Transnational Corporations and Technological Transformation: The Political Economy of the New Digital Economy

  1. Pérez-Lagüela, Elena
Libro:
Contributions to International Relations

ISSN: 2731-5061,  2731-507X

ISBN: 9783031667497,  9783031667503

Año de publicación: 2024

Páginas: 107-131

Tipo: Capítulo de Libro

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-66750-3_8 GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAcceso abierto editor

Resumen

This chapter follows a Political Economy approach to articulate three dimensions of analysis (actors, scenarios, and mechanisms) to facilitate the understanding of the power relations that underpin the New Digital Economy (NDE). The author hypothesises that the NDE is further concentrating wealth as well as political and economic power in a few technology clusters that emerge around the business activities of the top-5 digital transnational corporations (TNCs) (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft). This increasing concentration is also grating these TNCs’ growing bargaining power over other non-digital TNCs, states, and the global citizenry. The main conclusion is that the NDE is characterised by a highly connected, complex, and fragile economic and political relations that make for a hierarchical, asymmetric, and deeply concentrated international digital economic system.

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