Transnationalists and national networkers in the global corporate elite

Abstract Through a longitudinal network analysis of the interlocking directors of the world's 500 largest corporations (1996–2006), in this article I map continuities and changes in the social organization of the global corporate elite. I pursue two questions: (1) Can we trace the formation, within the elite, of a set of directors whose transnational interlocks form an inner circle of cosmopolitans? And (2) How does the regionalized character of global capitalism structure the global corporate elite in its national and transnational segments? Findings show that transnationalists have gained prominence within the global corporate elite and are firmly embedded in the network, through extensive ties to each other and to various national components. National networkers, despite thinning ranks and sparser interlocks, continue to form the backbone of the global corporate elite, and remain on balance nationally cohesive. Overall, despite modest accretions in participation from the semi‐periphery, and with the decline of the Japanese corporate network, the elite becomes centred even more strongly on the North Atlantic. With its growing regional cohesiveness, corporate Europe gains prominence within that heartland. This analysis helps specify the process of transnational capitalist class formation at its higher reaches.