The Architecture of Investment Climate Surveillance and the Space for Non- Orthodox Policy

The purpose of this article is to take preliminary steps towards a critical theory of what is termed an ‘architecture of investment climate surveillance’. The paper outlines the contours of this architecture, which it suggests is made up of various private and publicagents that have authoritative positions in the market for evaluating investment opportunities and risks. By way of illustrating basic linkages and mechanisms, it examines the way in which these agents ‘read’ the implementation of a piece of non-orthodox policy: Bolivia’s nationalisation of gas. Though not unproblematic, Bolivia’s policy of nationalisation has significantly increased state revenue and allowed new social spending on poverty reduction. Yet despite these positive developmental effects, readings of this policy shift within the investment community have been highly critical, illustrating the investor-centred values on which these evaluations are based. The article concludes bysuggesting that scholars of globalisation must pay more attention to whether and how such discursive responses are able to delimit the space for non-orthodox policy in the global South.