IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/polsoc/v39y2011i1p3-39.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transnational Governance as Contested Institution-Building: China, Merchants, and Contract Rules in the Cotton Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Amy A. Quark

    (College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA, aaquark@wm.edu)

Abstract

We are in an era of uncertainty over whose rules will govern global economic integration. With the growing market share of Chinese firms and the power of the Chinese state it is unclear if Western firms will continue to dominate transnational governance. Exploring these dynamics through a study of contract rules in the global cotton trade, this article conceptualizes commodity chain governance as a contested process of institution-building. To this end, the global commodity chain/global value chain (GCC/GVC) framework must be revised to better account for the broader institutional context of commodity chain governance, institutional variation across space, and strategic action in the construction of legitimate governance arrangements. I provide a more dynamic model of GCC governance that stresses how strategic action, existing institutions, and dominant discourses intersect as firms and states compete for institutional power within a commodity chain. This advances our understandings of how commodity chain governance emerges and changes over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Amy A. Quark, 2011. "Transnational Governance as Contested Institution-Building: China, Merchants, and Contract Rules in the Cotton Trade," Politics & Society, , vol. 39(1), pages 3-39, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:39:y:2011:i:1:p:3-39
    DOI: 10.1177/0032329210394997
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329210394997
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0032329210394997?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic & Sigrid Quack, 2003. "Theoretical Building Blocks for a Research Agenda Linking Globalization and Institutions," Post-Print hal-01892014, HAL.
    2. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    3. Gibbon, Peter, 2001. "Upgrading Primary Production: A Global Commodity Chain Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 345-363, February.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5oojir5leh8icq847ddt2lej75 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bowman,John R., 1989. "Capitalist Collective Action," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521362658, October.
    6. John Humphrey & Hubert Schmitz, 2002. "How does insertion in global value chains affect upgrading in industrial clusters?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(9), pages 1017-1027.
    7. Braithwaite,John & Drahos,Peter, 2000. "Global Business Regulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521784993, October.
    8. Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic & Sigrid Quack, 2003. "Globalization and institutions : redefining the rules of the economic game," Post-Print hal-01892012, HAL.
    9. Gereffi, Gary, 1999. "International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-70, June.
    10. Peter Dicken & Anders Malmberg, 2001. "Firms in Territories: A Relational Perspective," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(4), pages 345-363, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vicol, Mark & Neilson, Jeffrey & Hartatri, Diany Faila Sophia & Cooper, Peter, 2018. "Upgrading for whom? Relationship coffee, value chain interventions and rural development in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 26-37.
    2. Stefano Ponte, 2008. "Developing a ‘Vertical’ Dimension to Chronic Poverty Research: Some Lessons from Global Value Chain Analysis," Working Papers id:1743, eSocialSciences.
    3. Linqing Liu & Shiye Mei, 2016. "Visualizing the GVC research: a co-occurrence network based bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 953-977, November.
    4. Sophie van Huellen & Fuad Mohammed Abubakar, 2021. "Potential for Upgrading in Financialised Agri-food Chains: The Case of Ghanaian Cocoa," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(2), pages 227-252, April.
    5. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-496 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Pierluigi Montalbano & Silvia Nenci & Carlo Pietrobelli, 2018. "Opening and linking up: firms, GVCs, and productivity in Latin America," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 917-935, April.
    7. Mike Morris & Leonhard Plank & Cornelia Staritz, 2016. "Regionalism, end markets and ownership matter: Shifting dynamics in the apparel export industry in Sub Saharan Africa," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(7), pages 1244-1265, July.
    8. McWilliam, Sarah E. & Kim, Jung Kwan & Mudambi, Ram & Nielsen, Bo Bernhard, 2020. "Global value chain governance: Intersections with international business," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 55(4).
    9. Pipkin, Seth, 2011. "Local Means in Value Chain Ends: Dynamics of Product and Social Upgrading in Apparel Manufacturing in Guatemala and Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 2119-2131.
    10. Staritz, Cornelia, 2012. "Value chains for development? Potentials and limitations of global value chain approaches in donor interventions," Working Papers 31, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    11. Tatiana A. Meshkova & Evgenii IA. Moiseichev, 2016. "Russia’s experience of foresight implementation in global value chain research," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-35, December.
    12. Yoruk, Deniz E., 2019. "Dynamics of firm-level upgrading and the role of learning in networks in emerging markets," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 341-369.
    13. Xinyu Yang & Weidong Liu, 2022. "Agricultural Production Networks and Upgrading from a Global–Local Perspective: A Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, October.
    14. Pavida Pananond, 2016. "From servant to master: Power repositioning of emerging-market companies in global value chains," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 15(4), pages 292-316, September.
    15. Eunkyung Park & Martin Kang’ethe Gachukia, 0. "The Role of the Local Innovation System for Inclusive Upgrading in the Global Value Chain: The Case of KenyaGAP in the Kenyan Horticultural Sector," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 0, pages 1-26.
    16. Dallas, Mark P., 2014. "Manufacturing Paradoxes: Foreign Ownership, Governance, and Value Chains in China’s Light Industries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 47-62.
    17. Meenu Tiwari, 2006. "The Role of Price and cost Competitiveness in Apparel Exports, post MFA: A Review," Working Papers id:485, eSocialSciences.
    18. Eunkyung Park & Martin Kang’ethe Gachukia, 2021. "The Role of the Local Innovation System for Inclusive Upgrading in the Global Value Chain: The Case of KenyaGAP in the Kenyan Horticultural Sector," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(3), pages 578-603, June.
    19. Leonhard Plank & Cornelia Staritz, 2013. "‘Precarious upgrading’ in electronics global production networks in Central and Eastern Europe: the cases of Hungary and Romania," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series ctg-2013-31, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    20. Moyer-Lee, Jason & Prowse, Martin, 2012. "How traceability is restructuring Malawi’s tobacco industry," IOB Working Papers 2012.05, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
    21. Grumiller, Jan, 2019. "A strategic-relational approach to analyzing industrial policy regimes within global production networks: The Ethiopian Leather and Leather Products Sector," Working Papers 60, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:39:y:2011:i:1:p:3-39. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.