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Quinot, Geo --- "Globalization, State Commercial Activity and the Transformation of Administrative Law" [2010] ELECD 293; in Faure, Michael; van der Walt, André (eds), "Globalization and Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Globalization and Private Law

Editor(s): Faure, Michael; van der Walt, André

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848447608

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Globalization, State Commercial Activity and the Transformation of Administrative Law

Author(s): Quinot, Geo

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

7. Globalization, state commercial
activity and the transformation of
administrative law
Geo Quinot*

1 INTRODUCTION
One central theme in the globalization1 debate is the changing nature of the
state.2 While debate rages within globalization literature about whether the
state has vanished, continues to exist only in hollowed-out form or remains a
dominant actor within the global picture,3 one thing is more or less accepted ­
the state's modus operandi is quite different from what it was a century ago.
In assessing the debate about the impact of globalization on the nation state,
Georg Sørensen concludes:

[S]tates as well as markets have been transformed under conditions of economic
globalization. Instead of a reduced role for the state, the role of the state has
changed. States operate under different circumstances than before; in some way
they are subject to new constraints, but states have also developed new ways of



* BA LLB (Stell) LLM (Virginia) LLD (Stell), Associate Professor, Department
of Public Law, Stellenbosch University.
1 I will not attempt to define globalization in this chapter. It seems that the very
definition of the notion is as contested as its existence and impact. As Strange (1996,
p. xiii) notes: `The worst [term] of them all is "globalization" ­ a term which can refer
to anything from the Internet to a hamburger'. See Koenig-Archibugi (2003, pp. 2 et
seq.) and also Goodin (2003, pp. 69 et seq.); De Feyter (2007a, pp. 1, 3 et seq.);
McGrew (1998, p. 299); ...