Embedding the Global in the National: Implications for the Role of the State

One role of the state vis-à-vis today’s global economy has been to negotiate the intersection of national law and foreign actors—whether firms, markets, or supranational organizations. This condition makes the current phase distinctive. We have, on the one hand, an enor-mously elaborate body of law that secures the exclusive territoriality of national states to an extent not before seen and, on the other, the con-siderable institutionalizing of the “rights ” of non-national firms, cross-border transactions, and supranational organizations. The conditions bring with them an almost necessary engagement of national states in the process of globalization. We generally use terms such as deregulation, financial and trade liberalization, and privatization to describe the outcome of this negoti-ation. Unfortunately, however, such terms only capture the with-drawal of the state from regulating its economy. They do not register all the ways in which the state participates in setting up the new frame