The state and the internationalisation of capital: The Mexican territoriality of global finance, 1982--2006

The dissertation focuses on Mexican class relations, the role of the state and the spatial practices that reproduce finance in Mexico at different political scales. I situate my research within Marxist analysis of internationalisation of capital, state restructuring, and critical geography. The main argument of the thesis is that the spatiality of the Mexican state in constituting the globality of finance matters despite claims of the demise of the state and the 'end of geography.' In order to explore the intersection of finance, the territoriality of the state and class in the Mexican political economy, the analysis looks at three aspects. First, historical transformations of the state and economic policy are addressed to understand the centrality of finance in the Mexican economy, particularly in the import-substitution industrialisation and neoliberal restructuring periods, and the role of the Mexican state, and the power bloc in shaping the conditions for finance within Mexico. Second, the creation of the scales of governance of the Mexican state through the North American Free Trade Agreement, regional development and the national economy is focused upon to understand the ways in which internationalisation of capital is reproduced within the nation-state through the disciplinary effects of the national, local and regional scales of the Mexican state. Third, the thesis shows how Mexican monetary policy has become a main component driving derivative markets. These policies and financial derivatives have a pivotal role in accelerating the pace of financial crises, fostering discipline over capitalist social relations in Mexico and creating new spaces of regulation for the Mexican state.