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Transnationalizing bureaucracies through investment promotion: The case of Informest

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  • Christian Sellar

Abstract

This paper uses Bourdieu’s notion of field to discuss the historical process of transnationalization in national and local-level bureaucracies, due to the promotion of firms’ internationalization and value chains restructuring. By drawing on the case study of a single Italian state agency, Informest , analyzed within a larger field of public and private actors promoting Italian firms beyond borders, this paper makes the following contributions: (a) it critiques the too narrow notion of the “political†in political geography by claiming the need to include transnational firms and entrepreneurs among the actors shaping changes to the spatial reach of certain state bureaucracies, allowing them to operate across national borders to better serve firms; (b) it argues that Bourdieu’s notion of field is an effective theoretical tool to analyze synergies and mutual influences between bureaucracies and firms value chains; (c) in so doing, it places firms alongside foreign policy and domestic political struggles to explain the emergence of outward investment promotion as a field of transnational bureaucratic practice; (d) It highlights the need to not take bureaucratic organizations for granted; instead, it focuses on the broader (geo)political processes leading to the birth, growth, and occasional death of transnational bureaucracies. In so doing, it places the transnationalization of Italy’s bureaucracy in a specific geohistorical context.

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  • Christian Sellar, 2019. "Transnationalizing bureaucracies through investment promotion: The case of Informest," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(3), pages 461-479, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:37:y:2019:i:3:p:461-479
    DOI: 10.1177/2399654418787192
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michael Dunford, 2006. "Industrial Districts, Magic Circles, and the Restructuring of the Italian Textiles and Clothing Chain," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 82(1), pages 27-59, January.
    2. Christian Sellar & Rudolf Pástor, 2015. "Mutating Neoliberalism: The Promotion of Italian Investors in Slovakia before and after the Global Financial Crisis," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 342-360, March.
    3. Gary Gereffi, 2014. "Global value chains in a post-Washington Consensus world," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 9-37, February.
    4. Jan Drahokoupil, 2008. "The Investment-Promotion Machines: The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment Promotion in Central and Eastern Europe," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(2), pages 197-225.
    5. Jeffrey Neilson & Bill Pritchard & Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 2014. "Global value chains and global production networks in the changing international political economy: An introduction," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 1-8, February.
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