Jessica Quinn Slattery

JESSICA SLATTERY, then a graduate student at University of California, Irvine, California, was approved funding in April 2021 to aid research on “Spatial-Legal Futures: Experiments in Special Economic Zones and Private Governance on the Island of Roatán, Honduras,” supervised by Dr. Bill Maurer. From planning colonies on Mars to overhauling government institutions, entrepreneurs are reengineering states from within whilst drawing up the schematics for new forms of private governance that operate parallel to states. They seek to disrupt the “monopoly” that states hold over government services, arguing that governance would be more effective if provided by the private sector and decisions made by market forces. Honduras is a test site for their ideas, and the location of this research project, which examines a new wave of special economic zones that is a product of collaboration between venture capitalists and a government that rose to power after a 2009 coup d’état. The Honduran state hoped these radically autonomous zones would attract business development and foreign investment, allowing private companies to design their own civil and zoning laws, propose labor and economic regulations, and administer schools, courts, and police forces. This longitudinal study tracks the on-the-ground development of the zones and the investors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs working, living, and building them. In tandem with fieldwork, this study analyzes investor agreements, Honduran law, international treaties, and investor-state arbitration as different stakeholders debate whether sovereignty can be unbundled and leased out to foreign private actors.