Governing Globalisation: The New Zealand Call Centre Attraction Initiative

It is well established that globalisation is associated with changing governmental conceptions of economic space. Whereas previously firms, regions, and economic sectors were understood as discrete parts of a national economy, they are now constituted as nodes in global economic flows and networks. However, less attention has been paid to the forms of expertise and knowledge practices through which the global economy has been constituted as the focus of economic governance. Through a case study of the New Zealand Call Centre Attraction Initiative, this paper draws from the governmentality literature to show new forms of economic governance can be conceptualised as an assemblage of spaces, subjects, strategies, and numbers. It is argued that far from being a ‘new reality’ globalisation is a governmental process in the making.