Contemporary Social Science

Monopoly Capitalism Revisited: Power and Political Economy in the 21st Century

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Keith Cowling, whose influential work on monopoly capitalism reshaped debates in political economy, industrial organisation, and public policy. Cowling’s focus on analysing capitalism through the lens of corporate power, strategic behaviour, and political influence remains profoundly relevant in an era dominated by digital platforms, financialised corporations, and transnational corporations.
This special issue of Contemporary Social Science invites contributions that revisit, extend and critically reassess the concept of monopoly capitalism in light of contemporary economic, technological and political transformations.
While classical debates focused on industrial concentration, pricing power, and corporate strategy, today’s monopoly capitalism is increasingly expressed through: platform dominance and network effects; data ownership and algorithmic control; financialisation and shareholder primacy; global supply-chain power; the fusion of economic and political influence by large corporations; and the uneven spatial and regional organisation of monopoly power.

The special issue aims therefore to:
• Reassert the importance of power in economic analysis,
• Bridge political economy with contemporary social science,
• Integrate spatial, urban and regional perspectives into debates on monopoly capitalism,
• Stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue across economics, sociology, politics, geography, and media studies,
• Offer policy-relevant insights into the governance of monopoly power.
Submissions are invited to this special collection of Contemporary Social Science on ‘monopoly capitalism revisited.’ We encourage the submissions of original articles, both theoretical and empirical, as well as shorter Comment pieces, which investigate and analyse from single disciplinary and multi-disciplinary perspectives the following, but not exhaustive, topics:

Big Tech and Platform Monopoly
Market power of firms such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Tencent, and Alibaba
Network effects, data monopolies, and algorithmic governance
Platform ecosystems and exclusionary practices
Digital labour, surveillance capitalism, and value extraction

Monopoly Capitalism and the State
Industrial strategy, competition policy, and national security
Corporate lobbying, regulatory capture, and antitrust politics
Public–private partnerships and state dependence on dominant firms
Ownership, Privatisation and Regulation

Financialisation and Corporate Strategy
Shareholder value, takeovers, and market concentration
Private equity, asset management, and monopoly power
Debt, buybacks, and corporate control

Global Monopoly Capitalism
Transnational corporations and global value chains
Monopoly power in the Global South
Development, dependency, and digital imperialism

Labour, Inequality and Social Power
Wage suppression, precarity, and monopsony power
Automation, AI and labour displacement
Inequality, class power, and social reproduction

Regions, Cities and the Spatial Political Economy of Monopoly Capitalism
Urban and regional concentration of corporate headquarters, data centres, and innovation hubs
The role of global cities in organising monopoly capitalism
Platform economies and urban labour markets
Regional inequality, peripheralisation, and spatial exclusion
Local state strategies in negotiating with dominant firms
Smart cities, digital infrastructure, and corporate governance of urban space

Democracy, Culture and Ideology
Media concentration and information control
Platform power and democratic accountability
Monopoly capitalism and cultural production

Advertising and Modern Monopoly Capitalism
Advertising, market power, monopoly capitalism and social inefficiency
Advertising and the shaping of consumer preferences
Advertising, labour supply and aggregate demand

Revisiting Keith Cowling’s Contribution
Critical reassessments of Keith Cowling’s contribution
Comparisons with Baran and Sweezy, Kalecki, Marx, or modern political economy
Methodological and theoretical advances