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A growing body of academic and policy research seeks to understand and address the problem of contemporary unfree labour. In this article, we argue that this literature could be strengthened by a stronger conceptualization of, and more systematic attention towards, the role of national states. In particular, we argue that there is a need to move beyond simplistic conceptualisations of states as simple agents of regulation and criminal justice enforcement who respond to the problem of unfree labour, and to recognize the causal and multifaceted role that national states play in creating the conditions in which unfree labour can flourish. We propose a framework to understand and compare the ways in which national states shape the political economy of unfree labour. Focusing on the United States, we outline three arenas of governance in which national states have been particularly central to enabling the conditions for unfree labour: the regulation of labour mobility, labour market regulation, and business regulation. We conclude by reflecting on the comparative political economy research that will be required to understand the role of different states in shaping the conditions in which unfree labour thrives or is eliminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) literature, one of the most vibrant areas of debate focuses on dynamics of governance. However, the evolution of these debates has been underpinned by a persistent firm-centrism, with insufficient attention paid to states, public authority and politics. Building on a renewed interest in these themes in recent literature, we contribute to growing demand for a more robust political economy of governance in GVC/GPN debates, wherein the key governance functions of the state can be classified as facilitative, regulatory and distributive in nature. In this context, we explore how the politics of state governance play out in the South African fruit sector, and particularly focus on the labour crisis that occurred in 2012/2013. Our analysis underscores the centrality of the state in governing GVCs/GPNs, and highlights important tensions within and across the three arenas of state governance, and between public and private governance, with significant developmental implications for local actors operating at the base of GVCs/GPNs. Our findings to the importance of a 'relational' understanding of state governance, which reveals how the dynamics of state governance are shaped both by continual political contestation and the competitive commercial context of GVCs/GPNs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The global political economy has come to be shaped by a historically novel form of industrial organisation, the global value chain (GVC). Yet, although there has been much attention both to GVCs and to global governance, there has been a great deal less that connects the two. This symposium aims to take a step towards redressing this situation in order to move towards a better understanding of the political economy of governance in a ‘GVC world’. This introductory essay outlines the aims of the Symposium as being (a) to advance a more encompassing vision of politics and agency in a GVC world, (b) to understand the implications of a GVC world for global economic governance and (c) to move beyond empirical description and conceptual characterisation of forms of governance towards more explicit normative considerations of their implications for more equitable and sustainable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Politics, and by extension states, are marginal in debates about the genesis, evolution and functioning of the global value chain (GVC)-based global economy. We contend here that the core complexity of state agency and state power needs to be much more carefully understood in GVC and related debates, as a basis on which the governance of the evolving GVC world can be properly theorised as revolving around the inseparability of economic and political power. We advance a framework for understanding the role of politics and states in the construction and maintenance of a GVC world, using a three-fold typology of facilitative, regulatory and distributive forms of governance, and propose a notion of ‘outsourcing governance’ as an attempt to capture the ways in which states purposefully, through active political agency, have engaged in a process of delegating a variety of governance functions and authority to private actors. Our overarching argument is normative: ‘outsourced governance’ of the form we currently observe is associated with regressive distributional outcomes, and is antithetical to an inclusive and sustainable global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay reflects on Robert W. Cox's work on global production, labour, and labour governance, and considers how his insights might illuminate the present conjuncture for labour in production. I work with an understanding of that conjuncture as involving the rise to pre-eminence of global production networks (GPNs) and global value chains (GVCs) as the contemporary expression of the ongoing globalization of production. The primary tasks of the essay are twofold: first, to explore the dynamics of labour and power in the GVC-based global economy, with a particular emphasis on labour exploitation; and second, to link these questions to those of the governance of the global economy, focusing on the shift towards transnational private governance as the dominant mode of contemporary governance, and on the evolving strategies of organized labour and the International Labour Organization in that context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of forced labour in the contemporary global economy is attracting increasing attention in global governance debates and policy circles. The effectiveness of governance initiatives depends on underlying understandings of the root causes of the problem. We explore how the root causes of forced labour in global production networks (GPNs) are framed in global governance debates. Focusing on the dominant frameworks mobilized by international institutions, with some attention to cognate national-level and corporate governance strategies, we identify certain limitations to dominant interpretations, which derive from their ‘residual’ character and their associated neglect of the manner in which the roots of forced labour reach deeply into the organization of GPNs, the forms of exploitation which are integral to them, and the connections between exploitation and poverty. We set out an alternative, ‘relational’ perspective on the roots of forced labour in GPNs, based on the concept of ‘adverse incorporation’, and consider the implications of the insights generated by this perspective for contemporary governance frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]