Foreign capital and US states’ contested strategies of internationalisation: a constructivist analysis

ABSTRACT

The article presents a Constructivist framework for subnational diplomacy (aka paradiplomacy), critiquing the Neoliberal assumptions regarding US states' search for foreign capital as driven by ‘objective' market forces, free of intra-subnational conflicts and geopolitical implications. Using Formosa Plastics' investment projects in Texas and Louisiana as case studies, it argues that paradiplomatic agency—rather than restricted to subnational executives—is located across a range of state and non-state subnational actors, who form intra-subnational, national and international coalitions when advancing or challenging US states' economic internationalization. Their contests over the purpose of international action and the locus of authority that speaks for subnational communities in the global marketplace reflect their intersubjective constructions of reality. Such constructions not only provide subnational actors with an understanding of themselves and their interests, but also delineate the boundaries of what is permissible and necessary, rendering certain internationalization strategies as ‘obvious’, while precluding others.

KEYWORDS:

• Subnational state
• foreign capital
• United States
• Formosa Plastics
• paradiplomacy
• economic internationalisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Beyond the United States, national security concerns led the Australian parliament to pass the Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Bill (2020), which provides for Commonwealth oversight over state governments’ partnerships with foreign authorities and foreign investment.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Czeslaw Tubilewicz

Czeslaw Tubilewicz has authored Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe: Shopping for allies (Routledge, 2007) and Chinese constructions of sovereignty and the East China Sea conflict (Routledge, 2020), co-authored (with Natalie Omond) The United States' subnational relations with divided China: A Constructivist approach to paradiplomacy (Routledge, 2021), and edited Critical issues in contemporary China (Routledge, 2006 & 2017).