Corporations and global trade policy-making in the twenty-first century

In the last two decades, we have witnessed important changes in the field of international trade and industrial organization. The two most important developments in this regard have been the shifts towards: (1) transnationalization _ and increasing complexity of trade governance; and (2) fundamentally different patterns of trade and production, which increasingly takes place within so-called global value chains (GVCs). This chapter takes into account the changing context of global trade and aims to analyse the political role of corporations in trade policy-making. To this end, it identifies the type of firms involved in global trade politics, as well as analysing the institutional setting in which trade policy-making takes place. The chapter provides a detailed account of how and with what effect the winners and losers of international trade defend their respective interests in the context of twenty-first-century trade politics, and how these dynamics have evolved over time.