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Offshoreness, Globalization and Sovereignty: A Postmodern Geo‐Political Economy?
Author(s) -
Hudson Alan
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/j.0020-2754.2000.00269.x
Subject(s) - sovereignty , globalization , economic system , unbundling , politics , political economy , geopolitics , political science , market economy , economics , economy , law , industrial organization
Processes of globalization rework sovereignty as the ordering principle of the international political economy, creating new geographies of power. Such a reworking is most apparent offshore, a site where sovereignty is unbundled. The principle of sovereignty is maintained in the offshore financial centres' legal sovereignty but relinquished in terms of their fiscal powers. This unbundling articulates the state system and the capitalist economy. Such an unbundling is possible because sovereignty is based upon property rights. Changes in the practices and understandings of property rights change the meaning of sovereignty, altering the principle of differentiation which shapes the international political economy. In this way, the paradoxical marginality and centrality of offshoreness to the dynamics of the international political economy is explained.