The Hidden Globe

Abrahamian covers examples of geographic areas shaped by the ideological currents of neoliberalism, globalization, and nationalism. All of the examples she covers, such as freeports in cities like Geneva and the charter city of Prospera in Honduras, are slightly different. Indeed, some of them have decades or even centuries-old historical roots. What ties all of these places together is the way they manifest the predominant ideological structure of contemporary economics and governance.

Neoliberalism is a capitalist theory of economics and government that holds that a primary role of the state is to create “free markets,” or markets where the transfer of goods and services is not taxed, tariffed, or otherwise limited, to the extent possible. The state creates these markets with a small selection of tools. For instance, states may sell off or license public goods, like state-owned water companies, oil and gas companies, or housing stock, to private companies or individuals. An example of this in The Hidden Globe is Luxembourg’s decision to license its public radio waves to private companies. The state may also create markets through subsidies, tax breaks, tariff reduction or abolition, and/or infrastructure investment to lower the cost of entry for a private company. This is the fundamental ideology behind many of the structures Abrahamian explores in The Hidden Globe, including freeports, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), and Operation Bootstrap in Puerto Rico. One term for this kind of state support for private companies is “corporate welfare,” because the state is subsidizing private business. (For more on neoliberalism, see A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey [2005]).

Neoliberalism valorizes globalization, or the reduction of friction in international trade. Neoliberalism’s core idea is that certain geographies hold a comparative advantage in the production of goods and services over others. In a very simplified example, if it takes an hour to make a t-shirt in Bangladesh, but two hours to make it in England, it makes more sense for England to trade Bangladesh for the shirt rather than make it domestically. Based on this theory, to maximize production, goods and services need to be freely exchanged between countries. Thus, it is important to reduce import-export duties and tariffs on goods and services exchanged. Often, discrete parts of a finished manufactured product can be transferred multiple times between countries to maximize state support as described in the previous paragraph and to take advantage of specialization. For example, an “American made” Ford truck includes parts made in Mexico and China and raw materials sourced from around the world. Legislation and regulation like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) are designed to facilitate these global transfers.

In theory, neoliberalism and globalization run counter to nationalist ideologies. Nationalism holds that one’s own country is superior to all others and that the welfare of that country should be privileged above all others. Thus, “outsourcing” jobs to China to profit from Chinese competitive advantage in manufacturing consumer goods is held to be a problem for nationalistic ideology. This is the kind of logic President Donald J. Trump promoted through his efforts to raise import tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada in 2025. The liminal geographies and sovereign areas described in The Hidden Globe are essential to maintaining the seeming contradiction between neoliberalism and nationalism by creating cut-outs and exceptions that at once appease the demands for low-cost consumer products and meet nationalist demands. For example, after Europe imposed import limits on Chinese-made products in a nationalist effort to protect European manufacturers, European people still demand affordable Chinese-made products. The Mauritian Special Economic Zone allows Chinese-made products to be “finished” outside China and therefore bypass the legislated limits when exported to Europe. Furthermore, neoliberal forms of government as described in The Hidden Globe also allow for the creation of extraterritorial cut-outs, where human rights laws or immigration laws are suspended, as in the case of Guantanamo Bay (the US) and Nauru and Manus (Australia), thus meeting the demands of anti-immigration nationalist ideologies.