economic upgrading
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2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristoffer Marslev

Based on a Marxist reworking of the global value chains (GVC) framework, supplemented by insights from structuralist development economics and dependency theory, the thesis investigates what role evolving class relations play in processes of social and economic upgrading in global garment value chains. Situating workers’ agency at the intersection of a horizontal axis (local capital-labor-state relations) and a vertical axis (governance and distributional dynamics of the GVC), the thesis starts out by examining the key features of the 21st century garment GVC and their implications for producer countries. It is shown how a series of interrelated processes, including the transition to neoliberalism in the North, and the phase-out of quotas in the South, combined to produce a “supplier squeeze” in the garment GVC, with a simultaneous depression of export prices and an escalation of non-price requirements. Drawing on the work of the dependentista Marini, it is argued that these distributional dynamics amount to a form of unequal exchange that incentivizes manufacturers to super-exploit workers, pushing their wages below reproduction costs and/or working them beyond exhaustion.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kelle Howson

<p>The rise of ethical certifications was greeted with optimism by scholars, activists and development practitioners, who predicted they would help to redistribute power and profit more equitably in South-North commodity trade, which has long been an engine of wealth extraction and underdevelopment in the resource periphery. The explicit attachment of value to the social and territorial origin of agro-food products would allow marginalised producers to resist corporate governance, race-to-the-bottom processes, and commodity fetishism. This would result in the retention of higher value at the production end of the chain, thereby fostering sustainable development in rural areas in the Global South.  I investigate the extent to which power and profit is indeed redistributed more equitably in these new ‘ethical value networks’, through a case study of the South African wine industry. Complex apparatus of standards-setting, verification and auditing have formed the basis of strategies for post-apartheid transformation, redistribution and development in the South African wine industry, with progress conceptualised as taking place at the level of business. In this context, ethical certification constitutes a contemporary labour relations paradigm which in key ways reproduces ‘colonial unconscious’ discourses derived from the legacies of slavery, apartheid and farm paternalism. These embedded discursive power formations restrict the transformative potential of ethical certification. For ethical development to occur as a result of ethical value network formation, I argue that workers must gain greater agency and regulatory capability in the governance of these networks.  I find also that ethical certification has not been an effective economic upgrading strategy for the South African wine industry. Instead, due to their deployment within oligopolistic networks, ethics have become commodified, and subject to neoliberal governance. Northern retailers have used their existing power to accumulate the value created by alignment with ethical conventions, and to avoid the costs. Ethical certifications compound the severe ‘cost-price squeeze’ faced by wine producers. This case study has broader implications for the theory of ethical value networks: showing that they are relational, geographically contingent, and remain susceptible to asymmetric governance and accumulation patterns.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kelle Howson

<p>The rise of ethical certifications was greeted with optimism by scholars, activists and development practitioners, who predicted they would help to redistribute power and profit more equitably in South-North commodity trade, which has long been an engine of wealth extraction and underdevelopment in the resource periphery. The explicit attachment of value to the social and territorial origin of agro-food products would allow marginalised producers to resist corporate governance, race-to-the-bottom processes, and commodity fetishism. This would result in the retention of higher value at the production end of the chain, thereby fostering sustainable development in rural areas in the Global South.  I investigate the extent to which power and profit is indeed redistributed more equitably in these new ‘ethical value networks’, through a case study of the South African wine industry. Complex apparatus of standards-setting, verification and auditing have formed the basis of strategies for post-apartheid transformation, redistribution and development in the South African wine industry, with progress conceptualised as taking place at the level of business. In this context, ethical certification constitutes a contemporary labour relations paradigm which in key ways reproduces ‘colonial unconscious’ discourses derived from the legacies of slavery, apartheid and farm paternalism. These embedded discursive power formations restrict the transformative potential of ethical certification. For ethical development to occur as a result of ethical value network formation, I argue that workers must gain greater agency and regulatory capability in the governance of these networks.  I find also that ethical certification has not been an effective economic upgrading strategy for the South African wine industry. Instead, due to their deployment within oligopolistic networks, ethics have become commodified, and subject to neoliberal governance. Northern retailers have used their existing power to accumulate the value created by alignment with ethical conventions, and to avoid the costs. Ethical certifications compound the severe ‘cost-price squeeze’ faced by wine producers. This case study has broader implications for the theory of ethical value networks: showing that they are relational, geographically contingent, and remain susceptible to asymmetric governance and accumulation patterns.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 146 ◽  
pp. 105598
Author(s):  
Giovanni Pasquali ◽  
Aarti Krishnan ◽  
Matthew Alford

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Alex M Mashilo ◽  
Edward Webster

Abstract The introduction of the concept of social upgrading was a welcome development in the study of Global Production Networks (gpn s). We argue that although social upgrading is primarily a result of labour agency rather than automatically trickling down from economic upgrading, without economic upgrading social upgrading will not be sustainable. We show how it was through the use of their structural power, the development of associational power through building a national industrial union, the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa, and institutional and societal power, that workers realised social upgrading improvements in the automobile industry in South Africa. The rights consolidated in legislation and the institutions established were the result of workers using their power in strategic ways. We argue for an alternative approach to social upgrading that foregrounds workers power as a crucial determinant of social upgrading. This, we conclude, will require a labour-led development path.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Ismail Doga Karatepe ◽  
Christoph Scherrer

Abstract This article presents findings from field studies of smallholders and farmworkers producing coffee, mangoes, and rice in several countries in the global South. It is one of the few comparative studies of the constraints and opportunities for social upgrading in global agricultural value chains (gvcs). We argue that the ease with which new suppliers can be found gives highly concentrated global wholesalers and retailers enormous leverage over smallholders. As a result, opportunities for social upgrading tend to be limited. Even in successful cases, it is accompanied by fewer employment opportunities. Cooperatives, which enjoy government support and enforced labor laws, are an exception. The article begins with a discussion of problems in measuring the impact of gvc participation and a theoretical explanation of why economic upgrading is not sufficient to ensure social upgrading. Special attention is given to the role of the state in promoting social upgrading.


Author(s):  
Valentina De Marchi ◽  
Matthew Alford

AbstractThis paper examines the role of state policymaking in a context of global value chains (GVCs). While the literature acknowledges that states matter in GVCs, there is little understanding of how they matter from a policy perspective. We address this tension between theory and practice by first delineating the state’s facilitator, regulator, producer and buyer roles. We then explore the extent to which corresponding state policies enable or constrain the following policy objectives: GVC participation; value capture; and social and environmental upgrading. We do so via a systematic review of academic GVC literature, combined with analysis of seminal policy publications by International Organizations. Our findings indicate that state policymakers leverage facilitative strategies to achieve GVC participation and enhanced value capture; with regulatory and public procurement mechanisms adopted to address social and environmental goals. Mixed results also emerged, highlighting tensions between policies geared towards economic upgrading on the one hand, and social and environmental upgrading on the other. Finally, we suggest that effective state policies require a multi-scalar appreciation of GVC dynamics, working with multiple and sometimes competing stakeholders to achieve their developmental objectives.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sourish Dutta

Purpose of this background note is to present some relevant research issues about India’s GVC, such as degree of India’s GVC linkages, by sector, by industry (preliminary analysis by GVC measures as well as in-depth econometric analysis), consequences of GVCs for economic prosperity i.e. industrial or economic upgrading (including trade-oriented upgrading and adaptation), the impact of GVCs on social upgrading, such as reflection on labour market dynamics (because social upgrading is not immediately associated with industrial or economics upgrading).


Heliyon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. e06112
Author(s):  
Barnabas Olusegun Obasaju ◽  
Wumi Kolawole Olayiwola ◽  
Henry Okodua ◽  
Oluwasogo Sunday Adediran ◽  
Adedoyin Isola Lawal

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