ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the research on transregional trends associated with the proliferation of the zone – export processing zones (EPZs) and special economic zones (SEZs) – during the Cold War period. It considers the zone as a spatial format that exists apart from United States and United Nations policy prescriptions. The chapter then highlights 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. 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. The new international division of labour thesis is related to the assumptions associated with world-systems theory.
