Beyond facilitator? State roles in global value chains and global production networks

Abstract

Designed to break with state‐centric approaches to understanding economic development, global commodity chain, global value chain (GVC), and global production network (GPN) analyses have deepened our understanding of the corporate governance of global lead firms and associated development outcomes in an era of globalisation. Although this research field is recognised to have provided considerable insight into private governance, a rapidly emerging body of research has given greater attention to the role of the state in GVCs and GPN. Although the state playing a role as facilitator towards firms participating in GPNs has often been an emphasis, this article argues that a variety of other roles are of increasing prominence, including as regulator, producer (state‐owned enterprises), and buyer (public procurement). A major challenge for both policymakers and researchers is to understand how a range of state initiatives not just shape but also are shaped by their positioning in GVCs and GPNs.

Public sector procurement and ethical trade: Governance and social responsibility in some hidden global supply chains

“…In part, this is an exercise in evaluating and theorising the particularities of state procurement and its associated ethical trading challenges against the backdrop of a geographical and wider social science literature that has prioritised the governance and outcomes of global supply chains in consumer goods sectors. In terms of its contribution to geographical perspectives on global supply chains, the paper develops recent calls for understanding state roles in GPNs (Horner, ; Smith, ). In recognising the state's role as purchaser, in particular, the paper demonstrates the need for GVC and GPN frameworks to incorporate intermediate goods and the influence of the legal realm in the theorisation of supply chain governance.…”

“…GPN approaches have been more aligned with calls to grasp not only the firm‐based logics of governance, but also the significance of non‐firm organisations, institutional context and voluntary codes and standards (Nadvi, ; Neilson & Pritchard, ). However, with the exception of recent work theorising the state in GPNs (Horner, ; Smith, ) and addressing the influence of regional agreements and trade policy (e.g., Frederick et al., ), the role of state regulation in shaping supply chain operations and outcomes and the part played by the state as purchaser in the global economy have been down‐played.…”

“…Horner (, p. 4) takes important steps to acknowledge the functioning of the state as buyer in the context of the “variety of roles that states can play within GVCs”—facilitator, regulator, producer and purchaser. With regard to the purchasing role addressed in our paper, government procurement involving the contract tendering process contrasts sharply with lead firm purchasing practices embraced by GVC and GPN literatures.…”

Gender and governance of global value chains: Promoting the rights of women workers

“…This mainly relates to product, environmental and labour standards applied by lead firms and private sector bodies (Gereffi, Humphrey and Sturgeon, 2005;Gibbon and Ponte, 2005;Nadvi, 2008). 1 Public governance involves rules, regulations and government policies within nation states, together with international agreements and multilateral institutions, which can all affect the operation of GVCs (Gereffi, 2006;Neilson and Pritchard, 2009;Smith, 2015;Horner, 2017;Mayer, Phillips and Posthuma, 2017). Social governance relates to the ability of civil society organizations, including trade unions, NGOs, social movements and multi-stakeholder initiatives, to influence social norms, policies, business practices, institutions and markets at national or international levels.…”

Labor Regimes, Global Production Networks, and European Union Trade Policy: Labor Standards and Export Production in the Moldovan Clothing Industry

“…Attention has also been paid to deepening exploitation (Starosta 2016) and insecurity (Smith 2015c) that such enrollment brings, and conceptually to bringing together labor process theory and GPN research around workplace struggles over surplus value Taylor et al 2015;Baglioni 2017). On the other hand, research has explored how GPNs are articulated with the state and how state policy and trade regulation seeks to establish new geographic frontiers for capital accumulation (Glassman 2011;Smith 2015a; see also Horner 2017). Together, this work has its parallels with Levy's (2008, 944) "understanding of GPNs as integrated economic political systems" (see also Arnold and Hess 2017).…”