The social reality that Comparativists typically disaggregate in their political analysis is the replica of a society that has gone through an agrarian as well as an industrial revolution. It is organized into interest groups that constitute the basis of political parties. Political life is conceived within a right–left spectrum. Party systems are durable and subject to only minor alterations. The ability to encourage compromises and to produce sub-optimal policy outcomes is one of its key ingredients. Little attention, however, is paid to the underlying structures that keep the party system going, notably the fact that institutional stability in developed societies is effectively grounded in the economic production process. This variable is too often overlooked in the analysis of the quality of democratic institutions. The colonial powers encouraged the institutional fundament of such politics, but the ambition was unfinished at the time of independence. Trade unions, like cooperative societies, had started to emerge and provided the basis for the rise of a new political leadership. Once in power, however, these leaders introduced legislation to ban or reduce the powers of these non-state organizations. Because there was no independent African middle class with capital to influence development, the post-independence political organizations never took on a “class” character. The neo-Marxist criticism that flourished in the 1970s and onwards imputed too uncritically the exploitation and oppression on the continent to the presence of social classes similar to what would be found in Western society. Its influence, not surprisingly, waned quickly. By too readily assuming the hegemonic nature of colonialism, these neo-Marxist authors downplayed the role of indigenous African social formations in the same way as advocates of neo-liberal theory did in the decade that followed.

In Chapter 1, we lay out the main building blocks of the unifying framework used throughout the book. In Chapters 2 to 17, we discuss what we consider to be the best international business articles published in HBR, SMR, and CMR since the early 1980s, and we systematically refer to the unifying framework. After starting each chapter by discussing a classic article in one of the practitioner journals, we then extend the analysis by describing the additional insights gained from articles published in the other journals. We also discuss new challenges in international business strategy, many of which address complexities arising from the growth of the digital economy and from the deployment of more complex business models across borders. The book is divided into three parts: core concepts (Chapters 1 to 5), functional issues (Chapters 6 to 10), and the dynamics of international strategy (Chapters 11 to 17). Chapter 17 has two distinct parts: Part A addresses corporate social responsibility; and Part B discusses environmental sustainability of MNEs. In the Conclusion, we briefly address a few key implications of the book’s analysis for MNE managers.

In this essay, I argue that liberal concepts provide a strong basis for understanding contemporary peacebuilding practice, for assessing its successes and failures, and for improving its outcomes.At the same time, its overwhelming focus on building liberal democratic institutions and on the role of external actors has resulted in conceptual blind spots.Neither the proponents nor the critics of the liberal approach have paid sufficient attention to understanding the internal political dynamics that drive postwar peace and state building. While critics frequently point out the liberal tendency to neglect local perspective and power dynamics, they have not adequately explained how varying political, social, and institutional realities affect peacebuilding outcomes. I explore how a hybrid approach that focuses attention on internal political dynamics can shed light on peacebuilding successes and failures. I conclude with the implications, devoting more attention to the implications of internal politics for the study and practice of peacebuilding and the implications a hybrid model has for the paradigm of liberalism.