We all consistently underestimate the structural influence of large corporations, even as tax scandals, market prices and monopolistic practices continue to dominate headlines. Why is it that corporate giants keep escaping our scrutiny despite their monumental impact?

Corporate Escape tackles this enduring puzzle by offering a comprehensive and multidisciplinary intellectual history of corporate power and its sources. Tracing the rise and fall of key concepts such as administered prices and corporate planning, it reveals how critical insights can slip through the cracks and how these blind spots dictate today's policy failures.

Grounded in meticulous archival research and exclusive interviews with thought leaders such as Joseph Nye, Robert Keohane and Louis Wells, this book addresses the intellectual conversations that have defined corporate theory since its conception. Spanning economics, law, international relations and sociology, Corporate Escape takes these debates a step further and brings them to the global stage, examining the symbiotic relationship between corporate power and global governance. It argues that failures in public policy are frequently not accidental, but rather are linked to institutional incentives, funding structures, and ideological currents.

Proposing a historically informed framework for analysing contemporary corporate power, Corporate Escape is an insightful companion for students, scholars and policymakers across economics, law, political science and business studies. It will equip you with the tools to rethink corporate governance and escape the cycle of forgetting that has plagued both academic and policy debates.

Matti Ylönen is Academy Research Fellow and Docent (Associate Professor) in Political Science, Faculty
of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland.