Multinational corporations and African Nations-States: a fusion of interests

Abstract

The mainstream of. the vast and. growing literature on the multinational corporation (MNC) and the nation state points to the existence of a fundamental conflict of interest, between the two entities. The literature suggests that the conflict of interest is particularly unfavorable to the nation-state, especially to the states of the Third World. The literature provides information on the following four possible sources of the conflict of interest. That the MNC is private oriented rather than public oriented; That the MNC has allegiance for a foreign government rather than for the local government; That the MNC is big and strong rather than small and weak; That the MNC technology is western modern and irrelevant rather than local modern and relevant. The principal contention of this paper is that the conflict of interest as presented above, does not exist either, there is a fusion of interest between the MNC and the nation-state. The geographical focus of the paper is the African nation-state (ANS). The main parts of the paper are, introduction, historical perspective, economic theory of the conflict, recent evidence on the conflict of interest issue, and the conclusion.