Offshore and the Structural Enablement of Sovereignty

Abstract

From a modest beginning in the wholesale financial market specialising in government debt, offshore has expanded rapidly, penetrating and then dominating an ever-growing portion of international economic life. Offshore is normally associated with international finance. Since the early 1970s, however, the emerging offshore financial markets were joined by a plethora of export processing zones (EPZs), the Chinese special economic zones and the free zones in the USA, over 800 in total, providing employment directly to over two and a half million workers worldwide (Johansson, 1994; McMichael, 1996). It is estimated that over one-quarter of the third world’s manufacturing exports originate from one of these zones (Palan and Abbott, 1996). The Internet is providing opportunities for the extension of the principle of ‘offshore’ into areas such as gambling, pornography, telecommunication and on-line merchandising (OECD, 1995; Hussein, 1997; The Economist, 1997b). Soon shoppers will be able to avoid paying local taxes by purchasing goods in ‘offshore’ shops using offshore coupons (The Economist, 1997a). There is even a rudimentary offshore law.

This chapter is based on a paper originally presented at the International Studies Association Annual Conference in April 1996 in San Diego. A heavily revised version was published by the International Studies Quarterly, September 1998. I am very grateful to John Agnew, Jason Abbott and Mark Hampton for their helpful criticisms and suggestions.