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Zones of Exception: Trade Zones and Sovereign Reformulations
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“Zones of Exception: Economic Zones and Sovereign Reformulations”
Jonathan Bach
Paper Presented at the ISA Annual Meeting, March 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii
Draft—intro only.
Introduction:
In the 1960s a variation on a theme appeared in the world economy: the “free trade zone”located within a country’s borders which functioned as if it were not subject to the samelaws and regulations in effect throughout the land. The logic seemed quite simple: thesovereign state has the right to designate “zones” where the law of the land is altered tothe benefit of trade and investment, usually through no taxes, regulation, and exemptionfrom many restrictions. In the intervening 40 years the zone concept experienced a rapidand veritable institutionalization as part of the topography (and imagination) of globaleconomic life—from the first experiments with zones in Puerto Rico and at Ireland’sShannon airport, to the approximately 1500 zones in myriad variations today, fromMaquiladora factories in Mexico to assembly plants in Vietnam, from the high-techcorridor of Malaysia to the gleaming skyscrapers of Shenzhen in China. These zonesdiffer from one another in industry and role—from squalid sweatshops to hygenicsoftware firms, from providing subsistence wages to some of the best jobs in thecountry—but taken together they represent more than a quarter of the world’smanufacturing and employ over 27 million workers.
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As such the development of the
Zone represents the changes in the “scalar organization of political-economic life”
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wrought by the effects of neoliberalism. I argue that the zone is not an epiphenomenon ofglobalization but integral to globalization’s emergence as a phenomenon. Thecombination of their economic magnitude and their existence in the space of “theOffshore” makes the zone a strategic site for understanding the emergence, contours, andtrajectory of globalization.
The Zone is a limit space in the broad range of that term: delimited in territory, it alsoexpresses the limits of sovereignty by placing sovereign territory beyond the limit of(some) sovereign laws. It pushes the limit of innovative responses to limits on trade andproduction and the physical limits of its workers. As a space of new cities and regionalagglomerations the Zone pushes the limits of urban forms and state planning. Throughthe dreams, projections, sheer energy and lifestyles generated by and within Zones theyoften exceed the limit, turning economic schemes into social and political experimentsand provoking attempts to control the excess they generate. The Zone is a liminal spaceand therefore mediates between borders, between the global and the national economy,between the no-places of modernity and the historical emplotment of national projects.
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Palan
2
(State/Space 5)
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“Zones of Exception: Economic Zones and Sovereign Reformulations”
Jonathan Bach
Paper Presented at the ISA Annual Meeting, March 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii
Draft—intro only.
Introduction:
In the 1960s a variation on a theme appeared in the world economy: the “free trade zone”
located within a country’s borders which functioned as if it were not subject to the same
laws and regulations in effect throughout the land. The logic seemed quite simple: the
sovereign state has the right to designate “zones” where the law of the land is altered to
the benefit of trade and investment, usually through no taxes, regulation, and exemption
from many restrictions. In the intervening 40 years the zone concept experienced a rapid
and veritable institutionalization as part of the topography (and imagination) of global
economic life—from the first experiments with zones in Puerto Rico and at Ireland’s
Shannon airport, to the approximately 1500 zones in myriad variations today, from
Maquiladora factories in Mexico to assembly plants in Vietnam, from the high-tech
corridor of Malaysia to the gleaming skyscrapers of Shenzhen in China. These zones
differ from one another in industry and role—from squalid sweatshops to hygenic
software firms, from providing subsistence wages to some of the best jobs in the
country—but taken together they represent more than a quarter of the world’s
manufacturing and employ over 27 million workers.
1
As such the development of the
Zone represents the changes in the “scalar organization of political-economic life”
2
wrought by the effects of neoliberalism. I argue that the zone is not an epiphenomenon of
globalization but integral to globalization’s emergence as a phenomenon. The
combination of their economic magnitude and their existence in the space of “the
Offshore” makes the zone a strategic site for understanding the emergence, contours, and
trajectory of globalization.
The Zone is a limit space in the broad range of that term: delimited in territory, it also
expresses the limits of sovereignty by placing sovereign territory beyond the limit of
(some) sovereign laws. It pushes the limit of innovative responses to limits on trade and
production and the physical limits of its workers. As a space of new cities and regional
agglomerations the Zone pushes the limits of urban forms and state planning. Through
the dreams, projections, sheer energy and lifestyles generated by and within Zones they
often exceed the limit, turning economic schemes into social and political experiments
and provoking attempts to control the excess they generate. The Zone is a liminal space
and therefore mediates between borders, between the global and the national economy,
between the no-places of modernity and the historical emplotment of national projects.
1
Palan
2
(State/Space 5)
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