Territory and Territoriality in the Global Economy

Abstract

This is part of a larger research project on governance and accountability in the global economy. What is the impact of economic globalization on the territorial jurisdiction, or more theoretically, the exclusive territoriality of the nation-state? This is the organizing question in the article; it is an effort to respond critically to two notions that underlie much of the current discussion about globalization. One is the zero-sum game: whatever the global economy gains, the national state loses and vice versa. The other is that if an event takes place in a national territory it is a national event, whether a business transaction or a judiciary decision. I argue that, on the contrary, national states have been deeply involved in the implementation of the global economic system producing the necessary legal encasements for this system; and, second, that a global transaction may well take place inside a national territory. My working hypothesis is that while globalization leaves national territory basically unaltered, it is having pronounced effects on the exclusive territoriality of the national state - that is, its effects are not on the boundaries of national territory as such but on the institutional encasements of that national territory.