Law and the geographic analysis of economic globalization

Bibliographic Data

ID5823901
AuthorsJoshua Barkan (0009-0009-2820-296X, University of Georgia, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume35
Issue5
Pages589-607
Publication date2011-02-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueProgress in Human Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0309-1325 • E-ISSN: 1477-0288
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0309132510389221
OpenAlexW2102915543
LanguageEN
Citations received35
References cited82

This article focuses on the curious absence of law in geographic accounts of state restructuring in relation to neoliberal economic globalization. It argues that law is ever-present in many of the issues at the center of geographic debates, yet rarely given sustained attention. In response, three approaches are offered, each emphasizing a different aspect of the law and each producing different geographies. First, I consider the absence as symptomatic of the problematic of state theory. Second, I review arguments from outside the discipline of geography concerning the ways actors involved in state restructuring engage with and think about the law. Third, I argue for a historical-philosophical investigation into the way that law produces the pockmarked landscape of the global economy through both the extension of legal frameworks and the legally authorized suspension of legal systems. The final section examines how these different approaches deepen our understanding of economic globalization by considering the role of transnational corporations as regulatory institutions in the global economy

Comparative law · Economic system · Economics · Globalization · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Restructuring · Sociology · Comparative and International Law Studies · Conflict of Laws and Jurisdiction · Corporate Law and Human Rights · Law