Government Regulations and Policies: Small Fish in a Big Pond

Abstract

Global development has, in recent years, been shaped by the rise of transnational capital. This has implications for the quality and effectiveness of those national laws, regulations and policies in place to monitor transnational capital, ensure that multi national organisations assume responsibility and hold them accountable should they fail to do so. In balancing these objectives, contrasting issues come to the fore, such as the fear of capital flight an issue especially profound in small open economies where the balance may tip in the favour of retaining, as opposed to regulating, foreign capital.

This paper can be considered in three parts. First, the paper addresses the shift in global leadership from national governments to multinational corporations (with particular reference to the rise of the Transnational Capitalist Class). This shift will be considered through the lens of a modified dependency theory. Second, the implications of dependence on the capacity of nation states to develop effective laws, regulations and policies is discussed which leads on to the third aspect of the paper which questions the need to reimagine national requirements from regulatory and policy agendas and, whether this needs to be reconsidered in light of global shifts in power structures.

Concluding with a consideration of effectiveness of regulations and the questions raised about responsibility and accountability, this paper highlights the challenge for particularly small open economies in a post-recessionary era where a desire to maintain competitiveness in the global markets may inhibit the capacity for effective regulation of the perceived new leaders, that of the Transnational Capitalist Class.

Keywords: transnational capital, development, regulations, public policy, capital flight, class relations, dependency