Globalization and the territorialization of the new Caribbean service economy

Abstract

With the increasing role of services activities in the economic growth of industrialized countries, and the failure of the manufacturing sector to create sustainable forms of development, many Caribbean policymakers have become interested in the role that these activities might play in the region's development. It is hoped that by designing ‘service-based’ industrialization and trade strategies Caribbean economies might be able to re-create the comparative advantages lost in the manufacturing sector. At a time when the islands of the Caribbean are orienting their economies towards the export of services, it is important to examine whether these new forms of economic activity are more likely to become embedded and territorialized in the region than the failed manufacturing industry. This paper argues that although technology has created greater opportunities for island services to be internationally traded, these industries are highly constrained by the institutions that govern transnational organizations. In a world of increasingly harmonized rules regarding trade and industry and given the highly contestable nature of the markets for traded services, these new industries are even more vulnerable to becoming spaces of exclusion and exploitation than was ever the case with manufacturing.