Globalization and Local Political Economy: The Multi-scalar Approach

Based on a multi-scalar view on globalization, this paper suggests that the nation-state's policy liberalization is not simply imposed from above by global forces, but constituted from below by national and sub-national forces. In particular, this paper explores how inter-scalar interactions between national and local forces can give impacts on the ways in which the nation state liberalizes its regulations on the transnational flows of capital and investment. With case studies of “big deal” and the Jeju international free city project in Korea, it elaborates on how the state's liberalization and globalization projects can be spatially and politically constructed under the influences of: (1) inter-scalar tensions between the national and the local, and (2) politics of “jumping-scale”, which either local or national actors organize in order to mobilize the sources of power at different geographical scales.