Export Processing Zones

This paper aims to shed some more light on the current debate related to corporate social responsibility (CSR), specifically considering multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the complexities they face when dealing with international issues and a range of stakeholders. It discusses notions of CSR in the context of wider debates, including the question for whom and for what the firm exists, how responsibilities can or should be managed and by whom, and what room there is for managerial discretion. Particular attention is paid to cross-cultural differences, exploring the existing variety in ethical and societal norms relevant to MNEs: those originating from international agreements, those that are part of a so-called 'market morality' and those applicable in home and host countries. Although these norms may overlap, they can diverge as well, leaving ample room for managerial discretion in a 'moral free space'. The paper also explores recent trends, particularly the increasing importance of emerging economies such as China, which suggests that the picture is becoming even more complex, pointing at clear challenges for research and practice.

This chapter is concerned with one of the most striking developments in the global political economy of capitalism after the Second World War; the rise of export processing zones and special economic zones. Building on long-term ethnohistorical research on the zones’ global spread from one zone in Puerto Rico in 1947 to 3500 zones employing more
than 70 million workers in 2007, it is shown that this phenomenon can only be explained if the analytical focus is on the elementary structures of capitalism, with class formation as one such structure. A critique of the ethnic bias of mainstream anthropological research on the small-island nation-state Mauritius exemplifies how historical materialist structural analysis enables anthropology to overcome its silence regarding the macrostructural workings of capitalism and also undiscloses blind spots in what so-called micro-level analysis.

This entry for the Wiley International Encyclopaedia fo Anthropology details the emergence of export processing zones and special economic zones and offers an overview of debates and research on the zones in social and cultural anthropology since the 1980s.

This Bachelor Thesis is the final part of my studies at SRH University of Applied Sciences Berlin, 6th Semester: faculty of Business Administration. The title of this thesis is “Intercultural Product Marketing” which concentrates on finding and analyzing the ways of the products that are willing to go international by focusing on the intercultural environment of products and markets. The above mentioned will be found by answering the following questions: How does the cultural aspect affect the need for changes in the appearance and concept of the product? Why having cultural competence in the target market is important? How should the companies build cultural competence? Is it good when the product is as international as possible? Is the brand stronger when it’s everywhere the same as in the local market or is your brand stronger when it is adapted to every local market, based on cultural, social and psychological differences? All of the questions will be answered with the help of different methods, such as, conducting a detailed research on all of the topics, literature research and using different frameworks.
The reason for choosing the following topic is that Intercultural field by itself (e.g. intercultural management, intercultural marketing, etc.) is an emerging, broad and vital area to investigate. It contains many unexplored questions and my aim is to discover an aspect and create a model that can be useful for every entrepreneur who is eager to make his own products international but does not possess knowledge how to do it and which way to choose. The model for the products that want to go international will be created on the basis of the analyses of top brands which have been international for many years now and have accumulated sophisticated experience on what to do and how to work in the field; , also on the analyzes of numerous other sources on Marketing, Communication, Branding, Culture, etc. The findings of this study will be useful for the companies/firms that plan to go international, especially for the ones that are going to adapt their products and marketing activities from country to country.  This model will provide a clear structured chain of activities to help to understand the culture and intercultural environment of the target market, in the context of how to organize the process and to evaluate the extent to which the company can be successful with its chosen entry strategy and marketing activities.

This work contributes to the literature on social movements in Latin America during the 1980s. Although written back in June 2008, many issues covered are and will continue to be pertinent in manufacturing plants around the globe in the coming years. For readers interested in gender equality, labor rights, and export processing zones in general; I hope you all will find this short thesis an enjoyable read and become inspired to make the most out of seemingly dull, mind-numbing, repetitive, and mundane low-paying jobs after reading it!

This paper aims to shed some more light on the current debate related to corporate social responsibility (CSR), specifically considering multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the complexities they face when dealing with international issues and a range of stakeholders. It discusses notions of CSR in the context of wider debates, including the question for whom and for what the firm exists, how responsibilities can or should be managed and by whom, and what room there is for managerial discretion. Particular attention is paid to cross-cultural differences, exploring the existing variety in ethical and societal norms relevant to MNEs: those originating from international agreements, those that are part of a so-called 'market morality' and those applicable in home and host countries. Although these norms may overlap, they can diverge as well, leaving ample room for managerial discretion in a 'moral free space'. The paper also explores recent trends, particularly the increasing importance of emerging economies such as China, which suggests that the picture is becoming even more complex, pointing at clear challenges for research and practice.

This paper develops a framework for understanding significant changes to the political economy of global trade at the onset of the Cold War. These changes were shaped by the establishment of the world‘s first export processing zone
(EPZ) regime in 1947 in Puerto Rico. which would become a role model for the various US administrations' policies towards the (capitalist) Third World. The EPZ regime in Puerto Rico was investor friendly in various ways and was promoted by sponsored invitations of developing countries‘ officials to that Caribbean island. The example of successful export-oriented development was ever more important in the
1960s and 1970s as an increasing number of independent nation-states considered closing off their markets to Western corporations and goods and saw this as a way to complete the process of decolonisation. Outlining how the EPZ-regime spread around the world with further hotspots of diffusion
emerging in postcolonial Ireland and Taiwan, I show how EPZs became an institutionalised model in development economics and global development policies. This model significantly changed global political economic interaction, not least when it became central to the opening of the Chinese economy in the late 1970s. EPZs then provide important examples for the economic calculus of (in-)dependent relations between ex-colonisers and ex-colonised that would shape development policies during the Cold War and foreshadow the neoliberal era that would end the Cold War.

This encyclopedia entry positions various types of special economic zones in a broader world history. It the first authoritative and academically sound account offering an important alternative to pre-scientific SEZ histories offered in recent World Bank publications.

A B S T R A C T Objective: The objective of this paper is to determine and analyse the framework conditions that influence the entrepreneurial opportunity identification and action in the international market context. Research Design & Methods: Scholars from the International Business and International Entrepreneurship (IE) research fields agree that the process of internationalisa-tion is triggered by opportunity identification. The extant literature is reviewed by assessing the framework conditions that domestic and international markets offer for en-trepreneurial actions. An analytical juxtaposition of the influential factors is conducted in the light of various stages of the opportunity identification process by examining − at each stage − possible effects of domes1c and interna1onal market context. Findings: This paper brings into the IE discussion a conceptual matrix of various elements and factors − external condi1ons – which influence the creation of nexus by entrepreneurs to the markets. Implications & Recommendations: The conceptual matrix offers new insights for theoretical development and arguments for designing empirical research in terms of external conditions. It is expected to provoke more theoretical and practical questions from scholars within the IE field. Contribution & Value Added: The originality of this work lies in proposing a comprehensive framework to understand how context interacts with the entrepreneurial opportunity identification process. Article type: conceptual paper

Le présent ouvrage a été rédigé par les services de la Banque internationale pour la reconstruction et le développement/Banque mondiale. Les constatations, interprétations et conclusions qui y sont présentées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les vues des Administrateurs de la Banque mondiale ou des pays qu'ils représentent. La Banque mondiale ne garantit pas l'exactitude des données contenues dans ce rapport. Les frontières, les couleurs, les dénominations et toute autre information figurant sur les cartes du présent rapport n'impliquent de la part de la Banque mondiale aucun jugement quant au statut juridique d'un territoire quelconque et ne signifient nullement qu'elle reconnaît ou accepte ces frontières. Droits et licences Le contenu de cette publication fait l'objet d'un dépôt légal. Aucune partie de la présente publication ne peut être reproduite ou transmise sans l'autorisation préalable de la Banque mondiale. La Banque internationale pour la reconstruction et le développement/Banque mondiale encourage la diffusion de ses études et, normalement, accorde sans délai l'autorisation d'en reproduire des passages. Pour obtenir cette autorisation, veuillez adresser votre demande en fournissant tous les renseignements nécessaires, par courrier,

This chapter develops a historical anthropology perspective on the globalisation of the textile and garment sector and the lack of globalisation of health and safety standards for workers in the face of strong concerns for the safety of capital and healthy profits.
Both processes relate to an overall concern with what I call “a global right to cheap labour” that has emerged in the central locations for textile and garment production, export processing zones and special economic zones. I offer a range of historical examples to highlight the main developmental stages of the sector’s globalisation and the simultaneous non-globalisation of health and safety standards.
The chapter further introduces for the first time a historical realist set of defining characterstics of special economic zones.

Globalisation and related issues of economic development are still one of the vividly discussed topics in social anthropology. By looking at two specific peri-ods of the history of the Mauritian garment industry, this paper aims to contrib-ute to one of the central debates: how changing social realities and social rela-tions in societies subject to new industrial divisions of labour can be integrated into theory building and represented in ethnography. The central line of argu-mentation combines Parry's (1999) and Baca's (2005) on Ong (cf. 1987, 1991) and shows how misperceptions of global economic developments leads to misrepresentations of workers' struggles and relations of production in 'newly industrialised countries' (NIC). Based on the juxtaposition of the developments described in Ong's work with material and data collected in Mauritius, a more comprehensive framework for an anthropology of globalised industrial work is suggested in the concluding remarks.

Los resultados, interpretaciones y conclusiones expresados aquí son los de los autores y no reflejan necesariamente las opiniones de los directores del Banco Mundial, o de los gobiernos que ellos representan. El Banco Mundial no garantiza la exactitud de los datos incluidos en este trabajo. Las fronteras, los colores, los nombres y otra información expuesta en cualquier mapa de este volumen no denotan, por parte del Banco, juicio alguno sobre la condición jurídica de ninguno de los territorios, ni aprobación o aceptación de tales fronteras. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the government they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this volume do not imply any judgment concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.

Les zones industrielles qualifiées (QIZ) ont été créées à la fin des années 1990 dans le but de produire des retombées économiques positives aux accords de paix entre Israël et ses voisins arabes. Pour la Jordanie, elles sont aussi des laboratoires privilégiés du processus de libéralisation économique et d’insertion dans la mondialisation.

During the period of decolonization and the Cold War, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and US development agencies promoted free trade zones to developing countries. However, other zones emerged prior to and apart from these policy models, some of which, including India’s early zones, took on features of this model only by the 1980s. To make sense of zones within and beyond a UNIDO model, this article understands them through their connection to the rise of nation-state territoriality around the world. The zone is thereby a spatial strategy used in processes of state (re)territorialization to rearticulate state spatiality under the global condition. This article explores such a perspective by situating the history of India’s early free trade zones comparatively.

This paper aims to shed some more light on the current debate related to corporate social responsibility (CSR), specifically considering multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the complexities they face when dealing with international issues and a range of stakeholders. It discusses notions of CSR in the context of wider debates, including the question for whom and for what the firm exists, how responsibilities can or should be managed and by whom, and what room there is for managerial discretion. Particular attention is paid to cross-cultural differences, exploring the existing variety in ethical and societal norms relevant to MNEs: those originating from international agreements, those that are part of a so-called 'market morality' and those applicable in home and host countries. Although these norms may overlap, they can diverge as well, leaving ample room for managerial discretion in a 'moral free space'. The paper also explores recent trends, particularly the increasing importance of emerging economies such as China, which suggests that the picture is becoming even more complex, pointing at clear challenges for research and practice.

By request of the Government of Nepal (GON), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), through the joint project of Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) and South Asia Enterprise Development Facility (IFC-SEDF), agreed to examine Nepal's proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) regime and make recommendations for the incorporation of best practice principles into the SEZ bill. An IFC team visited Nepal in October 2007 to meet with government and private sector stakeholders on a fact-finding mission for this analysis and report. Providing assistance to Nepal's SEZ regime is part of a broader Investment Climate Reform Program of the IFC in Nepal. The primary objective of the IFC SEZ team's work is ultimately to assist the GON in enacting a competitive SEZ bill that can lay the foundation for a business environment in zones that can attract investment and generate employment. This report will present the findings of the IFC team's analysis and offer recommendations...

Export processing zones (EPZ) are spatially delimited areas in which manufacturers produce goods that are largely aimed for export markets. The global trade and investment context from which assembly-based EPZs emerged has changed significantly in recent years, yet the number of zones continues to expand. EPZs act as territorial frontlines of economic growth and liberalization, and continue to be associated with labor rights violations, environmental degradation, land confiscation, and gendered violence. The forms of accumulation they enable stimulate processes of spatial and economic reorganization that extend beyond the zones, making these sites paradigmatic for studies of globalization.

This article challenges the common periodisation of global economic developments after the Second World War. In contrast to common notions in the social sciences and humanities, the emergence of neoliberalism as a mode of structuring global economic interactions is dated to the late 1940s, while the 1970s, commonly assumed to be a decade of rupture when neoliberal policies burst onto the global economy, are identified as the moment when neoliberalism consolidated. The major example for the case made is the global spread of export processing zones (EPZs). Following an overview of common periodisations such as those of David Harvey and Niall Ferguson, I show how in the world’s first EPZs in Puerto Rico features such as flexible accumulation emerged, how the zones were spread across the world as the Cold War escalated, and how the zones ultimately, and somewhat coincidentally, became a major factor in the non-aligned movement’s call for a new international economic order. To conclude I propose a return to a historical materialist analysis of world history that considers change as the effect of struggles between (anti-) social movements and not as a sequence of dominant modes of regulation.

Friction stir welding (FSW) between 3 mm thick AA 5052-O aluminum alloy plates was investigated in the present study. Different welded specimens were produced by employing a constant tool traverse speed of 120 mm/min and by varying rotating speeds from 800 to 3000 rpm. The welded joints were characterized by its appearances, microstructural and mechanical properties at room temperature. The measurement of different forces acted on the tool during the FSW of AA 5052-O plates provided a significant insight to determine the quality of the welded joints. From the appearances of the welded joints it was evident that, except the tool rotational speed of 3000 rpm all other rotational speeds produced sound welded joints with smooth surface. The joint produced at 1000 rpm yielded a maximum tensile strength of 132 MPa which was 74% of the base material strength. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analyses on the stir zone suggested that, beta-Mg2Al3 intermetallic phases of the base material were mechanically fractured, smeared and mixed to different geometries due to tool stirring. The dissolution and redistribution of beta-Mg2Al3 second phase particles in the stir zone had a considerable effect on the reduction of the tensile strength of the welded joints. The reduction in hardness at the nugget zone (NZ) of the welded joints under different tool rotational speeds could be attributed to the dislocation of Mg-rich phases and segregation of Mg solute atoms at grain boundaries, which drew solute Mg atoms away from the alpha-aluminum matrix. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261306914008310 
http://eprints.um.edu.my/11621/ 
http://repository.um.edu.my/94959/1/FSW.pdf

This article considers the gender dynamics of a migrant population living in an industrial processing zone on the outskirts of Ujung Pandang, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Based on historical, demographic, and ethnographic analyses of migration linked to this site, the research focuses on the ways that the relationships between morality, migration, and gender are changing for migrants to this zone. As more young women have migrated to join this peri-urban industrial workforce, their presence has spurred a renegotiation of gendered morality, particularly in terms of gendered meanings of inhabiting “public” space and participating in the industrial labor force. These migrants form their gender identities not only through place-bound contact with people in origin and destination sites, but also through contact with the sociocultural norms of migrants from other parts of the archipelago and world, transnational
industrial and media expansion, and continued reference to their families’ “Bugis values.” Recent research has analyzed the growth of the new female industrial workforce in relation to postmodern production relations and new patterns of consumption. In this article, I build on these studies to explore the ways migrants’ cultural struggles around gender are shaped not only by new production relations and consumer aspirations, but also by the interethnic interactions of low-income migrants themselves living in the zone. The tensions that characterize these negotiations mark a historical shift in the gendered
meaning of “the local” in the Bugis diaspora.

PLEASE WRITE TO ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE FINAL VERSION.
Full citation: Neveling, Patrick, 2015. 'Flexible capitalism and transactional orders in colonial and postcolonial Mauritius: A post-occidentalist view', in Jens Kjaerulf (ed.), Flexible capitalism: Exchange and ambiguity at work, Oxford: Berghahn: 207-34.

The chapter offers an alternative periodisation of twentieth century history for the small-island nation state Mauritius, arguing
that in light of the colonial history of Mauritius, which ended only in 1968, it is difficult to identify a neoliberal turn in the 1970s. Secondly, I argue that common notions of pre-capitalist moral economies and the ensuing differentiation in long-term and short-term transactional orders make little sense for Mauritius (and other world regions) because they neglect the long history of integration of plantation societies into the capitalist world-system. Instead I offer an analytical perspective that is open to the
widespread opposition to alliances between capital and religion and gendered exploitation going along with this in Mauritius and elsewhere.

Batam Island, Indonesia, located a short ferry ride away from Singapore, is a place where tourism
and industry have been developed simultaneously and a border area where “developed” and
“developing” nations meet. Government officials, investing international corporations and the
“factory women” who work in the island’s industrial estates arrive in Batam – native to none of
them – with their own preconceptions and goals. When challenges not foreseen through master
planning arise, the authorities cling ever more tightly to their physical and structural development
model: the nearby city-state of Singapore. Conversely, the factory workers who travel intranationally
to work in this export processing zone (EPZ) find their objectives contested in the face
of the Master Plan, corporate agendas and ethnic fusions characterising this transnational capitalist
space.
Entering into the homes of three groups of women migrants living and working in Batam, the
relationship between the private realm that they inhabit and the social contexts in which they
participate publicly is investigated. Some of the choices that women make at and about home are
identified, and their ability to “micro-resist” these external structures is explored. At home, the
dynamic relationship between the Batam development project and the women’s own hopes and
visions of the place – sometimes parallel and sometimes incongruous – are revealed. As they
experience life on Batam, their “social imaginaries” of it are shaped into various new realities, and
their homes, removed from the confines of the factory floor, thus become spaces of release from
these tensions.

Free Ebook here: https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/116799?fbclid=IwAR2IeCQ1bxC0v0rWDDnwnwc_LMfvCIzGeO87ScDKd_tp-803I_hFNG9CwAM#


This article discusses urbanisation-related phenomena and social sciences theories against the background of one of the most pronounced phenomena in late modern capitalism, the global spread of special economic zones. Such zones date back to the post-World War II export-oriented development policies in Puerto Rico and have since spread to more than 3,500 zones with more than 70 million workers. Only a handful of nations do not have zone programs in their legal systems. One of the main motives for nations to invest in such zones are dreams of rapid, large-scale, industry-driven urbanisation – dreams of new centres like Shenzhen that will make a nation’s glory as much as the glory of its individual founders. This has triggered a proliferation of myths of origin of such zones, with some leading figures in the social sciences and the humanities such as Keller Easterling replicating a World Bank sponsored narrative that backdates the origins of the zones to Roman antiquity. In fact, SEZs originate in Puerto Rico’s post-1945 neoliberalisation drive towards export-oriented development and tax evasion. This article explains the mythopraxis championed by Easterling and others with a view to more general misunderstandings of what is central to world historical change.

Interest in zones – export processing zones (EPZs) and special economic zones (SEZs) – has grown since China implemented its SEZs in 1978. This interest was rekindled when India announced its 2005 SEZ policy and when the government of China began to pursue Chinese zones in Africa. Zones are usually enclosed areas in which a state develops a specific legal code, one that is generally more lenient toward foreign corporations than in the rest of the state. Import and export tariffs on goods and other taxes are reduced or removed, leading some to associate zones with tax havens that have taken on a spatial, physical quality rather than a purely legal one (Palan 2003).
While EPZs throughout the 1990s were more typically associated with state investment in the zone’s infrastructure, some current zones, such as India’s SEZs, are also financed by private developers. In 1975, the International Labour Organization (ILO) recorded 79 zones in 25 countries (Singa Boyenge 2007). Two 2015 articles in The Economist put the current estimate at 4,300 operational zones (The Economist 4 April 2015a; The Economist 4 April 2015b). Though three out of four countries in the world host them, certain countries in Asia tend to
use zones more extensively.
This chapter will first highlight the research on transregional trends associated with the proliferation of the zone – EPZs and SEZs – during the Cold War period. Specifically, the zone was associated with the US construction of regional markets amid the fight against communism in East Asia and South America and the emergence of a new international division of labour. These zones then enabled the shift of Western and Japanese businesses to developing countries, as has been well researched in the literature on zones.
The second section of this chapter departs from this understanding by considering the zone as a spatial format that also exists apart from US and United Nations (UN) policy prescriptions. The zone is connected to state spatiality and allows the state to bypass its own territoriality to
forge connections beyond its immediate state space.
The chapter then proceeds to highlight two trends to support the transregional dynamics of such state spatiality. First, China and India have both used zones within their territory to connect their diasporas’ business practices back to their home countries, thereby profiting from the dispersal of their respective ‘nations’. Second, both China and India have begun to use zones abroad in their own foreign policy practices. These practices may challenge both our ideas of regions in area studies and traditional concepts of state spatiality, which is not confined to territoriality. What emerges is a particular transregionality in which the zone, as a spatial format and itself a ‘respatialization’ of the state, enables the respatialization of other spatial formats through non-state actors.

The social problems of export processing are many and affect practically every area of workers’ lives. However, workers rarely have been docile victims; instead they have resisted and sought reform. And they have not been alone, since many movements throughout North America have seen Mexico’s maquilas as a place to challenge continental, if not global, liberalization of trade and investment. Together, workers and their supporters have developed transnational networks with an expansive set of grievances, resources, organizations, and strategies of resistance. In doing so, they are beginning to form a transnational civil society around principles of labor democracy, but one that is embattled by state and corporate counter-movements. The following will compare two cases of industrial conflict – the struggles of workers at the Han Young and Kukdong maquilas. Based in extended interviews and movement documents, this analysis argues that each struggle exemplifies the many challenges of maquila labor organizing and the potentials of transnational solidarity.

This chapter challenges commonplace anthropological portrayals of austerity as a watershed and rupture. Instead of focusing on austerity as an event, the chapter proposes a historical anthropology perspective that considers austerity as one of several ruling class strategies to maintain capitalist exploitation.

Les zones franches d'exportation industrielle (ZFEI) ont pris à travers le monde de multiples formes aux contenus également très diversifiés. Elles renvoient néanmoins toutes à un même principe, celui de soustraire un espace délimité au droit commun en vigueur au niveau national, pour y permettre une production à bas-coûts. Cet article entend contribuer à la réflexion concernant le rôle des ZFEI dans les économies, à partir du cas des zones industrielles qualifiées (QIZ) en Jordanie. Nous présentons dans un premier temps les ZFEI en tant que dispositif mondialisé, aux formes d'organisation variées, dont le modèle continue à évoluer et à se diffuser internationalement. Puis nous étudions dans un second temps une application de ce modèle, à travers le cas des QIZ en Jordanie, en focalisant notre attention sur les effets de la dérogation au droit commun sur l'organisation de la production et du travail en leur sein. Nous interrogeons également le mode de gouvernance atypique de ces zones. Cet article montre qu'en dépit du caractère exogène et hétéronome de l'activité économique en leur sein, les QIZ constituent un dispositif pilote en matière de politiques économiques-ainsi que de gestion des migrations et du territoire-dans ce pays. Une position particulière qui résulte justement de l'affranchissement de ces zones à l'égard du régime commun.

Industrial Export Processing Zones (EPZs) have taken many forms around the world, with equally diverse contents. However, they all refer to the same principle that is to exempt a defined area from the common law in force at the national level, in order to allow low-cost production. This article aims to contribute to the discussion over the role of EPZs in economies, based on the case of the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs) in Jordan. We first present the EPZs as a globalized apparatus with various forms of organization, whose model continues to evolve and spread internationally. We then study an application of this model, through the case of the QIZs in Jordan, focusing on the effects of derogation to common law on the organisation of production and work within them. We also question the atypical mode of governance of these zones. This article shows that despite the exogenous and heteronomous nature of economic activity within them, QIZs constitute a pilot scheme for economic-as well as migration and territorial management-policies in this country. A special position that results precisely of the fact that these zones have been freed from the common regime.

Purpose: This paper furthers the analysis of patterns regulating capitalist  accumulation based on a historical anthropology of economic activities revolving around and within the Mauritian Export Processing Zone (EPZ).

Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses fieldwork in Mauritius to interrogate and critique two important concepts in contemporary social theory “embeddedness” and “the informal economy.” These are viewed in the wider frame of social anthropology’s engagement with (neoliberal) capitalism.

Findings: A process-oriented revision of Polanyi’s work on embeddedness and the “double movement” is proposed to help us situate EPZs within ongoing power struggles found throughout the history of capitalism. This helps us to challenge the notion of economic informality as supplied by Hart and others.

Social implications: Scholars and policymakers have tended to see economic informality as a force from below, able to disrupt the legal-rational nature of capitalism as practiced from on high. Similarly, there is a view that a precapitalist embeddedness, a “human economy,” has many good things to offer. However, this paper shows that the practices of the state and multinational capitalism, in EPZs and elsewhere, exactly match the practices that are envisioned as the cure to the pitfalls of capitalism.

Value of the paper: Setting aside the formal-informal distinction in favor of a process-oriented analysis of embeddedness allows us better to understand the shifting struggles among the state, capital, and labor.

This article introduces the concepts of untimely coincidences of modes of production and structural contingencies in global capitalism to the study of neoliberalism in India and beyond. I argue that these concepts are crucial to revive a historical anthropology, which shows that neoliberalism is one of several possible manifestations of capitalism, past and present. The analytical gain of such a revised view on neoliberalism is then exemplified by a historical–anthropological account of the development of India’s first special economic zone, the Kandla Foreign Trade Zone, from 1965 to the late 1980s. Based on these findings, I conclude my plea for conceptual changes in anthropology’s approach to periodising national and global histories of neoliberalism.

Today, 'special technology infrastructure' [STI] represents a new process of economic development and has been used as a tool of regional development. It is a region that generates sustained and propulsive economic activity through the creation and commercialization of new knowledge. In the developed world, the term 'STI' is used in various forms such as 'science and technology park' and 'technopole' in Europe, 'research park' in the United States and Canada. In the process of facilitating competitive technological progress and thus reforming their underdeveloped form of economies, the East Asian governments used a similar concept in the name of 'industrial parks' in their region and extracted most economic benefits. In resemblance of this pattern, the underdeveloped economies [such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Fiji] have also been trying to use EPZ strategy to overcome many of their growth obstacles such as lacking of FDI, inability of impro...

Contents: Development news. Toward a pro - poor trade agenda. Trade reform for economic growth and poverty reduction. Mainstreaming trade for poverty alleviation - A Cambodian experience. Farm fallacies that hurt the poor. Agricultural protectionism - debt problems and the Doha Round. GATS negotiations must focus on services liberalization - the case of SADC. More favorable treatment of developing countries - toward a new grand bargain. An international investment agreement - promise and potential pitfalls. Trade facilitation, WTO rules, and capacity building - What's at stake? China and the WTO - policy reform and poverty reduction.

The objective of this paper is to determine and analyse the framework conditions that influence the entrepreneurial opportunity identification and action in the international market context. Research Design & Methods: Scholars from the International Business and International Entrepreneurship (IE) research fields agree that the process of internationalisation is triggered by opportunity identification. The extant literature is reviewed by assessing the framework conditions that domestic and international markets offer for entrepreneurial actions. An analytical juxtaposition of the influential factors is conducted in the light of various stages of the opportunity identification process by examining − at each stage − possible effects of domes1c and interna1onal market context. Findings: This paper brings into the IE discussion a conceptual matrix of various elements and factors − external condi1ons-which influence the creation of nexus by entrepreneurs to the markets. Implications & Recommendations: The conceptual matrix offers new insights for theoretical development and arguments for designing empirical research in terms of external conditions. It is expected to provoke more theoretical and practical questions from scholars within the IE field. Contribution & Value Added: The originality of this work lies in proposing a comprehensive framework to understand how context interacts with the entrepreneurial opportunity identification process.

In the Far East of Russia, economic development has dramatically slowed down for the past 30 years. The federal government seeks new methods to attract investments into the regions, stimulate entrepreneurial activity, and boost economic growth. This paper critically evaluates state policies that involve the active implementation of Special Economic Zones, Territorial Development Zones, Vladivostok Free Port, and the Territories of Advanced Social and Economic Development. Research is based on the interviews with the state authorities from the regions of Russia and thorough investigation of the state policies, legislation, and government reports. This study suggests three conclusions. First, there is an excessive amount of state development policies, which is the result of competition among different federal ministries. Second, there is no evidence of innovative activity or productivity growth within those economic zones. Finally, methods to assess the effectiveness of the regional policies are undeveloped and lack clarity. Recommendations for further research are given at the end of the paper.

Cette communication traite du rapport contraint au temps de travail de la main-d’œuvre migrante employée dans les Zones industrielles qualifiées (QIZ) en Jordanie. En m’appuyant sur une enquête qualitative réalisée sur les lieux de production, de travail et de vie des travailleurs, je propose une réflexion sur les effets de la migration circulaire sur les temporalités du travail des migrants. Dans une industrie textile tournée vers l’exportation et dominée par des entreprises étrangères, je montre que l’ajustement du temps de séjour sur le temps de travail tend à réduire ces migrants à leur seule fonction de force de travail. Leur confinement dans des bâtiments-dortoirs situés à proximité des usines accentue encore leur captivité.
Lien audio : https://soundcloud.com/lest_umr7317/captifs-du-temps-les-travailleurs-migrants-dans-lindustrie-du-textile-en-jordanie

While ports are traditionally considered national infrastructure sites that connect states to global markets, special economic zones and past free ports are portrayed as threats to national sovereignty. This book calls these narratives into question as it explores the history of planning Mumbai’s ports and free zones during periods of global and regional transition from the British Raj, to national independence, to economic liberalization. The book opens with a study of an unsuccessful plan hatched by merchants in 1833 to make Bombay a free port to deal with an emerging British India and the advent of free trade. The book ends with how India’s current special economic zones and emphasis on port expansion are part of broader goals to reposition India in transregional Asian trade, to connect Mumbai with northern India, and to enact local plans for a global city that threaten the very port that first connected Mumbai to the world. To understand the functionality of these port and zone projects beyond typical policy prescriptions, this book proposes portals of globalization as a spatial format that fosters processes of reterritorialization.

This chapter charts and analyses historical efforts to diversify the Mauritian economy, the success of which, some time in the late 1980s, led international institutions, academics, and the media to speak of a “Mauritian miracle”. In order to assess the genealogies and possible legacies of that miracle, the paper identifies Mauritius’ various quests for negotiating political and economic independence and dependence since the late colonial period. The quest for political independence from the United Kingdom allowed Mauritius to renegotiate access to global markets. This, at the same time, meant new dependence, as the island needed technical assistance from international development agencies and institutions. The latter was crucial for the quest to diversify the island’s economy so as to overcome the dependence on sugar as the single relevant export commodity. In regard to these quests, publications on Mauritius commonly identify a shift in economic development strategy from the British colonial state’s import-substitution “pioneer industries” to the independent Mauritian state’s export-oriented industries, mainly associated with the 1970-founded export processing zone (EPZ). To this should be added a more recent shift, signalled by the end of preferential export quota for EPZ products due to the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) restructuring of global markets, which Mauritius met with the further opening of the island to investment from Asia, particularly China.
The chapter relies on a broad dataset generated during three periods of ethnographic research in Mauritius since the early 2000s, interviews with stakeholders in government and the private sector, as well as archival research in Mauritius, the UK, and in various international institutions such as the United Nations Development Organisation and the World Bank. Based on these materials, the paper outlines continuity within the supposed historical shifts of Mauritian economic diversification strategies. The emphasis is on how various late-colonial policies and institutions (especially ratification of the International Sugar Agreement and foundation of the Mauritius Agricultural Bank in 1937, international networks, pioneer industries provisions, infrastructure development, and public housing policies resulting from James Edward Meade’s survey mission on economic diversification in 1960) laid foundations on which independent Mauritius could built in developing its EPZ development strategy. Further, I argue that an expansion of (and not a break with) late colonial development policies was the key to the Mauritian miracle and enabled the island to “survive” the national debt crisis of the late 1970s, the World Bank structural adjustment policies of the 1980s, and, ultimately, the WTO’s restructuring of global markets.