and influence in international relations. Corporations exercised the greatest influence on intervention decisions when they were both centrally positioned in a foreign market and had close personal ties to policymakers. Their market position influenced the international context in which national security issues were formulated and their social ties shaped information environment in which policy decisions were made. Network dynamics help us make sense of why small firms sometimes have an outsized influence on international politics, and more puzzling, why large multinationals sometimes do not. The dissertation reveals how the focus on business as a collective body has left the corporation understudied in political economy, opening a new direction into the study of individual corporations in international politics. Moreover, it offers a revisionist history of the American foreign policy, placing corporate power at the center of landmark moment in U.S. diplomatic history.

Author

• Evers, Miles Murphy

Language

• English

Keyword

• Saudi Arabia
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• Chile
• Corporate Power
• Cuba
• Investment Protection

Date created

• 2020

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Political Science

Degree

• Ph.D.

Advisor

• Finnemore, Martha

Committee Member(s)

• Grynaviski, Eric
• Farrell, Henry

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/8w32r687j