Multinational Corporations, Business Groups, and Economic Nationalism: Standard Oil (New Jersey), Royal Dutch-Shell, and Energy Politics in Chile 1913-2005

This article analyzes the long-term strategies employed by multinational oil corporations in a late industrializing country with powerful business groups when faced with economic nationalism. I study the case of Royal Dutch-Shell in Chile from 1913 to 2005, where two oil multinationals controlled 100 percent of the Chilean market until forced by the government to accept a domestic private company, COPEC, into a new three-member cartel. The multinationals accepted this arrangement reluctantly, but in the long term it proved beneficial. COPEC's involvement in Chilean business groups protected th... Mehr ...