Upgrading,uneven development,and jobs in the North American apparel industry

In this article we examine the developmental consequences of globalization at multiple scales, using a commodity chains framework to investigate the case of the North American apparel industry. In the first section we outline the apparel commodity chain and offer a brief typology of its lead firms. In the second section we discuss the concept of industrial upgrading and describe several main export roles in the global apparel industry. In the third section we focus on the regional dynamics resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We contrast the Mexican experience with that of countries in the Caribbean Basin to show the impact of distinct trade policies on export‐oriented development. We argue that NAFTA is creating upgrading opportunities for some Mexican firms to move from the low value‐added export‐oriented assembly (or maquila) model to full‐package production. In the fourth section we explore the unevenness of upgrading dynamics through a comparison of two blue jeans manufacturing clusters in the United States and Mexico: El Paso and Torreon. Our conclusions about upgrading and uneven development in the North American apparel industry emphasize the importance of local, national and regional institutional contexts in shaping inter‐firm networks and their development impact.     

Understanding 2016: China,Brexit and Trump in the history of uneven and combined development

This article uses the theory of uneven and combined development (U&CD) to produce a novel explanation of ‘Brexit and Trump’ – the two shock political events of 2016. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, we identify the global conjuncture of historical unevenness in which the votes occurred: how the neoliberal transformation of the advanced capitalist countries was synchronized with the radically different process of primitive accumulation in China. Second, we apply the theory of U&CD to this peculiar ‘simultaneity of the non‐simultaneous’: the ‘big country’ effects of China's industrialization, we find, were thrice multiplied by its combination with the advanced sectors of the world economy, which accelerated China's take‐off, brought forward its export phase, and widened its export profile at a moment of maximum openness in international trade. Finally, this produced the pattern of development that led to the events of 2016: the resultant trade shocks intensified the internal inequalities of British and American societies in ways that match the geography of the Leave and Trump votes. The analysis has a wider intellectual implication too, for the phenomena of historical unevenness and combination are intrinsic to the history of the global political economy; and the theory of U&CD therefore has a unique contribution to make to the field of International Political Economy.     

Beyond cheap labour: trade unions and development in the Turkish metal industry

The ability of developing countries to export to more developed parts of the world is often associated with cheap labour. But such very obvious economic advantage is not always the end of the story. A fuller account needs to consider the wider institutional context. In some instances trade unionism can be an important part of this. This paper addresses trade unionism with specific reference to workers employed in large firms in Turkey that are significant exporters of consumer goods to the European market. The union examined is the largest union in the metal industry, an industry that is a driving force in the Turkish economy, and a major centre of trade unionism with over half a million of Turkey's three million trade unionists. The particular ‐ autocratic ‐ character of this union is critically examined and located with reference to wider forces of political economy and the specific constraints and difficulties to which its members are subject. Finally, the significance of this sort of trade unionism for economic ‐ and socio‐political ‐ development is discussed.     

Structural funds the challenge for sustainable development and regional disparity in the Slovak Republic

The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have undergone unprecedented political and economic changes since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The EU responded by providing political and financial support for the difficult transformation of these countries and refocused its policies towards the strategy of preparing associate countries for membership. This strategy, commonly known as the ‘pre‐accession strategy’, has three main instruments: European Agreements, structured dialogue and the PHARE programme. After a short delay in the negotiation process caused by political instability, the Slovak Republic has been offered membership in the EU, together with nine other candidates, in May 2004.

The transition process from a command‐and‐control economy to a market economy and a democratic society addressed the issue of the numerous differences in the regions in the Slovak Republic. The high disparity in economic development and low competitiveness of the regions with a resultant dramatic rise in unemployment in a number of ‘low‐income regions’ are some of the major observations. Rather than a result of its rural character alone, the main reason for regional disparity in the Slovak Republic is the deformation of historical relationships in rural areas as a result of industrialization and the intensification of agriculture in the command‐and‐control economy of the past. This led to a distortion of traditional farming habits as well as environmental damage to agricultural land and forests. In addition, the environmental infrastructure (sewerage, water treatment, etc.) is underdeveloped in these regions. Environmental protection and its infrastructure thus play a significant role in the regional disparity of the Slovak Republic and the approximation of the Slovak Republic in the environmental sector can provide double dividends for these low‐income regions. This paper analyses the above‐mentioned regional disparities and tries to identify reasons and measures particularly regarding sustainable development. It also discusses the pre‐accession period failures and successes that can be taken as a learning experience in regard to the financial opportunities of Structural Funds that will emerge upon entering the European Community in May 2004. The paper contains information available prior to February 2003.     

Policy Coherence for Sustainable Agricultural Development: Uncovering Prospects and Pretence within the Swedish Policy for Global Development

Within the European Union, promotion of ‘policy coherence’ is intended to improve co‐ordination across sectors and groups of professionals, who make competing claims for agricultural development in low‐income countries. This article examines the prospects for stakeholders in Sweden to implement such a policy, drawing on experiences from the launch of a national multi‐stakeholder platform with the participation of 99 organisations. Its findings demonstrate institutional fragmentation and struggles for legitimacy, with the internationally heralded Swedish Policy for Global Development operated largely as a tokenistic instrument, legitimised by the pretence of stakeholder engagement. It argues for improved institutional support to facilitate cross‐sectoral dialogues to deconstruct social boundaries which are no longer relevant.     

Economywide Impact of Maize Export Bans on Agricultural Growth and Household Welfare in Tanzania: A Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Model Analysis

Export bans have been frequently used by developing countries in recent years in an attempt to ensure domestic food supplies and insulate domestic market prices from international price hikes. This article uses Tanzania to examine the impact of export bans using a computable general equilibrium model. We find that banning cross‐border maize exports has very little effect on the national food price index and that the benefits from lower maize prices are captured primarily by urban households, while maize producer prices decrease significantly. The export ban further decreases the wage rate for low‐skilled labour and the returns to land, while returns to non‐agricultural capital and wage rates for skilled labour increase, further hurting poor rural households and thus increasing poverty for the country as a whole.     

Supporting the Posts in Development Discourse: Under‐development,Over‐development,Post‐development

This article seeks to introduce scholars outside of development studies to post‐development thought, and to restate its relevance and value to those working within the development field. It begins with an overview of post‐development thought and its critique of the post‐World War Two development project. Following this, specific critiques levelled at post‐development thought and various responses to these are considered. In the last section, the possibility or desirability of raising the living standards of Third World people to a level comparable to those of the First World through economically based development strategies is questioned. The article concludes by drawing attention to First World overdevelopment and the continued value of post‐development thinking in unsettling the development trajectory for either the First or Third World.     

Modern Food Supply Chains and Development: Evidence from Horticulture Export Sectors in Sub‐Saharan Africa

The global food system is undergoing rapid processes of transformation and modernisation. This is causing important changes in developing‐country food supply chains, particularly in supermarket‐driven and high‐value export chains, but the welfare implications of these changes are poorly understood. This article analyses and compares the welfare effects in different horticulture export chains in sub‐Saharan Africa, disentangling different types of effects and the channels through which rural households are affected. Its main conclusion is that increased high‐value exports and the modernisation of export supply chains can bring about important positive welfare effects, which can occur in various ways through product‐ or labour‐market effects and through direct and indirect effects.     

Emigration and development: the case of a Bangladeshi village

This article examines the developmental consequences of international labour migration in a Bangladeshi village. The data are from Hoglakandi, a village 30 kilometres south-east of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire with both open-ended and closed category questions was used among 50 Singapore returnees, supplemented with additional in-depth interviews. International labour migration has often been seen by many sending countries as a short cut to development because of its role in unemployment relief, balance of payments relief, and capital formation at national level. The study argues that the causes and effects of emigration can better be understood only when the process is placed within its local context, since what may prove to be advantageous at the national level may prove to be detrimental to a household or community or vice-versa. It demonstrates how the contribution of labour migration is merely the transformation of labour into a structural component of the international political economy. The Hoglakandi experience reveals that labour migration does not fuel the local economy from an external pipeline of remittances and skill acquisition, rather it drains local resources that retard the development.     

Rethinking development theory: Insights from East Asia and Latin America

Development theory dealing with the highly industrialized countries of East Asia and Latin America has foundered in terms of its ability to generalize. The theories and concepts often are biased because they are derived from a selective and uneven reading of evidence from the two regions. This paper outlines the perceptions and misconceptions of a variety of theoretical perspectives on development, and then presents cross-regional evidence from East Asia and Latin America that suggests the need for a reformulation and synthesis of some of these earlier approaches. This theoretical synthesis focuses on three related themes: (1) the declining significance of industrialization; (2) the position of core and peripheral capital in commodity chains and export/marketing networks, which are becoming key units of analysis in the contemporary global manufacturing system; and (3) a new framework for differentiating the roles of the newly industrializing countries in the world economy.     

Domestic Credit and Diversification of Manufactured Exports from Developing Countries

This article uses panel data to analyse the effect of domestic credit on the diversification of manufactured exports from developing countries. Given the evidence that export variety of manufactured goods affects productivity positively, the results imply that policy reforms that improve access to domestic credit for firms can raise productivity and hence economic growth in many poor countries. In addition, the results also show that building infrastructure and implementing reforms in governance that improve the quality of government regulations are important for encouraging diversification of manufactured export products in developing countries.     

Objective and subjective conditions for the continuity of the Peruvian extractive development model

ABSTRACT

The Peruvian economy depends for its growth on the export of its mineral resources. The core of the current economic development model is the export of the country's commodities and a free and (relatively) unregulated functioning of the markets. We argue that the continuity of the country's extractive development model is the consequence of the interplay between the objective and subjective conditions of Peruvian capitalist development. The analysis of the objective conditions is focused on the role of the country in the international division of labour, the relation between this role and the country’s economic and business structure, and the functionality of the extractive development model for the Peruvian State. In the case of the subjective conditions, the strength of the political Left, the labour movement and the social movements against mining capital are analyzed     

共建“丝绸之路经济带”的机遇及中国中东战略

共同建设“丝绸之路经济带”和“21世纪海上丝绸之路”不仅是中国经济进一步发展的客观需要,是深化改革开放特别是向西开放的国家战略,也是亚欧国家特别是中东国家的重大历史发展机遇。中国经济获得了举世瞩目的发展,而中东国家经济却在动荡与战乱中艰难前行。从全球经济来看,中国经济和中东国家经济处在不同的历史发展阶段,这种差异恰恰反映出经济合作中的互补性,双方应该把握历史机遇、利用互补优势、实现双赢的合作。明确中东在中国外交中的地位,中国对中东战略应该把握好拓展国际政治空间、加强国家安全、扩大经贸合作、注重提升软实力等四个发力点。     

Expanding and Diversifying South Mediterranean Exports through Trade Facilitation

This article explores whether trade facilitation – i.e. improved and simplified trade procedures – could be an important part of the reform agenda of the Barcelona Process. Adopting a Southern perspective by focusing on exports to the European Union (EU) from non‐EU Mediterranean countries, it tests whether the efficiency of trade procedures affects (i) bilateral volumes of exports and (ii) the number of products exported. The findings suggest that trade facilitation could lead to substantially increased export volumes and export diversification.     

Releasing the development potential of return migration: the case of Senegal

Migration has long been a permanent part of Senegal's history. Indeed, as a land of migrants and immigrants, Senegal has always been an important pole of West African immigration because of its colonial heritage, political stability and economic growth which, until the mid-seventies, had been relatively good.
Nonetheless, events of the past few decades have induced changes in migration. Continuing desertification, globalization of the economy and accelerated pauperization have intensified the human exodus. The emergence of world markets has stimulated demand for both cheap and highly skilled labour. In general, Senegalese who left the country did so in search of work. These migrations have not been limited to a South-North direction but also, and increasingly, to a South-South one. France, Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon have long been countries of call for Senegalese workers.
This article seeks to evaluate the manner in which Senegal has undertaken to develop the potential of its returning migrants, to better assess the effects of the return and reinsertion of these migrants within the present context of restrictions on the flow of migrants.
The first section presents the profile of Senegalese migrants and then evaluates what may be described as the "French-Senegalese" experience. The latter offers an example of concerted efforts to ensure the reintegration and participation of returning migrants in the economic development of their country of origin.
The second section reviews Senegal's official policies for the protection and promotion of Senegalese living abroad and assesses the Programme of Support to Migrant Workers.
The third section presents recommendations for actions which could accompany migrants returning to their countries of origin and facilitate their reinsertion in the current economic and social environment.     

The Chinese in Spain

During the past 15 years, the Chinese migrant community in Spain has grown significantly. Originally a small and dispersed population, it now ranks fourth among the migrant groups from non‐European Union (EU) countries. Its increasing presence in daily urban life is evident everywhere. Even though the Chinese community has a long history of settlement in Spain, the Spanish population still considers the Chinese as a closed and somewhat mysterious community. References to exaggerated stereotypes and prejudices regarding their activities and social organization can often be overheard in daily conversations. However, China, usually considered exotic and remote, has recently assumed greater importance in Spain's foreign policy. Thus, the Spanish Government has drawn up the Asia‐Pacific Framework Plan for 2000–2002 as part of its international policy considerations, thereby extending its interests to include areas well beyond its traditional foreign policy focus on Latin America. The Government's objectives are to expand its economic relations with Asia, to enhance trade and tourism with the area, expand the development cooperation with China, the Philippines, and Viet Nam — countries defined as top priorities for the Spanish Government — and to reinforce linguistic and cultural ties with these countries (Bejarano, 2002). In support of the Asia‐Pacific Framework Plan, the Casa Asia (House of Asia) was established in Barcelona in 2002, an institution created to organize academic and artistic activities in order to promote the knowledge of the region among Spaniards, and to foster political, economic, and cultural relations with Asia. The Government intends to pursue two important objectives related to the increasing commitments it is seeking to establish with China, and which are also of relevance to the overseas Chinese as the principal social actors involved. First, the strengthening of commercial exchanges with the People's Republic of China (PRC) are likely to benefit import‐export activities among the Chinese migrants, and be supported by their knowledge and practical experience of the respective social environments. Second, the dissemination of information on Spain is expected to establish and maintain stronger links in both directions. In the near future, these initiatives may also be instrumental in increasing the movement of people between China and Spain. Besides these primary objectives, the initiative pursues another important aim — the promotion of the social integration of the Chinese migrant community in the country. This paper addresses these issues, including data sources and their availability on Chinese migrants in Spain, the relevant local legal framework and how it influences the development of the Chinese migrant group, its sociodemographic composition, and migratory patterns. Finally, it addresses the changes in their economic activities.     

Working conditions in the export industry of northern Morocco: Legal framework and situation on the ground

Companies in northern Morocco that export manufactured goods and services run on a production system characterized by high pressure, flexible use of labour, strict supervision and the challenging of certain labour rights. This article studies the conditions of work at these enterprises on the basis of the theoretical model of the “localized global economy”, drawing distinctions based on types of enterprise, industry and occupational categories. The results show how changes to the labour law in 2004, which adopted the standards contained in international conventions, have given more power to multinational enterprises.     

Recent trends in rural development and their conceptualisation

The reversal of rural-urban traditional migration patterns in the last 20 years and the diffusion of non-agricultural activities in rural areas indicate that recent trends in rural development have not followed expected patterns. The paper retraces these recent changes, using as examples the case of France and Italy, two countries with quite different patterns of economic and social development. It follows the characteristics of the real processes under way on the one hand and the conceptualisations and categories used to understand them on the other. The paper concludes that recent trends require a thorough theoretical revision of the traditional assumptions in the social sciences. It suggests that the rural-urban criteria of spatial differentiation is losing significance while the regional or local economy approach provides a more useful framework, to explore the relevant criteria for differentiating rural development.     

改革后的叙利亚多元化经济

1970年叙利亚实施改革开放后，纠正了从前偏激的民族社会主义经济政策，实施了多元化经济发展模式，使国民经济走上了高速发展轨道。但由于叙利亚处于阿以对抗前沿，受到美国等西方国家的制裁，给其经济发展设置了重重障碍，因此其多元化发展模式又面临多种挑战。叙要使其经济能保持持续发展，还须付出更大努力。     

Dichotomy of development aid’s ambition and neoliberal imperatives: A case‐study of private‐sector development in Bangladesh

Development in the twenty‐first century (“neo‐liberalism”) is a tool and its success and sustainability depend on how this tool is applied on a specific grounded reality. This article investigates how this modernization process continually co‐creates globalized Bangladesh through private sector development. While this field report highlights the challenges development aid donors can face in Bangladesh’s post‐colonial culture, it also unveils the dichotomous traction between globalization and inequality as well as the friction poverty reduction, through private sector development, can generate in impoverished countries. Finally, this report attempts to reconsider the ways in which the aid development ambitions of equality and liberty can find a workable balance with the neo‐liberal Imperative for private sector development. This article calls for improving quality control to generate greater impact of development aid resources in developing private sectors.