ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the privacy protection issue within larger debates about the impact of globalization on government regulation, and on the autonomy of state institutions to fashion distinctive national public policies. Beyond the policy consequences, critics of globalization have pointed to wider implications for the autonomy of nation states to fashion distinctive public policies to protect their citizens from environmental pollution, hazardous working conditions, discrimination, and so on. The race-to-the-bottom argument is based on the underlying premise that there might be competitive advantages for any state to have regulatory policies that are distinctly weaker than those elsewhere. Empirical evidence of race-to-the-bottom or race-to-the-top processes is often dependent on guessing the motives behind certain corporate and governmental decisions. The governance of privacy in the global economy through multiple modes of regulation and co-ordination means that it is thoroughly misleading to try to observe a balance been privacy and surveillance on a global scale.
