Book excerpt: This book challenges the established wisdom regarding the balance of bargaining power between multinational corporations and host governments. Most theories, beginning with Raymond Vernon's, claim that the bargaining power of host states should increase over time. This work shows the opposite is true, at least for the automobile industry in the industrialized world. The reason for this is the growing mobility of production, which undercuts host states' bargaining positions. Capital mobility is thus central to both firm-state relations and IPE generally.