Regulatory Rescaling in Neoliberal Markets Josh Pacewicz, Brown University Neoliberal reforms substitute “self-regulating” markets for political coordination, but are often accompanied by an expansion of the state. Scholars argue that this is because market-facilitating regulations increase. Through a mixed-methods study of two urban production economies, I show that political actors also make markets through regulatory rescaling—intervention that suppresses market coordination in one arena to enable it in another. Local owners once used price competition and gift exchange to coordinate localized aspects of production, but many of their firms were acquired by larger corporations. Corporate subsidiaries lack the place-specific knowledge and relationships necessary to coordinate production with local owners. City-appointed development personnel solve this problem by rescaling the urban market: they provide firms with services and information that local owners once got from one an- other, thereby laying the foundations for national corporate competition and undercutting remaining owners’ ability to coordinate localized aspects of production themselves. Keywords: markets; neoliberalism; regulation; urban politics; financialization; theory. In the early 2000s, National Textbook Corp. broke ground on a large printing facility in River City and dispatched Pete to oversee construction and eventually manage the plant. 1 Like many corporate managers, Pete had never set foot in River City and was wholly ignorant of the city’s history, politics, and prevailing business practices. Pete worried that his lack of place-specific famil- iarity would be a liability, but his worries dissipated after a visit by personnel from the city’s devel- opment corporation, a publicly funded organization empowered by local politicians to intervene in River City’s economy. “[Development personnel] came and visited with me, explained what they do, asked if we had any needs. Pretty soon, I came to understand that they could help me by [telling] me where to look and what to look for,” Pete recalled. We said we wanted to build a new building, and they were very active in helping us; [otherwise we’d need to] figure out where we want to go, hire some guy to [figure out,] who owns [the site and if] we getting a good deal. [The] development corporation helped with [all that]. Then they came back every few weeks and [asked], “Do you have the talent you need? Is everything okay with the location?” That connection has been very helpful for us. Pete’s attitude is typical of corporate managers in River City, who argue that the development personnel are critical for their work. Local owners, however, are ambivalent about them. Take Charles, owner of Father and Son Appliance, a small manufacturing firm owned by his family for generations. “The [development corporation] does provide subsidies [and] know-how . . . and am I getting anything from [them]? Yeah . . . but I don’t think it should happen,” Charles once told me. “To tell you the truth, if nobody was doing it, business would probably be the same . . . It’d This article benefited greatly from feedback received at the 2010 ASA Panel on Economic Regulation and Stanford’s Economic Sociology Workshop. I am especially grateful to Adam Slez, Dan Menchik, Stefan Bargheer, Marc Schneiberg, Paolo Parigi, Lis Clemens, Andrew Abbott, Jennifer Silva, Steve Viscelli, Iddo Tavory, Chris Hausmann, Monica Prasad, Steve Barley, Mark Granovetter, Xueguang Zhou, Bogdan State, Rob Jansen, Tyson Smith, Kristen Romanowski, and Dan Hirschman for their thoughtful feedback. The article also benefited from four wonderful anonymous reviewers. The typical disclaimers apply. Direct correspondence to: Josh Pacewicz, Department of Sociology, Brown University, Maxcy Hall, 112 George Street, Providence, RI 02906. E-mail: pacewicz@brown.edu. 1. I have substituted pseudonyms for all persons, places, and firms. Social Problems, Vol. 60, Issue 4, pp. 433–456, ISSN 0037-7791, electronic ISSN 1533-8533. © 2013 by Society for the Study of Social Problems, Inc. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website at www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo/asp. DOI: 10.1525/sp.2013.60.4.433.