Political Contestation in Global Production Networks

This paper develops a critical framework on international management and production that draws from the literatures on global commodity chains and global production networks (GPNs), from institutional entrepreneurship, as well as from neo-Gramscian theory in international political economy. The framework views GPNs as integrated economic, political, and discursive systems, in which market and political power are intertwined. The framework highlights the contingent stability of GPNs as well as the potential for actors to engage politically in contestation and collaboration over system governance and the distribution of benefits. The framework offers a multidimensional and multi-level approach to understanding power relations, ideology, and value appropriation in GPNs. The framework is valuable for examining the intersection of GPNs with charged political and social issues such as sweatshops and incomes for coffee growers, and the role of geography as a source of stability and tension in these networks.