Strange argues in this reflection on the future of Europe that too little analytical attention has been paid to the corporate sector and its role in three important structural shifts in the global political economy: new and faster technological changes that have speeded up the competitive cycle (and reduced the time for investors to recover their outlay on innovation); moves in finance towards a much more globalised financial sector with a reduction in the role of national (or in this case European Union) policy interventions; and a shift in the location of production, facilitated by the other two changes. This, she argues, means that the chief dimension of difference in the global political economy is no longer state political but rather is related to corporate activity and interest. In the face of the relative inaction (caused by political sclerosis at the EU), she argues that to understand the political economy, analysts can no longer ignore or simplify the political economy of the private sector but rather need to include corporations as a central element of their analysis; There is no longer a European orientation to the global political economy separate from the role and activity of international business.