The State Behind the Dotted Line: Thai State Power and Graduated Sovereignty in the Mae Sot Border Area

Abstract

Background and Objectives: This academic article examines the shifting role of the Thai state in the Mae Sot border area amid the currents of neoliberal globalization. It challenges the assumption that the Thai state has truly diminished its role in border regions in accordance with neoliberal logic, by posing the central question: Does the Mae Sot border zone exist independently of state intervention, sovereign power, and legal regulation under the context of economic globalization? —and if so, in what ways? By exploring the state’s role in designing and managing the Mae Sot border area, this study seeks to reveal the strategic adjustments in sovereignty and governance undertaken by the Thai state.

Methods: This study draws on an analysis of primary documents such as state policies, laws, and official orders, supplemented by a field visit to Mae Sot district conducted during 5^th–9^th April 2023, in order to provide additional insights for the discussion. The analysis follows a qualitative descriptive approach.

Results: The study revealed that the Thai state has not retreated from the Mae Sot borderland but instead has adopted a strategy of differentiated governance. While certain legal and regulatory functions have been relaxed—such as the suspension of zoning laws and tax exemptions to attract foreign direct investment—state power remains assertively present in the surveillance of migrant labor, the regulation of daily life, and the orchestration of cultural legitimacy. Mae Sot should therefore be reinterpreted as a prototypical neoliberal enclave, which is flexible in legal and economic aspects, yet retains absolute control in certain dimensions. The region operates as a dual space: a zone of infrastructure and transnational capital on one hand, and a site of surveillance and precarious labor on the other. Rights and chances are stratified along the lines of economic class and ethnonational identity, with Burmese migrants facing systemic marginalization under a framework that prioritizes economic growth.

Application of this study: The findings provide an important lens for rethinking state power in border regions. Rather than viewing the border as a fading zone of sovereignty, the study proposes understanding it as a site of calculated state resurgence, wherein state actors reassert control to facilitate global market integration effectively. This insight has implications for policy design concerning special economic zones, labor rights, and migration governance. It also promotes transdisciplinary debates in development studies, border theory, and Southeast Asian political economy, offering the case study of Mae Sot as a model for analyzing similar zones across the Global South.

Conclusions: Mae Sot should not be conceived merely as a peripheral borderland or a stateless frontier. It exemplifies a dynamic interface where sovereignty is reassembled to accommodate and manage transnational flows of capital and labor. The Thai state reveals “behind the dotted line”—not absent but strategically repositioned, allowing neoliberal market mechanisms to flourish while maintaining tight control over mobility and legality. This underscores a broader pattern of state transformation under neoliberal globalization: a shift not towards state retreat but towards adaptive governance, where the state manages economic openness through selective sovereignty, legal flexibility, and infrastructural enclosure. In doing so, the Mae Sot case study challenges the binary notions of state presence/absence and presents a complex analysis of border governance as a multi-layered negotiation practice.