Bill Pritchard

Global value chains and global production networks in the changing international political economy: An introduction

The emergence of global production and distribution systems, which bring together diverse constellations of economic actors through an increasingly complex regime of global corporate governance, widespread outsourcing of productive functions, and new international divisions of labour, has stimulated the rise of corresponding conceptual models to explain these developments in International Political Economy (IPE).

Fairness and Ethicality in Their Place: The Regional Dynamics of Fair Trade and Ethical Sourcing Agendas in the Plantation Districts of South India

In this paper we argue for a ‘horizontal’ approach to the analysis of fair and ethical trade, one which asks questions about the wider eddies they create within regional production contexts. This approach runs counter to much of the existing literature on the topic, which typically examines initiatives ‘vertically’, in terms of how they affect the lives of participating producers and communities. Applying this method to critique fair and ethical trade in the tea and coffee plantation districts of South India, we find that, at present, initiatives fail to intersect with the most pressing problems of poverty and development within this regional production system. Somewhat ironically, these schemes seem to be having their greatest positive effects within industry segments that are not the most needful of support, and tend to have very limited engagement with those industry participants in direst straits (notably, smallholders and workers on abandoned estates). Consideration of these issues highlights how the uneven penetration of fair and ethical trade is contributing to transformations in the institutional formations and systems of governance. Producers oriented to servicing affluent Western markets are increasingly enmeshed within fair and ethical trade agendas and interact with dense ensembles of suprastate and civil society regulation (involving international nongovernmental organisations and audit firms). Yet, more marginalised producers remain regulated by traditional institutional mechanisms embedded within the nation-state (government departments, trade unions, etc). These assessments point to the limitations and challenges facing fair and ethical trade as a strategic intervention for addressing the social, economic, and environmental injustices of global agriculture.

Industry Clusters and Sydney's ITT Sector: northern Sydney as ‘Australia's Silicon Valley’?

Abstract This paper examines the claim that the North Ryde–North Sydney arc is Australias ‘Silicon Valley’, seeking firstly to identify the empirical validities behind the claim, and secondly to ask how the documented patterns might be explained. The paper evidences the fact that this area indeed provides the pre-eminent site for Australias information technology and telecommunications (ITT) sector. However, examination of this industry suggests that its expansion in Sydney has been motivated primarily by the increasing centrality of advanced producer services within the high-order business sector. It is Sydneys attributes for multinational business, as opposed to the propulsive dynamics of local clustering per se, which appears to explain the spatial concentration of these activities. Thus, it is the urbanisation economies of Sydney more than the localisation economies of the ITT sector which account for the growth of this sector in the city. Nevertheless, localisation economies are sporadically significant, suggesting that Sydneys ITT sector is to a certain extent a hybrid product of the two types of economies.

The Impacts of Supermarket Procurement on Farming Communities in India: Evidence from Rural Karnataka

The rapid expansion of supermarket retailing, with its impact on farmer communities, represents a contentious part of Indias recent economic development. This article reports on three districts of Karnataka, where a survey of 78 farmers supplying fruits and vegetables to Reliance Fresh, a leading supermarket chain, reveals low levels of vertical co-ordination, a lack of written contracts, and highly competitive environments, with the quality parameters used by supermarkets specifying only a limited set of conditions. These findings suggest that supermarket-led restructuring in India has not yet reached a stable institutional situation.

The Regulation of Grower-Processor Relations: A Case Study from the Australian Wine Industry

Insights from the recent agro-foods literature provide a basis for critical assessment of regulatory arrangements between wine grape growers and wineries in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA) of New South Wales, Australia. This paper argues that recent political debate over the role of statutory marketing within this production complex has been constructed about a simplistic model of regulation. An alternative model is presented, defining the regulatory framework of the regional sector in terms of the intersections of two axes of social relations. The first of these relates to grower-winery supply chain structures. Traditionally, MIA grapes have been sourced by wineries through handshake deals constructed in the shadow of a protective safety net for growers provided by the MIA Wine Grapes Marketing Board, a statutory authority with powers to set minimum prices and to vest the annual wine grapes crop. The second axis relates to the role of quality. Global expansion of wine production has re-positioned the MIA within global wine consumption space, providing opportunities for local producers to produce wines for premium markets. An implication of this shift has been to promote strengthened vertical coordination within the industry. This framework for understanding regulation establishes a basis for future critical intervention in debates about statutory marketing arrangements for this sector

The Political Construction of Agro-Food Liberalization in East Asia: Lessons from the Restructuring of Japanese Dairy Provisioning

Abstract This article asserts the significance of national-scale processes in the global restructuring of agro-food systems, especially in East Asia. Using an analysis of the recent restructuring in Japanese dairy provisioning, it documents how this trade remains orchestrated by government-commercial institutions that are organized and regulated to serve domestic agrarian interests. In the context of international disagreement on the future of the liberalization of agricultural trade, the implications of this study are that models of contemporary Asia Pacific agro-food restructuring should emphasize the ongoing importance of national institutions within the organization of trade, rather than assume prematurely the reality of a neoliberal marketplace.

‘Stepping back and moving in’: the role of the state in the contemporary food regime

In recent years, a number of middle-income countries and influential multilateral institutions have instigated actions that frame food system governance around social protection and rights. These state-centered mobilizations raise fundamental questions about how to portray the global politics of food. Since the late 1980s, analysts have largely concurred that US hegemony in the global politics of food has given way to diverse and volatile neo-liberalist and corporate-led food system governance. However, what should we make of a situation where state and supra-state actors are flexing their powers to reshape food systems in line with rights-based models? Should this be understood as reflexes which aim to preserve national order, at a time of intensified food and nutrition insecurities? Or, does it lay the foundations of a re-governed system which curbs and molds a corporate-led politics of food within frameworks of justice? This contribution responds to these questions by tracing the evolution of social protection and rights-based approaches to the politics of food at the multilateral level and in two influential jurisdictions (India and South Africa). We argue that these initiatives underline a robust and continuing role of state power in global food politics, albeit in a novel fashion compared to previous entanglements.

The transnational corporate networks of breakfast cereals in Asia

Network perspectives have recently been proposed as a theoretical base for research in economic geography. However, there is an unclear relationship between the advocacy of network approaches and the development of methodological tactics to frame related empirical research. By reference to one episode of corporate spatial behaviour—the establishment of a manufacturing facility in Thailand by the US-headquartered breakfast-cereal company, Kellogg—an organising framework for network-inspired economic geography is suggested. Kelloggs entry into Thailand is analysed in terms of the construction and mobilisation of relational networks producing five overlapping geographies: (1) geographies of place; (2) geographies of intrafirm trade and relations; (3) regional geographies of accumulation; (4) geographies of interfirm relations; and (5) geographies of consumption.

How the rule of the market rules the law: the political economy of WTO dispute settlement as evidenced in the US – Lamb Meat decision

ABSTRACT Defenders of the WTO argue that it provides an independent arena for hearing and adjudicating trade disputes. Member countries are bound by the decisions of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (WTO-DSB), and the perception of neutrality – that cases are ruled according to the strict and true meaning and spirit of the agreements that countries signed – is pivotal to its broader legitimacy. Using a fine-grained assessment of one trade dispute brought to the WTO, involving a complaint by Australia and New Zealand that US lamb tariffs contravened the WTOs safeguard provisions, this article questions these assumptions. It argues that the praxis of dispute settlement is over-determined by the institutionalized market preferences of the Organization. The procedural materiality of dispute settlement hinges on the narrow legalisms of wording within trade agreements, heard within an environment that is sympathetic to market liberal interpretations. With regard to safeguard provisions, and as evidenced in the case US – Lamb Meat, these institutional contexts create daunting obstacles for defendant countries to demonstrate they have not contravened WTO rules. These insights bring into relief debates on WTO dispute settlement as a system of global governance, providing support for the contention that this system should be understood as a political mechanism working systematically to advance trade liberalization.

Geographies of the Firm and Transnational Agro‐food Corporations in East Asia

Agro-food transnational corporations (TNCs) are pivotal players in the emergent regulatory structures of the East Asian agro-food system, but there has been little explicit concern to account theoretically or empirically for their prevailing socio-spatial practices and strategies. This paper uses the case of Nestle in South East Asia to make three claims. First, transnational corporate strategy is best understood as comprising an interaction of restructuring processes within the arenas of production, realisation (sales), and reproduction (corporate finance and investment). Second, the analysis of agro-food transnationals in Asia requires elevated attention to the local regulation of food systems. Third, in Nestles case at least, the articulation of global strategies with local arenas of production and markets encourages corporate finance to play a key role in the generation of profit. This is evidenced through the extensive use of intra-firm trade and royalty payments (or, related party transactions) by Nestle in Thailand.