IR453      Half Unit
Global Business in International Relations

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course examines the role of global business as an actor in international relations. It reviews the political and economic theories that explain the rise of global business and foreign direct investment, paying attention in particular to International Relations and International Political Economy approaches, but also covering the main economic explanations of MNCs. The course examines the interaction between global business and states in international relations, especially state-firm bargaining over investment decisions and the regulation of global business by states and international organizations. The course also considers the role that global business plays in selected global policy areas: climate change and the environment, economic development, and human rights.

15 hours of seminars and 10 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

10 lectures and 10 seminars on the following topics:

1. Introduction: global business in international relations
2. Globalisation and the rise of MNCs
3. Economic theories of the global firm
4. The political economy of MNC-state relations
5. International investment rules
6. International taxation and global business
7. The tech giants and how to govern them
8. Global business and climate change
9. MNCs, FDI and economic development
10. MNCs and the global governance of human rights

Essay (1500 words)

The formative essay provides students with an opportunity to engage critically with key readings on course topics, and to receive constructive feedback to support their preparation for the summative e-Exam.

• Bonnitcha, J., Poulsen, L. N. S., & Waibel, M. (2017). The political economy of the investment treaty regime: Oxford University Press.
• Cohen, Stephen D. (2007). Multinational corporations and foreign direct investment: avoiding simplicity, embracing complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dashwood, H. S. (2012). The Rise of Global Corporate Social Responsibility: Mining and the Spread of Global Norms. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Dunning, John H, & Lundan, Sarianna M. (2008). Multinational enterprises and the global economy: Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Falkner, R. (2008). Business Power and Conflict in International Environmental Politics. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Jensen, Nathan M. (2008). Nation-states and the multinational corporation: A political economy of foreign direct investment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Knudsen, J.S. and J. Moon (2017). Visible Hands. Government Regulation and International Business Responsibility. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Mikler, J., Ed. (2013). The Handbook of Global Companies. Wiley-Blackwell.
• Mikler, J. (2018). The political power of global corporations. Cambridge: Polity.
• Rugman, A. M. (2014). Multinationals and development: Yale University Press.
• Sundaram, Anant K, & Hansen, Robert G (Eds.). (2023). Handbook of Business and Climate Change: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period