Doctoral Dissertation Research: State Sovereignty and the Regulation of Cross-Border Capital in the Global Age

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

Sovereignty defines the boundaries of nationhood, yet it also shapes the dynamic economic, political, and cultural relationships between peoples and governments. In the conventional view, sovereignty hinges on physical control over territory, backed by military force. But global capital flows are challenging the essence of traditional notions of sovereignty. Moreover, because law - in the form of national legislation and judicial decisions - is one of the primary means of regulating the flow of cross-border capital, law is an ideal and practical focal point for such a study. The present dissertation project, to be conducted by Kevin Sobel-Read under the supervision of Dr. William O' Barr, seeks to shed light on key aspects of modern state-sovereignty by examining the central role of law in the management of global capital flows and, in turn, the critical relationship between legal regulation and state sovereignty. The research will be conducted in the South Pacific region, focusing on the Cook Islands and New Zealand. Given that a majority of Cook Islanders reside in New Zealand, and given the differences in wealth between these two nations, a cross-border analysis of Cook Islanders' capital movement offers special insight into the interplay between the state sovereignty and financial regulation of developing and also developed nations. The project will be carried out through overlapping legal, archival, and ethnographic methods. The data collected will provide a means: (1) to map the movement of capital among Cook Islanders inside and outside the Cook Islands; and (2) to analyze that movement of capital against relevant legal regulation in the Cook Islands and New Zealand, pinpointing where and how the regulation affects the capital flow. As such, the goal is to offer a fuller understanding of the relationship between the forces of globalization on the one hand and the continuing role of state power on the other, helping to explain the nature and general processes of sovereignty in the 21st century.