*Message sent from a system outside of UConn.*
The state and global production networks in a turbulent world economy
CFP for Global Conference on Economic Geography, Worcester (USA), June
04th-08th 2025
Session organisers: Martin Hess & Rory Horner (University of Manchester)
While the state has always been recognised as a crucial non-firm
actor in research on global production networks (GPNs) (e.g. Henderson et al.
2002), its role and agency has only begun to receive more substantive
theoretical and empirical attention over the last decade (cf. Smith 2015,
Horner 2017, Werner 2020; McGregor and Coe 2023). Whether it be in relation to
the multiple crises affecting politics, society and economy, the return of
industrial policy (if it ever went away), the rise of nationalism and
protectionism, or responses to geopolitical tensions, conflict and war, amongst
other factors, increasingly -or so it seems �C the state cannot be sidelined in
research on GPNs and related global value chains (GVCs) (cf. Glassman 2011).
More than two decades on from the initial conceptualisation of GPNs, the
regulator, producer (i.e. state-owned enterprises) and buyer (i.e. public
procurement, cf. Hughes et al.2019) roles of the state are increasingly
prominent in shaping, and being shaped by, the ongoing reconfiguration of GPNs.
The actors, dynamics, challenges and tensions of the contemporary turbulent
world economy mean that the state-GPN nexus is not just a central question
facing research on GPNs, but also arguably economic geography and related
fields more broadly (cf. Coe and Yeung 2019, Yeung 2023).
The ongoing dynamism and flux in the involvement of the state in
global production networks has already raised a series of key advances which
arguably warrant greater scrutiny in relation to both governance and processes
of uneven development. So far neo-Weberian, strategic-relational and
neo-Gramscian approaches have emerged, yet how best to theorise the state-GPN
nexus is a growing matter of debate (cf. Hess 2021). Moreover, while GPN (and
GVC) research have helped significantly deepen our understanding of private
governance in the global economy, the interaction of public and private
governance explored to date (cf. Amengual 2010, Bartley 2011, Alford and
Phillips 2018, Bair et al. 2020) warrants further consideration at this
historical conjuncture. Strategic coupling remains a central concept in
relation to understanding the prospects for territorial development in GPNs,
but processes of decoupling and recoupling have become increasingly relevant �C
and not just with global, but also (supra-national) regional and domestic
production networks (cf. Gong et al. 2022, Kalvelage and Tups 2024).
This session aims to bring together papers which �C conceptually and/or
empirically �C continue to deepen our understanding of the state and its
influence on GPNs. We welcome papers which address, but are not limited to, the
following:
* Theorising the state-GPN nexus
* The governance of GPNs �C public and private and their various
interactions
* The influence of new (and old) drivers on state policy in GPNs �C
including resilience, security, risk and conflict
* The multiple roles of the state in GPNs�C as facilitator, regulator,
producer and buyer, and their interactions and limits
* The influence of the state at multiple scales in processes of strategic
coupling, decoupling and recoupling
* Regulating the digital realm in GPNs
Submission Guidelines:
We invite authors to submit abstracts of up to 250 words to Martin Hess
([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) and Rory
Horner ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) by
Friday 10th January 2025. Following acceptance of abstracts to the session
(Monday 13th January 2015), paper authors will be required to submit their
abstracts through the conference registration page
(https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgceg.org%2Findex.php%2Fregister%2F&data=05%7C02%7Ceconomicgeography-l%40listserv.uconn.edu%7C76c38643090244664e9708dd03240b31%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C638670175568755214%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Vdr6sGtu7l6%2Beo8JbN2myqspj8B6uqBege5hspNA6E8%3D&reserved=0)
by the GCEG deadline of 15th January 2025. We also welcome queries or requests
for further information.
References:
Alford, M., and Phillips, N. (2018) The political economy of state governance
in global production networks: Change, crisis and contestation in the South
African fruit sector, Review of International Political Economy, 25 (1), 98-121.
Amengual, M. (2010) Complementary labor regulation: The uncoordinated
combination of state and private regulators in the Dominican Republic, World
Development, 38 (3), 405�C14.
Bair, J., Anner, M. and J. Blasi (2020) The Political Economy of Private and
Public Regulation in Post-Rana Plaza Bangladesh, ILR Review, 73 (4): 969-994.
Bartley, T. (2011) Transnational governance as the layering of rules:
Intersections of public and private standards, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 12
(2), 517�C42.
Coe, N. M. and H. W.-c. Yeung (2019). Global production networks: mapping
recent conceptual developments, Journal of Economic Geography, 19 (4), 775-801.
Glassman, J. (2011) The geo�\political economy of global production networks,
Geography Compass, 5 (4), 154�C164.
Gong, H., Hassink, R., Foster, C., Hess, M., and H. Garretsen (2022)
Globalisation in reverse? Reconfiguring the geographies of value chains and
production networks. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 15(2):
165-181.
Henderson, J., Dicken, P., Hess, M., Coe, N., and H. Yeung (2002) Global
production networks and the analysis of economic development, Review of
International Political Economy, 9 (3), 436�C464.
Hess, M. (2021) One: Global production networks: the state, power and politics,
In Palpacuer, F. and Smith, A. (eds.) Rethinking Value Chains. Bristol, UK,
Policy Press: 17-35.
Horner, R. (2017) Beyond facilitator? State roles in global value chains and
global production networks, Geography Compass, 11 (2), e12307.
Hughes, A., Morrison, E., and Ruwanpura, N. (2019) Public sector procurement
and ethical trade: Governance and social responsibility in some hidden global
supply chains, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 44 (2),
242-255.
Kalvelage, L. and Tups, G. (2024) Friendshoring in global production networks:
state-orchestrated coupling amid geopolitical uncertainty, ZfW �C Advances in
Economic Geography.
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1515%2Fzfw-2024-0042&data=05%7C02%7Ceconomicgeography-l%40listserv.uconn.edu%7C76c38643090244664e9708dd03240b31%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C638670175568911456%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=pErZDWrJiJTxdVu%2FnZ%2ByJN4P0jwzIKXN1gsGtI8G6bs%3D&reserved=0
McGregor, N., and Coe, N. (2023) Hybrid governance and extraterritoriality:
Understanding Singapore’s state capitalism in the context of oil global
production networks, Environment and Planning A, 55 (3), 716-741.
Smith, A. (2015) The state, institutional frameworks and the dynamics of
capital in global production networks, Progress in Human Geography, 39 (3),
290-315.
Werner, M. (2021) Geographies of production II: Thinking through the state,
Progress in Human Geography, 45 (1), 178-189.
Yeung, H. W.-c. (2023). Troubling economic geography: New directions in the
post-pandemic world, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 48
(4), 672-680.
Rory Horner| Reader | The Global Development Institute | School of Environment,
Education and Development | Arthur Lewis Building, 2.027 | The University of
Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13 9PL
|https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gdi.manchester.ac.uk%2F&data=05%7C02%7Ceconomicgeography-l%40listserv.uconn.edu%7C76c38643090244664e9708dd03240b31%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C638670175568911456%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=P4uIalqtUdwQ9HnQv8PGwh8lvLzuevYrnDPEadaFKjk%3D&reserved=0<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foutlook.manchester.ac.uk%2Fowa%2Fredir.aspx%3FSURL%3DLrKT4gzi6NxgsDCwUxGwnTaWIWUKhAc8hLQgLBxZl8xBKYvGP97TCGgAdAB0AHAAOgAvAC8AdwB3AHcALgBnAGQAaQAuAG0AYQBuAGMAaABlAHMAdABlAHIALgBhAGMALgB1AGsA%26URL%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.gdi.manchester.ac.uk&data=05%7C02%7Ceconomicgeography-l%40listserv.uconn.edu%7C76c38643090244664e9708dd03240b31%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C638670175568911456%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=KfMQ9dCckrU9bqVyhJxMbrsNBxJ5tXllzYDIjYYrlac%3D&reserved=0>
