When do value chains go global? A theory of the spatialization of global value chains

In this article, I synthesize and extend the theoretical literature on global commodity chain (GCC) and global value chain (GVC) governance to generate a theory of the ‘globalness’ of value chains and the spatialization of value chain linkages. Drawing from the original GCC dichotomy of buyer/producer‐driven commodity chains, I emphasize the height of entry barriers to manufacturing and supplier capability differentials across the North–South divide as determinants of the amount and geographic extent of global offshoring behaviour. Using a novel empirical approach to the measurement of global offshoring behaviour at the global industry level, the article shows that the original GCC governance scheme successfully predicts the levels, rates and timing of global production fragmentation across three networked industries. Combining the original GCC governance scheme with the more recent GVC governance types, the theory leads to predictions about the specific types of GVC linkages that might occur given the drivenness of a chain and the geographical location of lead firms and their suppliers. I conclude by drawing out the theory's implications for our understanding of the link between value chain formation and economic development in the global South and suggesting areas for future research.     

Agroenvironmental conflict and world food system theory: Sugarcane in the Everglades Agricultural Area

This paper presents a critique of the conceptualization of conflict over land-extensive rural production systems as presented by world food systems theorists. Two problems are identified. The first is historical; specifically, that the periodization of food regimes occludes Caribbean development and plantation agriculture, thereby missing the historical development of the social relations of certain commodity sectors. The second is geographical: that agroenvironmental conflict and sustainability are conceptualized either in terms of local/global (Friedmann, 1990, 1991) or in terms of North/South (Goodman and Redclift, 1991). The paper begins with a summary of the relevant arguments of world food theorists and then turns to the historical example of sugar production to examine its role in industrialization. The following section discusses arguments concerning agroenvironmental conflict that have emerged from food system theory, which emphasize contrasting ‘geographical’ components, either local/global or North/South. The limitations of this analysis are discussed with respect to the case of agroenvironmental conflict in Florida. Finally, a case study of the development of the Florida sugarcane industry is presented to illustrate a ‘First World’ environmental conflict over an agroindustrial production complex that cannot be categorized simply as a ‘consumption’ struggle.     

‘Globalisation’, Governance and social work: Some implications for theory and practice

Abstract

This article focuses cautiously on the implications of ‘globalisation’ for social work theory and practice. In drawing on recent debates it is argued that, despite its contested meaning, ‘globalisation’ points to a range of rapid and fundamental socioeconomic and political transformations that have impacted upon entire regions of the work. Some of these transformations are identified and analysed in terms of their consequences for transnational, national and local populations. It is proposed that the prevailing consequences of globalisation in terms of social inequality and allied modalities of governance are negative, and that this has important implications for the profession of social work. Effective strategies for confronting the challenges posed by ‘turbo capitalism’ may be found in alliances across global social movements and professional groups, including social workers. The challenges are profound.     

Forecasting food supply chain developments in lagging rural regions: evidence from the UK

Endemic problems in EU ‘lagging rural regions’ (LRRs) are well documented and various support mechanisms have long been in place to help overcome structural difficulties. Nevertheless, new rural development architectures are now being sought and some scholars have posited that LRRs may benefit from the ‘quality (re)turn’ in food and a relative shift from long to short food supply chains. The ways in which this ‘new agriculture’ relates to rural development in lagging regions sound fine in theory. However, in practice it is far from clear what will actually happen, where and how. This paper attempts to answer some of these questions and, using a Delphi technique, to forecast those factors likely to influence supply chain development and performance in two LRRs in the UK: West Wales and the Scottish–English Borders. The findings suggest that while most experts willingly accept the socio-economic values that can be gained by localising, shortening and synergising the food chain in LRRs, there are also important barriers that question the emergence of such an agrarian based rural development dynamic. These include the small number and size of ‘alternative’ producers in both locales, with most still locked into industrial forms of production; the restrictive influence of bureaucracy; the shortfall of key intermediaries in both regions’ food chains; and the poor provision of key physical infrastructures (e.g. roads, railway and telecommunications). The Delphi method also reveals how expert opinions about rural development in LRRs are contingent and contested, with contradictions emerging within, as well as between, rounds.     

From smiling to smirking? 3D printing,upgrading and the restructuring of global value chains

3D printing (3DP) has been heralded as a revolutionary technology that can alter the way production is organized across time and space – with important redistributive effects on geography and size of production activities. In this article, we examine the impacts that a widespread adoption of 3DP could have on restructuring, upgrading and distributing value added along manufacturing global value chains (GVC) – with brief examples from the aerospace and automotive industries. We highlight two possible scenarios for GVCs – a complementarity scenario of 3DP and traditional manufacturing overlapping, which would reproduce power relations in GVCs and the current distribution of value added in a ‘smiling curve’; and a substitution scenario of 3DP partly or fully superseding traditional manufacturing, which would have more transformational effects in terms of ‘rebundling’ activities, regionalizing or localizing GVCs, and flattening the smiling curve into a ‘smirk’.     

The second wave of globalisation and agrarian change in the Pacific Islands

The global agro-food complex is penetrating the most ‘isolated’ and ‘peripheral’ localities of the world. In the Pacific Islands, a second wave of globalisation is pulling a number of small island nations into the increasingly globalised neoliberal agricultural sector. Conscious of the under-analysis of globalisation in Southern agriculture in general, this article has three broad aims. Firstly, it contextualises and traces the evolution of the second wave of globalisation, compares it to the first, and discusses its impacts on the agricultural sector of the Pacific Islands. Secondly, it explores the local socio-economic and environmental impacts of the second wave through two primary research-based case studies in Tonga and Niue. Finally, it calls for a concerted critical research effort designed to uncover the workings of neoliberal agricultural globalisation in the region and suggests means of resisting its worst implications.     

On the trail of the global green bean: methodological considerations in multi‐site ethnography

The need to demystify and ‘ground’ globalization has spurred many calls for multi‐site fieldwork. This article discusses how such fieldwork was used to examine the contemporary restructuring of fresh food commodity chains between Africa and Europe, at a time of increasing European concerns about food safety and quality. Drawing on convention theory and actor‐network theory for conceptual guidance, qualitative fieldwork was conducted at sites of production, import and export in ‘anglophone’ (Zambia–London) and ‘francophone’ (Burkina Faso–Paris) commodity chains. The article also discusses the challenges posed by multi‐site research, especially in realms where secrecy and deception are standard tools of the trade.     

‘It’s all bollocks!’ and other critical standpoints on the UK Government’s vision of global citizenship

The UK Government’s International Citizen Service (ICS) sends volunteers abroad to ‘fight global poverty’ as ‘global citizens’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the construction of development on the ICS programme forecloses important political and historical contexts, resulting in a model of global citizenship we might term ‘soft’. This article presents data from interviews with ICS volunteers with a specific methodological concern of recognizing the agency of young people and allowing their responses to lead discussion. The outcome is a range of themes across the data that critique the Government’s model of citizenship and, I argue, shows the volunteers to be ‘critical’ global citizens. I then ask whether we can consider this a mode of resistance. I conclude with a final data set that – the case is made – presents an imperative to allow these volunteers to have their perspectives on historical and contemporary North–South relations recognized as a critical mode of global citizenship.     

Reclaiming civil society: the future of global social work?

The topic of global social work has become a controversial one in the European Journal of Social Work, as the March 2004 edition acknowledges in an editorial statement. This statement was prompted by a pungent critique from Stephen Webb, in an earlier edition of the journal. Webb (2003), p. 191) dismissed the topic as being of marginal interest: ‘?… social work has at best a minimal role to play with any global social order, should such an order exist’, adding that ‘a global or transnational social work is little more than a vanity’. Lest the reader should still harbour doubts, Webb (2003), p. 196) added with powerful political import: ‘these writers on globalisation and social work posit what is tantamount to ethical welfare imperialism’. Strong words! We beg to differ and offer an alternative vision of the relationship between globalisation and social work that connects it to the vital democratic force of civil society.     

Pets and protein:: placing domestic livestock on hobby-farms in England and Wales

The place of animals in human geography is currently the subject of considerable discussion, focusing on the spatial variation of human–animal relations, and on the ways in which categories such as ‘human’, ‘animal’, ‘wild’ and ‘domestic’ are produced. In this paper I begin to consider some of the ethical dimensions of human–animal relations in livestock farming, using the notion of ‘situated morality’ (Lynn, Ethics Place Environ. 1 (1998b) 223–242) to examine hobby-farming as a particular set of social and agricultural practices in which farm animals are encountered as simultaneously ‘friends’ and sources of food. The paper considers how the socially constructed categories of ‘livestock’ and ‘pet’ become blurred in this marginal form of agricultural production. The paper draws on evidence from field research with hobby-farmers in England and Wales, and on textual material, to demonstrate the ethical ambiguity of human–animal relations on hobby-farms. The paper shows how such relations are associated with specific discourses, practices and places, and demonstrates the importance of spatiality and embodiment in understanding situated moralities.     

Globalisation and local experience: encounters with difference in a UK school

This paper explores issues of identity, difference and globalisation in the micropolitical context of a UK school. Drawing on ethnographic data and theoretical perspectives from the sociology of education, development and globalisation, the paper takes the communication of the ‘Third World’ in the curriculum as a case study of the ways in which UK schools engage with difference. Thus, the paper goes beyond the traditional focus on ‘race’ and ethnicity, emphasising the importance of distant difference in the context of globalisation. It is suggested that whilst teachers may identify local and global factors as underpinning the need to engender critical engagements with difference, the realisation of this is complex; the communication of the ‘Third World’ in the school is characterised by contradiction, reinforcing as well as unsettling ethnocentrism. To understand this situation, we need to locate these contradictions in terms of the complex interplay of restructuring processes, policy frameworks and the micro‐politics of the school. The paper highlights the impacts of increased assessment and measurement in education alongside policy contradictions around curriculum authority. Teacher empowerment in the articulation of an appropriate curriculum is identified as a priority.     

Antagonistic governance in South African fruit global production networks: a neo‐Gramscian perspective

Governance is a core focus of the global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) literatures. Recent research claims ‘complementary’ or ‘synergistic’ governance, achieved through the confluence of private, public and civil society actors, is required for sustainable social gains. While moving beyond a narrow focus on economic coordination, such analysis lacks a sufficiently nuanced examination of power relations. In this article, I draw on neo‐Gramscian perspectives to account for ongoing contestation, positing that governance needs to be understood in the context of a broader hegemonic project. ‘Antagonistic governance’ is proposed to conceptualize contestation within and across diverse initiatives, which forge, challenge and transform hegemonic stability in GVC/GPNs. I explore this through the South African fruit sector, in particular, a labour crisis in 2012/13. I argue that we need to move beyond apolitical readings of governance to account for the material and discursive practices through which contestation gets played out, compromises are forged, and hegemonic order is maintained.     

Perspektiven der Politischen Soziologie

On the basis of a concept of politics as social action and conflict, which focuses on the institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation of power, the article argues for a political sociology which is interdisciplinary, methodology pluralistic, ‘eurodecentric’, and which focused on seven areas of research: the invention of non-state forms of power and their relations to the state, war, representation and legitimacy, the relationships between religion and politics, globalisation, and the rise of ‘subpolitics’, NGOs and the local.     

Global production and local jobs: can global enterprise networks be used as levers for local development?

This article is developed out of a research project on ‘Global Production and Local Jobs’ launched by the International Institute for Labour Studies of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It identifies salient features of global production networks in the automobile, electronics and apparel industries, and discusses their implications for local industrial upgrading, jobs and development policy. The approach combines in novel forms complementary analytical frameworks such as the global value chain and industrial district perspectives, in order to highlight interactions between global and local forces in the operation of transnational production networks. Central issues revealed by this approach include: the rise of entry barriers into the most profitable, service‐intensive activities of global value chains, that reduce small firms' prospects for industrial upgrading; the uneven benefits derived from participation in global production networks at the local level; and the need for local institutions to devise policy responses through a flexible, network‐oriented approach involving a broad local constituency.     

Transnational social capital: the socio‐spatialities of civil society

Civil society remains a contested concept, but one that is widely embedded in global development processes. Transnationalism within civil society scholarship is often described dichotomously, either through hierarchical dependency relations or as a more amorphous networked global civil society. These two contrasting spatial imaginaries produce very particular ideas about how transnational relations contribute to civil society. Drawing on empirical material from research with civil society organizations in Barbados and Grenada, in this article I contend that civil society groups use forms of transnational social capital in their work. This does not, however, resonate with the horizontal relations associated with grassroots globalization or vertical chains of dependence. These social relations are imbued with power and agency and are entangled in situated historical, geographical and personal contexts. I conclude that the diverse transnational social relations that are part of civil society activity offer hope and possibilities for continued civil society action in these unexpected spatial arrangements.     

The ambivalence of ordinary cosmopolitanism: Investigating the limits of cosmopolitan openness

Despite diverse understandings of cosmopolitanism, most authors agree that cosmopolitans espouse a broadly defined disposition of ‘openness’ toward others, people, things and experiences whose origin is non‐local. It is argued that such an attitude is expressed by an emotional and ethical commitment towards universalism, selflessness, worldliness and communitarianism, and that such values should be identifiable in the practices, attitudes and identifications of individuals. By using data generated through qualitative focus group research, this paper extends the development of Lamont and Aksartova's (2002 ) category of ‘ordinary cosmopolitanism’. The participants in this study saw themselves as beneficiaries of an increasingly interconnected world, and they generally expressed cosmopolitan sentiments by referring to easily accepted opportunities associated with globalisation (eg. travel, cuisine, music) rather than the more difficult aspects of openness such as showing hospitality to strangers, or accepting human interest ahead of perceived national interests. Their positive views were counterbalanced, however, by sentiments of ‘dilution of national culture’ and ‘culture loss’. We argue that cosmopolitanism is a set of structurally grounded, discursive resources available to social actors which is variably deployed to deal with issues like cultural diversity, the global, and otherness. Ironically these discourses, which are the basis of the everyday accounts we describe, mirror academic debates on globalisation, suggesting the immersion of theorists in these discursive webs of meaning that structure responses to things global.     

From world citizenship to purified patriotism: Obama’s nation-shaping in a global era

This analysis responds to two questions in recent scholarship. The first is Ulrich Beck’s call for scholars to empirically explore how nationhood is evolving in a global context – whether and how nation-states are being cosmopolitanised. The second concerns normative debates regarding what form belonging should take in a global era – patriotic attachments or cosmopolitan ones. The rhetoric of Barack Obama provides empirical fodder for both explorations. As a leader who proclaimed and was widely noted for his cosmopolitan sensibilities, yet ultimately relied heavily on themes of patriotism and American exceptionalism, Obama’s case confirms that nationhood remains a potent form of collectivity in the contemporary era; suggests that although the conditions of globalisation may be facilitative ones with regard to cosmopolitanisation, they are not sufficient ones; and calls into question Martha Nussbaum’s recent claim that if ‘purified’, patriotism lends itself to a ‘striving for global justice and inclusive human love’.     

Oligopolistic suppliers,symbiotic value chains and workers' bargaining power: labour contestation in South China at an ascendant global footwear firm

In this article, I analyse changes in the power relationship between lead firms, manufacturers and workers by examining a strike that took place in South China in 2014 among workers at the Taiwanese footwear giant, Yue Yuen. In the process, I demonstrate that there is a link between increased labour costs, capital consolidation and greater value capture at the bottom of the global supply chain. I argue that footwear value chains are seeing a falling level of monopsony power and the emergence of enormous oligopolistic suppliers, which are transforming the power imbalances of global supply chains towards a more mutually dependent ‘buyer–producer symbiosis’. The Yue Yuen strike shows a maturing industrial working class, facing pressures on social reproduction in China, adapting its bargaining strategies vis‐à‐vis the developmental state. Influxes of profit raise the ceiling for what can be demanded of employers, stimulating those same employers to pursue more aggressive means of holding onto their profits. The example of the Yue Yuen strike is an indicator of what are fundamental changes in the production process, dynamics within the value chain, and power and agency of workers in labour‐intensive production. The strike demonstrates that consolidation is playing a decisive role in shaping the power relationship between domestic manufacturers and transnational brands, which, in turn, is directly affecting the bargaining power of workers.