Refinery explosions. Accounting scandals. financial institution meltdowns. All of those catastrophes—and many more—might rightfully be blamed on companies. In reaction, advocates have urged reforms starting from elevated govt rules to company codes of behavior to forestall company abuses. Joshua Barkan writes that those reactions, which view legislation as a restrict on firms, misunderstand the position of legislations in fostering company power.

In Corporate Sovereignty, Barkan argues that company energy may be rethought as a style of political sovereignty. instead of treating the industrial energy of enterprises as a hazard to the political sovereignty of states, Barkan indicates that the 2 are ontologically associated. Situating research of united states, British, and foreign company legislations along cautious readings in political and social conception, he demonstrates that the Anglo-American company and sleek political sovereignty are based in and certain jointly via a precept of legally sanctioned immunity from legislations. the issues that corporate-led globalization current for governments end result no longer from regulatory mess ups up to from company immunity that's being exported around the globe.

For Barkan, there's a paradox in that firms, that are criminal creations, are given such strength that they undermine the sovereignty of states. He notes that whereas the connection among states and companies might sound antagonistic, it truly is in truth one of those doubling during which nation sovereignty and company energy are either conjoined and in clash. Our refusal to grapple with the unusual nature of this doubling implies that a few of our greatest efforts to regulate organizations unwittingly reinvest the sovereign powers they oppose.