Are Corporations Spatial Entities? Putting Territoriality in Its Place

• In Event: Zones of Sovereignty? Territoriality and Spatial Governance

Abstract

Although early techno-utopian debates about whether states could and would control the internet have largely been put to rest, the underlying political theoretical issues about the proper place of territory in constituting state sovereignty in the age of the internet have not been resolved. In this paper, I argue that exploring how states and corporations negotiate control of digital infrastructure can illuminate the proper place of territory as well as the “jurisdictional evasiveness” at the core of corporations’ power. In contrast to traditional theories of the state, I argue that states and corporations are not spatial but associational entities, constituted by their membership. As such, they cannot really be located in any particular place; territoriality is instead used by states as a method of legitimation to claim or reject jurisdiction and rule. Understanding corporations and states as associational entities helps to clarify and illuminate the ways in which they are constantly negotiating rule or control over a range of spaces, from the cloud to cyberspace, which may or may not have spatial or territorialized dimensions. Finally, I will explore how territorialized zones of exception—such as charter cities or special economic zones—are only the spatial manifestation of a wide variety of carve-outs which corporations routinely negotiate for themselves. Although recent scholarship has recently critiqued the rise of these “zones” as beyond the realm of acceptable politics, I argue that we should instead problematize a range of corporate or economic behavior which may not always have a spatial dimension as properly political.

Author

• Alina Utrata, Cambridge University