This chapter reflects on the future of governance in an era where corporate-driven, private arrangements increasingly dominate key sectors, from artificial intelligence to biotechnology and beyond. While public power still contributes through research funding and normative frameworks, the sheer scale and speed of private actors often surpass traditional regulatory capacities. Governance today rests to a considerable extent with the internal factions of corporations—engineers, compliance teams, and public relations—who shape techno-normative frameworks with little public accountability. The chapter argues that governance by emulation offers a pragmatic, albeit imperfect, path forward. Emulating public law principles—such as accountability, self-governance, and due process—into private contexts can inject public-minded values into profit-driven structures. However, traditional private law mechanisms, such as contracts and fiduciary duties, need repurposing to address the scale and public significance of corporate governance. Similarly, the role of infrastructure, code, and technical frameworks in shaping governance must be acknowledged alongside conventional normative tools. While these developments hold both promise and peril, they also mirror the incremental evolution of liberal public institutions. By embedding public law ideals into emerging governance constellations, we may foster accountability structures capable of addressing the complexities of modern global power dynamics—marking a critical step toward a more balanced and responsive future governance framework.

The introduction presents the book's core puzzle of why states promote the outward investments of national firms despite the political and distributional costs of doing so. It previews a theory of globalized state-led development whereby policy-makers promote the internationalization of domestic business to pursue the structural transformation of their home economies. The chapter also describes the book's research strategy of within-country and cross-national comparisons of globalized state-led development in Brazil and China.

Chapter 2 presents a theory of globalized state-led development that helps us understand the conditions under which this model is adopted and implemented. It begins with the developmentalist dilemma faced by states: how can they help national firms benefit from global markets while managing the domestic political tensions these interventions provoke? This tension has important points of comparison with the challenges faced by the East Asian developmental states, yet has become more acute. Globalization and democracy have deepened the developmentalist dilemma by increasing the relevance of international production and innovation networks, constraining policy space, and heightening political contestation. A theory of globalized state-led development explains the conditions under which governments navigate these competing pressures by supporting national firms at home and abroad.

Building on other efforts to bring historical approaches to bear on international business scholarship, this chapter examines the business strategy of selected European multinationals in the 1992 Program. Through business historical case studies on a range of companies operating in the internal market of the EEC, it considers a wide range of firms headquartered both inside and outside the EEC and from a wide range of sectors industries, including manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, electronics, and retail, chosen for their diversity of experiences and approaches. Not only does this case study approach “bring history (back) into international business” and “put the process back in” to research on firm internationalization, but, through repetition, it also contributes to the development of explanatory theories. This, then, is methodological impressionism: Together, the collection of vignette cases presented here paints a bigger picture, revealing patterns about the growth and development of multinationals, their regionalization and the relationship between regionalization and globalization that data alone could not make clear.

Chapter 7 investigates how globalization pressures shape parties’ ideological positioning, which underpins their campaign promises. The chapter focuses on whether parties adapt their stances symmetrically across the ideological spectrum or face electoral constraints when doing so. It argues that mainstream parties – particularly on the left – are more constrained in shifting rightward than vice versa. To explore this, the chapter combines experimental and observational evidence, drawing on a survey experiment and a large-n dataset of party positions in thirty-one liberal democracies from 1970 to 2020. Although globalization can incentivize parties to recalibrate their economic and cultural positions, the chapter shows that electoral incentives mediate how and where these shifts occur. Together, the findings highlight the complex interplay between international economic pressures and domestic political competition, revealing how ideological recalibration can be both strategic and constrained by voter expectations.

This chapter investigates the electoral consequences of broken promises in the context of globalization. Combining large-n observational data with a survey experiment and a in-depth case study of French voters, it demonstrates that voters do punish governing parties for failing to fulfill campaign pledges, and this punishment intensifies in more globalized environments. Contrary to claims that globalization might provide excuses for unfulfilled promises, the findings suggest that globalization amplifies voters’ concerns about competence and follow-through. As ideological differences between parties shrink and governing space contracts, pledge fulfillment becomes a key signal of competence, heightening electoral costs for unkept promises.

This chapter examines how conservative parties strategically adapt their political appeals in response to the constraints imposed by globalization. Confronted with the challenge of reconciling their long-standing commitments to market liberalism with rising voter demands for protection and control, these parties increasingly adopt populist rhetoric to reshape the terms of political competition. Rather than abandoning core economic positions, conservative parties shift their emphasis to anti-elite, nationalist, and antiglobalist themes, recasting political debates around identity, sovereignty, and cultural belonging. These rhetorical strategies allow them to deflect attention from unpopular policy continuities and channel voter discontent away from economic grievances and toward external threats or internal scapegoats. The chapter argues that this populist turn reflects a calculated political adaptation rather than ideological transformation. It highlights how globalization not only reshapes the policy space available to democratic governments but also incentivizes new forms of narrative construction and voter persuasion, particularly among mainstream parties seeking to preserve broad electoral coalitions.

This chapter concludes the book by reflecting on the implications of the findings for democratic representation in a globalized world. It argues that globalization has introduced structural constraints that alter the relationship between voters and elected representatives, compelling mainstream parties to adapt their electoral strategies in ways that threaten democratic accountability. The chapter ties together insights from the cross-national analyses, survey experiments, and in-depth case studies to show how parties recalibrate their promises, adopt ambiguous or populist rhetoric, and shift responsibility for broken pledges to external actors. It emphasizes that although these strategies may be electorally rational, they can erode the clarity of democratic choice and the mechanisms through which voters hold politicians accountable. The chapter closes by discussing the normative and institutional implications for democratic resilience and responsiveness in an era of enduring international interdependence.

This chapter introduces the concept of promissory representation: the idea that democratic accountability hinges on political actors making and keeping campaign promises. We trace the development of this concept through key scholarly contributions, distinguishing between mandate and trustee models of representation, and arguing that the former provides stronger mechanisms of accountability. We also address several critiques: that voters may not remember promises, lack the information to evaluate fulfillment, or prioritize other factors. Drawing on comparative research, particularly from the Comparative Pledges Project, we show that election promises remain central to democratic politics and that voters do consider promise fulfillment when evaluating parties. We also discuss how ideology and partisanship shape these assessments and argue that promissory representation remains a valuable framework for understanding the effects of globalization on democratic accountability.

Chapter 9 investigates how political parties strategically use ambiguity in their campaign pledges to navigate the policy constraints imposed by globalization. As international integration limits domestic policy discretion, parties – particularly those in government – face a dilemma: how to appeal to voters while avoiding promises they may be unable to fulfill. This chapter combines observational evidence with original cross-national data on pledge clarity to demonstrate that parties increasingly rely on ambiguous language to maintain electoral appeal while reducing the risks of future accountability. The analysis reveals that this trend is most pronounced for governing parties and those operating in highly globalized economies, where the tension between responsiveness and responsibility is particularly acute. Rather than abandoning pledges entirely, these parties blur their commitments, complicating voters’ ability to hold them accountable and thereby altering the democratic chain of delegation. Ambiguity thus emerges not as a signal of incompetence or deception but as a strategic adaptation to the pressures of international economic interdependence.

This chapter explores how globalization constrains the policy autonomy of democratic governments and introduces a typology of four mechanisms that affect their ability to fulfill campaign promises: international legal obligations, market actors, citizens’ expectations, and economic uncertainty. These constraints are not evenly distributed: left-leaning parties are particularly vulnerable due to their typically expansionary agendas, whereas right-leaning parties are more aligned with market preferences. The chapter argues that globalization alters the cost–benefit calculus of promise making, and that parties often make promises knowing they may be difficult to keep, either due to informational uncertainty or strategic electoral incentives. These dynamics complicate the relationship between citizens and their governments, raising questions about the viability of promissory representation under global economic interdependence. This conceptual framework sets the stage for the empirical analysis in subsequent chapters.

This conclusion reflects on the importance of studying the two world wars as moments of interconnectedness, when societies, economies, and cultures interacted with one another across national boundaries. It insists on the importance of moving beyond solely diplomatic, military, and political histories to instead prioritize transnational and transimperial perspectives, acknowledging groups and individuals above and below the level of states. Several categories are particularly useful in this endeavor: home fronts, colonial mobilization, captivity, occupations, and neutrality. Taking stock of these helps to highlight new frameworks of experience spread across the world. Finally, there is the important question of the relationship between the world wars and globalization. By their nature and by the reactions they prompted, these two global conflicts were ultimately the agents as much as the opponents of that process.

This chapter continues the discussion of how English came to function as the language of African self-expression in the twentieth century and was ultimately liberated from its colonial legacies. The chapter starts by exploring the so-called language question, a long-running debate on the status and function of the English language in the making of African letters, which has perhaps been the most divisive issue among African writers in the second half of the twentieth century. The debate was not simply a feud on language use but the expression of a deep anxiety about what it has meant to produce a literature of decolonization in the language of the former colonizer. The second part of the chapter provides an account of the evolution and transformation of English in Africa among different social groups including the slave traders of Calabar, Creole elites in West Africa, and the elites produced by the colonial schools and university colleges that produced the first generation of African writers.

Chapter 7 investigates how mental models shape Americans’ attitudes toward globalization, focusing on trade and immigration against a backdrop of growing economic nationalism under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Using survey data and conjoint experiments, the chapter reveals that individuals who think like economists (i.e., high economic knowledge) view trade and immigration more favorably. To address the concentrated harms of globalization they prefer strategies such as unemployment benefits and retraining programs rather than protectionist measures. By contrast, those with Alternative Mental Models tend to support protectionist measures that promise immediate relief but undermine long-term welfare. Crucially, people aligned with the Economist Mental Model are more responsive to new economic information; when presented with evidence of net gains, they adjust their stance in favor of globalization, and vice versa. This responsiveness underscores that their support for free trade and immigration is not blind but rooted in systematic cost–benefit analysis.

Chapter 4 investigates how mental models, particularly the Economist Mental Model (EMM), shape Italians’ support for globalization policies: EU membership, free trade, and immigration. Against a backdrop of economic stagnation and rising populism, the chapter shows that individuals with higher economic knowledge – those who think like economists – are significantly more likely to favor these welfare-enhancing policies. Notably, this holds even for “losers” of globalization in terms of lower income, lower education, or routine jobs, suggesting that economic reasoning can override short-term self-interest. The chapter also explores time preferences, finding that EMM adopters have lower subjective discount rates, making them more apt to weigh long-term gains over immediate costs. Additional tests confirm these findings are not driven by general education, highlighting the distinctive role of economic reasoning in shaping attitudes toward globalization.

The fact that the novel was an imported genre meant that African writers who sought to use it needed to signal its function in contexts that were far removed from the European experiences and ideas that had generated the emergence of the genre in the first place. This chapter takes up a simple but transformative question: How did novelistic genres travel from their assumed European centers to the outposts of empire and why and how did fictional forms acquire high cultural authority outside metropolitan settings? To answer this question, the chapter compares African novels to those produced in other colonial landscapes such as India not so much to identify a common purpose, but to show the deliberate process by which local writers brought local cultural elements, histories, and forms to domesticate the novel, to make them appear to be products of local communities and ideas even when they deployed familiar tropes. Popular novels could remind readers both of their colonial education in English literature and their connection or disconnection to the local customs rehearsed in fiction.