Neoliberalism, the New Imperialism, and the “Disappearing” Nation-State: A Case Study

Abstract

The logic of modern economic development has redirected critical discourse on globalisation from a critique of the self-regulating nation-state to a more intensified focus on the role of transnational and multinational entities (MNEs) in promoting global economic disequilibrium (Rhoads and Torres 2005b). International economic integration through regionally based trading blocks, migratory patterns of a new mobile labor force, expansion of technological capabilities that place international transactions in real time, and elevated levels of foreign investment all serve as prima facie evidence of a new economic world order that positions multinational corporate interests above those of the nation-state (Castells 1997; Chomsky 1998; Stiglitz 2002). Similarly, the rise in prominence of influential regional economic centers, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Pacific Northwest in the USA, offer powerful evidence of the declining role and importance of the nation-state. These regional centers are often characterized as high-density urban areas comprising interdependent, autonomous networks of private enterprise, operating as regional hubs for the importation and exportation of capital and information-based expertise (Sassen 2001; Scott 2001). According to Ohmae (1995), the regulative impotence of the nation-state serves to reorganize existing power arrangements so that sovereignty over economic activity is localized within regional economic centers, thus resulting in a new and evolving sense of “borderlessness.” This, combined with the nation-state’s diminishing capacity to regulate exchange rate and currency protections, has led to what Ohmae and others view the “real economic activity” as the state’s wholesale forfeiture.