The Global Corporate Elite and the Transnational Policy-Planning Network, 1996-2006

This article presents a network analysis of elite interlocks among the world’s 500 largest corporations and a purposive sample of transnational policy-planning boards. The analysis compares the situation in 1996 with 2006 and reveals a process of transnational capitalist class formation that is regionally uneven. Network analysis points to a process of structural consolidation through which policy boards have become more integrative nodes, brokering elite relations between firms from different regions, especially Europe and North America. As national corporate networks have thinned, the global corporate-policy network’s centre of gravity has shifted towards Europe, both at the level of individuals and organizations. Although this study finds a modest increase in participation of corporate elites from the Global South, a North Atlantic ruling class remains at the centre of the process of transnational capitalist class formation.