Gaining from Globalization? State Extraterritoriality and Domestic Economic Impacts—The Case of Singapore

Abstract

States have authored elements of globalization—deploying strategies to exert themselves extraterritorially. Such extraterritorial dimensions of state strategy are intimately connected to economic interests—although the economic interests in question and the geographic manifestations of extraterritoriality have varied historically for individual nation‐states and continue to vary among different nation‐states. This article examines one important example of this phenomenon. The rapid industrialization of Singapore at a time of rapid international economic integration has created a unique degree of urgency, depth, and breadth among contemporary state strategies of extraterritoriality. Drawing upon original research on joint‐venture industry and technology parks in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India, the article examines the extent and nature of economic benefits to the Singapore economy leveraged through this particular strategy of extraterritorialization. The modest scale of these benefits confirms both the limits of state strategies that are aimed at, and elite discourses regarding, “gaining from globalization.”

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