Implications of Globalization.

A small group of countries, principally those whose economic policies were integrated under the auspices of the Group of Seven (G7), played the leading role in the process of economic globalization. The overwhelming majority of nations, meanwhile, had to adapt to economic conditions shaped almost entirely without their participation. At the same time, globalization began to undercut the economic primacy of the nation-state. The power and influence of multinational corporations grew during the 1990s, so much so that they rather than nation-states became the driving force of globalization. Eight of the top twenty-five economic entities in the world, measured in terms of market value, were corporations. According to figures compiled for 1999, the economy of the United States continued to dominate the world, with a market value in U.S. dollars of $15.013 trillion. Japan ($4.244 trillion) was a distant second, followed by the...