Global capitalism and global governance have long been intertwined. Over the last century in particular, new systems of international governance emerged out of efforts to manage peace after world wars, address the fallout of financial and economic crises, reorganize political and trade relations after the end of empire, and buttress international aid and technical cooperation. Beyond economic relations, global governance was applied to domains such as health and the environment with the hope to provide global answers to global challenges. Some of these institutions and organizations are global in scope, like the League and United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and World Health Organization, while others are supranational, centered on specific regions or interests like the European Community and European Union. These unprecedented efforts to manage economies and societies beyond the state and develop collective norms for regulation, trade, development, welfare, health, and environmental protections have reshaped the context in which businesses operate and states administrate. For their part, companies and countries have equally been partners in and targets of international governance, at times supporting and at times supplanting systems of cooperation.

This roundtable discussion brings together a diverse group of experts to examine relations between firms, governments, and global governance frameworks in historical perspective. Panelists will address questions about the ways companies have interacted with multi-layered governance and will comment on the past, present, and future of scholarship in this research area. As part of a larger conference series and publication project, this roundtable aims to contextualize contemporary debates about governing global capitalism.

Roundtable Participants:

Patricia Clavin, Professor of Modern History, Worcester College, University of Oxford

Neil Rollings, Professor of Economic and Business History, University of Glasgow

Quinn Slobodian, Marion Butler McLean Associate Professor in the History of Ideas, Wellesley College

Nicolás Perrone, Professor of Economic Law, Universidad de Valparaíso [with written comments]

Organizers :

Grace Ballor, Assistant Professor of International Economic History, Bocconi University

Sabine Pitteloud, Harvard-Newcomen Fellow, Harvard Business School

Scientific and Advisory Committee:

Rawi Abdelal, Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management, Harvard Business School

Walter Friedman, Director of the Business History Initiative, Harvard Business School

Geoffrey Jones, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, Harvard Business School

Please email spitteloud@hbs.edu if you are interested in attending this virtual event.