Global Commodity/Value Chains by Jennifer Bair
Journal of Agrarian Change, 2019
This paper analyses the rise and fall of two regional monocul-tures in Mexico: the henequen zone ... more This paper analyses the rise and fall of two regional monocul-tures in Mexico: the henequen zone in the southern state of Yucatán and the cotton-growing area of La Laguna. Both regions experienced a dramatic expansion of commodity production between 1870 and 1910, but their key crops came to be cultivated under different labour regimes: debt peonage in the case of henequen and wage labour in the case of cotton. The process of class formation that unfolded in each region culminated in the 1930s in different kinds of cri-ses. In Yucatán, a political struggle between hacienda owners and the federal government resulted in an agrarian reform "from above." In La Laguna, class conflict between rural wageworkers and the landed bourgeoisie forced an agrarian reform "from below." These previously distinct labour regimes converged in subsequent decades, however, as rural producers became de facto wageworkers on state-organized and state-administered production units known as collective ejidos. Ultimately, changes in the global markets for cotton and henequen, combined with the inability of the Mexican state to reconcile the political logic of agrarian clientelism with shifting commodity chain dynamics, resulted in the collapse of these regional monocultures in the late 20th century.
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ILO Conditions of Work and Employment Series Working Paper No. 105, 2019
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Widespread disappointment with compliance auditing in supply chains has led to a search for new g... more Widespread disappointment with compliance auditing in supply chains has led to a search for new governance solutions in global industries. Recent scholarship on labour standards in supply chains emphasises the need for complementarity between public and private forms of governance, and the importance of local contexts in shaping compliance outcomes. This paper, in contrast, argues that the distinction between public and private governance belies the complex interaction of regulatory forms and industry dynamics in global production networks. It develops this argument via an analysis of the International Labour Organisation Better Work programme, which, over the last decade, has metamorphosed from a country-specific monitoring programme into a unique model of hybrid governance that has been implemented in a half dozen countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Drawing from field research conducted on Nicaragua’s Better Work programme, it examines the achievements and limitations of hybrid governance, and proposes that these can best be understood when the global value chain for apparel is seen as a transnational field within which relational struggles between different stakeholders at the global and national levels shape the political contexts within which particular governance solutions are pursued.
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Over the last decade, the global value chain (GVC) approach, with its associated notions of chain... more Over the last decade, the global value chain (GVC) approach, with its associated notions of chain governance and firm upgrading, has proliferated as a mode of analysis and of intervention amongst development institutions. This
article examines the adoption and adaptation of GVCs at four multilateral agencies in order to understand the purchase of value chain approaches within the development field.Mixing GVC perspectives with other theoretical influences and applied practices, these institutions deploy value chain frameworks
to signal a new generation of policies that promise both to consolidate, and to advance beyond, the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus.
To achieve this, value chain development frameworks craft interventions directed toward various constellations of firm and non-firm actors as a ‘third way’ between state-minimalist and state-coordinated approaches. The authors identify key adaptations of the GVC framework including an emphasis
on value chain governance as an instrument to correct market failure in partnership with state and development agencies, and upgrading as a de facto tool for poverty reduction. They find that efforts are ongoing to construct a ‘post’ to the Washington Consensus and that the global value chain is enabling this process by providing a new language and new object of development intervention: ‘the chain’ and the local–global linkages that comprise it.
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Most scholars attribute the development and ubiquity of global value chains to economic forces, t... more Most scholars attribute the development and ubiquity of global value chains to economic forces, treating law as an exogenous factor, if at all. By contrast, we assert the centrality of legal regimes and private ordering mechanisms to the creation, structure, geography, distributive effects and governance of Global Value Chains (GVCs), and thereby seek to establish the study of law and GVCs as rich and important terrain for research in its own right.
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... & Swedberg, 1994; Granovetter & Swedberg, 2001), the term &#x... more ... & Swedberg, 1994; Granovetter & Swedberg, 2001), the term 'new economic sociology' was introduced into the sociological lexicon the same ... of respectful distance from economics, there was a second and more proximate target in his sights: the new institutional economics. ...
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Economy and Society, 2008
... Ponte , S. 2007 . Governance in the global value chain for South African wine . TRALAC Workin... more ... Ponte , S. 2007 . Governance in the global value chain for South African wine . TRALAC Working Paper 2007/9 , Stellenbosch, , South Africa : Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa . ... Ponte , S. 2007 . Governance in the global value chain for South African wine . ...
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This article is the editor's introduction to a special issue of the Journal of World-Systems ... more This article is the editor's introduction to a special issue of the Journal of World-Systems Research on "The Political Economy of Commodity Chains."
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Most scholars attribute the development and ubiquity of global value chains to economic forces, t... more Most scholars attribute the development and ubiquity of global value chains to economic forces, treating law as an exogenous factor, if at all. By contrast, we assert the centrality of legal regimes and private ordering mechanisms to the creation, structure, geography, distributive effects and governance of Global Value Chains (GVCs), and thereby seek to establish the study of law and GVCs as rich and important terrain for research in its own right. Across a growing number of sectors and industries, value production is not just transnational in scope; it is organised and coordinated via global networks that link activities across as well as within firms and nations. These networks are increasingly referred to as 'Global Value Chains', or GVCs. The asserted causes of this phenomenon are multiple, and scholars debate which deserves designation as primary. 1 We
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The inclusion of labor rights clauses in trade agreements, measures to improve domestic labor law... more The inclusion of labor rights clauses in trade agreements, measures to improve domestic labor laws and enforcement, and the ubiquitous use of codes of conduct and factory monitoring have all failed to eradicate sweatshops. We argue that this is because efforts to increase labor compliance tend to focus on the practices of suppliers and the countries in which they reside while ignoring the larger supply chain dynamics affecting apparel producers. Our argument is that any initiative to rein in sweatshop conditions in clothing factories worldwide must recognize that the buyer-driven dynamic of the apparel industry results in systematic cost pressures that are conducive to violations of workers’ rights. We first develop this argument by exploring the relationship between the price lead firms pay for imported apparel and respect for global workers’ rights in today’s top apparel-exporting countries. We then turn our attention to a historical analysis of how the sourcing dynamics and the pricing practices of lead firms, and the unequal bargaining relations between buyers and suppliers that underlie them, were addressed in the United States by a system of “jobbers agreements” throughout much of the twentieth century. Jobbers agreements, which were the driving force behind a dramatic improvement in wages and working conditions for domestic garment workers, constrained buyer power in three key ways: 1) by insuring that lead firms paid the contractors a fair price; 2) by stabilizing and regulating subcontracting relationships; and 3) by providing protection for workers by making lead firms directly liable for some labor costs. We conclude by asking how these same principles might be applied in the context of today’s global supply chains for apparel products.
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Most scholars attribute the development and ubiquity of global value chains to economic forces, t... more Most scholars attribute the development and ubiquity of global value chains to economic forces, treating law as an exogenous factor, if at all. By contrast, we assert the centrality of legal regimes and private ordering mechanisms to the creation, structure, geography, distributive effects and governance of Global Value Chains (GVCs), and thereby seek to establish the study of law and GVCs as rich and important terrain for research in its own right. Across a growing number of sectors and industries, value production is not just transnational in scope; it is organised and coordinated via global networks that link activities across as well as within firms and nations. These networks are increasingly referred to as 'Global Value Chains', or GVCs. The asserted causes of this phenomenon are multiple, and scholars debate which deserves designation as primary. 1 We
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Globalization and Development by Jennifer Bair
Journal of Agrarian Change, 2019
Scholars of agrarian change have long debated the nature of capitalist transition in the countrys... more Scholars of agrarian change have long debated the nature of capitalist transition in the countryside, including whether the deepened interlinking of local, national, and transna-tional economic activities make past trajectories of agrarian transformation unlikely to reoccur in the present. This essay makes the case that Giovanni Arrighi's work has much to add to our understanding of the agrarian question in global historical perspective. We focus in particular on Arrighi's research on trajectories of change in the Calabrian region of southern Italy, and his essay "Capitalist Development in Hostile Environments." In this piece, Arrighi and co-author Fortunata Piselli develop two key insights. The first is that the pathways to capitalism are diverse, non-linear, and historically contingent such that within one country-or, in the case of Italy, a single subnational region-multiple tra-jectories can be found. The second is that the outcomes of capitalist transition vary based on a country's position in the international hierarchy of wealth, meaning that agrarian transformation is compatible with both economic development and underdevelopment. We describe the three methodological principles that enabled Arrighi to develop his analysis of capitalist transition and explain how the papers collected in this special issue reflect and extend the Arrighian approach to agrarian political economy.
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This article is both a review of, and an intervention in, the literature on gender and the global... more This article is both a review of, and an intervention in, the literature on gender and the globalization of production. Via a discussion of six key texts analyzing export-oriented manufacturing, ranging from Maria Mies's Lace Makers of Narsapur to Melissa Wright's Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism, I show that, over time, the focus has shifted from an emphasis on the feminization of manufacturing as a defining feature of globalization to an appreciation of the diverse and contingent ways in which gender matters for offshore production. While this recent scholarship highlights variability in gendered labor regimes at the global-local nexus, I argue that it is also critically important to ask what is similar about the many locations on the global assembly line that have been studied. Specifically, we must look to how gender, as a set of context-specific meanings and practices, works within the macrostructure of the global economy and its systemic logic of capital accumulation. In other words, while capitalism does not determine the concrete modalities of gender that exist in a given locale, it is essential for explaining the gendered dimension of transnational production as a patterned regularity of contemporary globalization.
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Globalizations, 2007
During the 1970s, the United Nations was the central front in the G-77&am... more During the 1970s, the United Nations was the central front in the G-77's struggle to realize a ‘New International Economic Order’ (NIEO). A key plank in the NIEO platform was the regulation of multinational corporations; this objective was pursued via a draft Code of Conduct on Transnational Enterprises, formulated by a UN Commission created largely for that purpose. Although the
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Global Commodity/Value Chains by Jennifer Bair
article examines the adoption and adaptation of GVCs at four multilateral agencies in order to understand the purchase of value chain approaches within the development field.Mixing GVC perspectives with other theoretical influences and applied practices, these institutions deploy value chain frameworks
to signal a new generation of policies that promise both to consolidate, and to advance beyond, the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus.
To achieve this, value chain development frameworks craft interventions directed toward various constellations of firm and non-firm actors as a ‘third way’ between state-minimalist and state-coordinated approaches. The authors identify key adaptations of the GVC framework including an emphasis
on value chain governance as an instrument to correct market failure in partnership with state and development agencies, and upgrading as a de facto tool for poverty reduction. They find that efforts are ongoing to construct a ‘post’ to the Washington Consensus and that the global value chain is enabling this process by providing a new language and new object of development intervention: ‘the chain’ and the local–global linkages that comprise it.
Globalization and Development by Jennifer Bair
article examines the adoption and adaptation of GVCs at four multilateral agencies in order to understand the purchase of value chain approaches within the development field.Mixing GVC perspectives with other theoretical influences and applied practices, these institutions deploy value chain frameworks
to signal a new generation of policies that promise both to consolidate, and to advance beyond, the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus.
To achieve this, value chain development frameworks craft interventions directed toward various constellations of firm and non-firm actors as a ‘third way’ between state-minimalist and state-coordinated approaches. The authors identify key adaptations of the GVC framework including an emphasis
on value chain governance as an instrument to correct market failure in partnership with state and development agencies, and upgrading as a de facto tool for poverty reduction. They find that efforts are ongoing to construct a ‘post’ to the Washington Consensus and that the global value chain is enabling this process by providing a new language and new object of development intervention: ‘the chain’ and the local–global linkages that comprise it.
has quadrupled in size. While many J-1 visa holders are in the U.S. to
study or conduct research, the primary activity of SWT participants is
low-wage labor. We analyze the trajectory of the SWT program since
its origins in the Fulbright-Hays Act, underscoring both change and
continuity in the practical and discursive handling of what are, in
effect, guestworkers. Our analysis reveals both longstanding concerns
about the SWT program’s risks to foreign and domestic workers, as
well as repeated efforts by U.S. government officials and private
sector stakeholders to justify its status as cultural exchange rather
than temporary work. Yet despite these concerns, over the last two
decades, the SWT program has become larger and less regulated.
We explore these changes in the context of two contending forces
shaping the labor market: on the demand side, a transformation in
the organization of work towards ‘fissured’ workplaces and contingent
employment, and, on the supply side, limited access to foreign labor
due to political gridlock over comprehensive immigration reform.
We conclude that the SWT program both reflects broader trends in
managed migration and embodies the model of flexible migrant labor
many employers now demand.
hinder economic growth if countries do not diversify before temporary provisions expire. This article evaluates the impact of the temporary Tariff Preference Levels (TPLs) granted
to Nicaragua under CAFTA and the consequences of TPL expiration. Using trade statistics, country- and firm-level data from Nicaragua’s National Free Zones Commission (CNZF)
and data from field research, we estimate Nicaragua’s apparel sector will contract as much as 30–40% after TPLs expire. Our analysis underscores how rules of origin and firm nationality
affect where and how companies do business, and in so doing, often constrain sustainable export growth.