Regimes of Extreme Permission in Southeast Asia: Theorizing State-Corporate Crime in the Global South

Abstract

Corporations' profit-making objectives are a central force guiding development strategies in the Global South but contradictorily can be blamed for a range of social and environmental harms. This article brings a state-corporate crime lens to bear on the economic and political processes that shape Global South-located commodity production. It seeks to understand the functioning of neo-imperialist profiteering through elaborating the concept of regimes of extreme permission, described as modalities of 'intense' accumulation, defined by weaker or unstable forms of hegemony consolidation, illegal/illicit practices, state-sanctioned violence and various socio-environmental degradations. Through analyses of two regimes of extreme permission in the SE Asian context - Indonesian palm oil plantations and Export Processing Zones for garment production in the Greater Mekong Subregion - the paper describes the role of states and corporations in constructing the repressive socio-political space required for neo-colonial corporate accumulation. We contribute to 'Southernizing' criminology by re-articulating state-corporate crime theory within imperialist contexts. It also shows that neo-colonialism can be understood as the de-regulation of corporate accumulation.