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This study explores a hegemonic alliance and the role of relational forms of accounting and accountablity in the making of contemporary capitalism.

We use the WikiLeaks “Cablegate” documents to provide an account of the detailed machinations between interest groups (corporations and the state) that are constitutive of hegemonic activity.

Our analysis of the “Cablegate” documents shows that the US and Chevron were crafting a central role for Turkmenistan and its president on the global political stage as early as 2007, despite offical reporting beginning only in 2009. The documents exemplify how “accountability gaps” occlude the understanding of interdependence between capital and the state.

The study contributes to a growing idea that official accounts offer a fictionalized narrative of corporations as existing independently, and thus expands the boundaries associated with studying multinational corporate activities to include their interdependencies with the modern state.

The study traces how global capitalism extends into new territories through diplomatic channels, as a strategic initiative between powerful state and capital interests, arguing that the outcome is the empowerment of authoritarian states at the cost of democracy.

The study argues that previous accounting and accountability research has overlooked the larger picture of how capital and the state work together to secure a mutual hegemonic interest. We advocate for a more complete account of these activities that circumvents official, often restricted, views of global capitalism.

This study aims to investigate the decline of American hegemony as one of the most prominent crises of the modern world order, from a broader perspective that transcends narrow traditional interpretations. The paper assumes that the September 11 events in 2001 have launched the actual decline in American hegemony. Tracing the evolution of US global strategy over the past two decades, the study seeks to analyze the main causes and repercussions of the decline of US hegemony, which would provide a bird’s eye view of what the current global system is going through.

The study investigates the decline in American hegemony through a longitudinal within-case analysis which focuses on the causal path of decline in hegemony in the case of the USA, since the events of September 11, 2001, and tries to identify the causal mechanisms behind this decline. Following George and Bennet (2005), the study uses process tracing to examine its research question. Process-tracing method seeks to identify the intervening causal process – causal chain or causal mechanisms or the steps in a causal process – that leads to the outcome of a particular case in a specific historical context (Mahoney, 2000; Bennet and Elman, 2006). The study chose this method, as it offers more potential for identifying causal mechanisms and theory testing (George and Bennet, 2005); it opted for a specific procedure, among the variety of process-tracing procedures listed by George and Bennet, which is the detailed narrative presented as a chronicle, accompanied by explicit causal hypotheses. Using this process tracing procedure, the study assumes that American hegemony has witnessed dramatic changes in the aftermath of critical junctures, particularly the events of September 11, 2001, and the financial crises, 2008, which contributed significantly to this decline. Consequently, it traces the impact of these events on the state of American hegemony, in light of the review of contributions of different theories on hegemony in the field of international relations, both traditional and critical. Consequently, introducing the theoretical framework used in the study (the four-dimensional model of hegemony), which transcends criticisms of previous theories.

The crises of the modern world order and the decline of American hegemony – being the main manifestation of such crises – revealed the inability of the traditional and critical approaches reviewed in the study to interpret this decline and those crises. The reason behind that was the inability of these interpretations to reflect the various dimensions of American hegemony and its decline since the September 11 events. This highlights the importance of using the four-dimensional model, which combines different factors in the analysis and has proved to be an appropriate model for studying the case of American hegemony and its decline after the events of September 11, as it deals with the phenomenon of hegemony as a social relationship based on specific social networks.

Despite the currency and relevance of the decline of US hegemony for both the academic and political world, the topic needed to be analyzed systemically and addressed in a thorough scientific way. Through the application of theoretical concepts into the analysis of empirical data, this study contributes to a field where too often the discourse about decline of American hegemony is led without the required theoretical or conceptual considerations.

The paper argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”. Big data platforms are shaping the processes of production, labour, the price of products and market conditions. “Digital platforms” and “big data” have become an integral part of the processes of production, distribution and exchange relations. These twin pillars are central to the capitalist accumulation processes. The article argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”.

As a conceptual paper, this paper follows critical methodological lineages and traditions based on non-linear historical narratives around the conceptualisation, construction and transition of the “Marxist theory of capital accumulation” in the age of platform economy. This paper follows a discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to locate the way in which an artificial intelligence (AI)-led platform economy helps identify and conceptualise new forms of capitalist accumulation. It engages with Jørgensen and Phillips' (2002) contextual and empirical discursive traditions to undertake a qualitative comparative analysis by exploring a broad range of complex factors with case studies and examples from leading firms within the platform economy. Finally, it adopts two steps of “Theory Synthesis and Theory Adaptation” as outlined by Jaakkola (2020) to synthesise, adopt and expand the Marxist theory of capital accumulation under platform capitalism.

This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within the platform capitalism. The findings suggest that an AI led platform economy creates new forms of capitalist accumulation. The article helps to develop theoretical understanding and conceptual frameworks to understand and explain these new forms of capital accumulation.

This study builds upon the limited theorisation on the AI and new capitalist accumulation processes. This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within platform capitalism. The article helps to understand digital and platform capitalisms in the lens of digital labour and expands the theory of capitalist accumulation and its new forms in the age of datafication. While critiquing the Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation, the article offers alternative approaches for the future.

This chapter provides a study of how gambling companies use the cultural and social capital of Newcastle United Football Club, in the English Premier League, to establish a connection with the club's fans to promote gambling. Newcastle United had two gambling sponsors during the period of this study, from 2017 to 2020, including a front of shirt sponsor, FUN88, an online gambling brand with a large following in Asia. Data were gathered from a range of sources, including from the social media platform, Twitter, to identify the methods the company used to engage fans and to encourage betting on the outcome of matches. The data from the study were explored thematically to describe the relationship developed between the football club and its principal gambling sponsor in order to drive business for the latter with the club's followers. The findings showed how FUN88 evoked Newcastle United's cultural tradition to promote gambling and generate business globally whilst the club actively promoted their ‘primary partner’ through its media channels. The lure of free match tickets was used to encourage fan engagement. Corporate practices promote the consumption of unhealthy commodities through their marketing whilst consumers (fans) are responsibilised for any harms engendered by their gambling practices. The ubiquity of gambling brands has enabled gambling to become a normalised part of football culture. The findings from this study show how FUN88 has used all elements of the sponsorship assemblage to create an emotional connection whilst engaging with Newcastle United's fans to increase consumption of its products.

The primary purpose of this exploratory paper is to propose a novel analytical framework for examining corruption from a behavioral perspective by highlighting multiple issues associated with quantification culture.

This paper is part of the author’s exploratory study into the complex corruption phenomenon in Indonesia from a variety of viewpoints to obtain a better understanding of its nature and dynamics. By building on previous literature on quantification culture, audit culture and the corruption phenomenon, this paper explores the different issues related to overreliance on numbers and how they may have led to increased corruption, particularly in Indonesia. Using the Fraud Decision Scale framework, this paper also demonstrates how the quantification culture affects the cost-benefit analysis of corruption offenders. To develop the best anticorruption strategy and lay the groundwork for future anticorruption studies, this paper presents a fresh perspective on how to analyze and evaluate the corruption issue.

The author established that despite the benefits that quantification practices – such as indicators, scores, ratings and rankings – bring to societies and organizations, there is evidence that these practices can have unfavorable effects when used excessively or incorrectly. One of the adverse effects of quantification practices is over-quantification, which manifests as various inappropriate behaviors, including an excessive desire to acquire riches and material belongings. Additionally, the worship of ranks and status derived from quantitative evaluation processes has led many people to prioritize short-term objectives above long-term improvements. Eventually, these will cause organizations to lose productivity and make them susceptible to fraud and corruption. Future studies are needed to determine the most effective approach for mitigating over-quantification issues. In this exploratory paper, the author proposes balancing quantitative practices with qualitative knowledge to gradually alter people’s behavior by broadening their perspectives in perceiving various phenomena in the world, not only by describing and explaining them but also by comprehending their underlying meanings.

This exploratory study is self-funded and relies primarily on documentary analysis to explore the corruption phenomenon in Indonesia. Future studies will benefit from in-depth interviews with former corruption offenders and investigators.

This exploratory paper contributes to the development of a sound corruption prevention approach by presenting a novel analytical framework for examining various behavioral problems linked with quantification culture that may lead to the escalation of corruption.

This study emphasizes the significance of understanding the structure and dynamics of quantification culture and their negative behavioral impacts on people to comprehend the corruption phenomenon better.

One of the most active areas of study in the field of corporate governance, board interlocks is a phenomenon that is both pervasive and perplexing. This paper aims to examine and integrate the empirical research on board interlocks to fill the void left by the lack of a recent review.

The bibliometric analysis methodology, which emphasizes methodological rigor and transparency, was used to analyze the board interlocks literature. Eighty publications published since 2000 were chosen as the subject of this research because they reveal the key contributions to the field of board interlocks. Additionally, their clustering pattern is also identified.

The authors classify various studies conducted on board interlocks into three clusters: “Social Capitalization”, “Antecedents and Outcomes” and “Corporate Governance”.

This literature review helps better comprehend the board interlocks literature by pointing out several areas of study that, if pursued, would add to the existing body of knowledge and open future research directions.

The role that corporations play in environmental and social sustainability has become increasingly important due to their size and embeddedness in our everyday lives. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate interlocks for the Fortune 500 companies.

To collect data, various sources were used including data web scraped from US Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg ESG, ASSET4, Carbon Disclosure Project and data from each companies’ websites. To measure CSR, this paper uses an original United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) index, and to measure corporate interlocks, it uses the Bonacich centrality score and has a sample of 401 companies. To account for missing data, Bayesian multiple imputation was used. For the final analysis, linear regression analysis was conducted, for which all the assumptions are met.

The findings show that for most SDGs, corporate interlocks is an important predictor, but not for all SDGs. In other words, they indicate that corporate centrality remains to be an important variable in most aspects of CSR, but a more nuanced approach is required.

This paper uses the SDGs to provide a granular perspective of CSR, which is stronger and more methodologically rigorous compared to the existing metrics of CSR. Consequently, it provides an original insight into the corporate interlocks literature, which has not been empirically researched using granular CSR data.

Democratic renewal in Sri Lanka as well as a cross the Global South depends on strengthening democratic social movements within varieties of patrimonial capitalism. Patrimonial capitalism, emphasising patron–client relations, coincide with weakening democratic institutional cultures and practices. The dominant corruption/anti-corruption narrative is bracketed with elite class strategies aimed at negotiating a ‘managed corruption’. The realm of representative politics creating consent for patrimonial capitalism is shaped by: ethnic and class relations; the weakening of working-class parties; patriarchal cultures within parties; links with criminal networks; opaque finances and the integration of mainstream media with party patronage.

Democratising the realm of representative politics points towards democratic social movements. The internal dynamics of social movements, their relationships with political parties and collective learning are significant factors that shapes the strategic orientation of social movements. State repression of social movements highlights the need for demilitarisation and the abolition of prisons. The global sense of this local struggle relates to transforming financial markets and platform economies towards notions of financial and digital commons. The integration of different realms of politics, such as representative, movement, life and emancipatory politics, is vital for reinforcing solidarity as the basis for counter-hegemonic struggles.