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Copyright of Kurswechsel is the property of Beirat fur gesellschafts-wirtschafts-und umweltpolitische Alternativen (BEIGEWUM) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Tourism Geographies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Labour rights violations and poor working conditions are rife in global production networks (GPNs). Until now research on labour governance in GPNs has been dominated by private measures. We ignite discussions on the role of the state in governing labour conditions in GPNs by focusing on a less well‐known public governance instrument – socially responsible public procurement (SRPP). SRPP is the inclusion of social criteria on working conditions in public procurement contracts. Revised European Union (EU) directives on public procurement widened the space to exercise SRPP including for outsourced and offshored production. Understanding how states can exercise SRPP as a labour governance instrument requires a conceptualization of state powers. We present a conceptualization of the hybrid regulator‐buyer state and show that an effective SRPP approach requires both strong regulator powers, differentiated as legislative, institutional, judicial and discursive, and buyer power which depend on purchasing volumes and supplier and market characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: Restructuring of global and local markets has led to an increased influence of commodity derivatives markets on commodity price setting. This has critical implications for price risks experienced by actors along commodity chains. Commodity derivatives markets have undergone significant changes that have been referred to as the ‘financialization of commodities’, which we define as an increase in trading activity by financial investors and the reorientation of business strategies by commodity trading houses towards risk management and financial activities. This article assesses how these global financialization processes affect commodity producers in low‐income countries via the operational dynamics of global commodity chains and national market structures. It investigates how prices are set and transmitted and how risks are distributed and managed in the cotton sectors in Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Tanzania. It concludes that uneven exposure to price instability and access to price risk management have important distributional implications. Whilst international traders have the capacity to deal with price risks through hedging, in addition to expanding their profit possibilities through financial activities on derivatives markets, local actors in producing countries face the challenge of increased short‐termism — albeit to different extents depending on national market structures — with limited access to risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the importance of ownership, end markets and regionalism within the global value chain and related conceptual frameworks. This is done through unpacking the development trajectories of the major Sub Saharan African apparel export industries against the backdrop of trade regime changes. Ownership characteristics of supplier firms shape the ability to shift between different end markets and respond to lead firm requirements; and the level of their local and regional embeddedness impacts on different forms of upgrading. The emergence of new regionalism centred around investment and end markets provides pathways for new trajectories of more sustainable value chains and local industrialization. More locally and regionally embedded firms have been able to shift with uneven success to new, and in particular regional, markets. In contrast, Asian-owned transnational producers remain focused on the US market with limited market opportunities and upgrading potential. Different types of ownership and embeddedness dynamics are therefore important to explain the co-evolution of highly differentiated value chain dynamics creating a variety of apparel industrialization trajectories in the apparel export industry in Sub Saharan African. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the expansion of global production networks (GPNs) has been an important source of employment generation in many developing and transition countries, the qualitative aspects of this employment are less promising, often being characterized by high flexibility, uncertainty and precariousness. Drivers of these outcomes are industry dynamics and lead firm strategies such as fast fashion in the apparel industry. Equally important are, however, multi-scalar institutional contexts and state policies that influence social up- and downgrading trajectories. Against this background, the article assesses the up-/downgrading of apparel workers in Romania, a key regional supplier of western European markets. In addition to the sourcing practices of lead firms, and particularly fast fashion, we highlight the legacy of the country’s state socialist past and its post-socialist transformation, Europeanization and the global economic crisis as drivers of GPN outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global competition, trade policy and national institutional context are reconfiguring the role of regional apparel suppliers. By studying the development of Romania's apparel industry, the paper highlights two conceptual points that are increasingly discussed in the chain/network literature: first, the importance of multi-scalar institutional contexts and state policies that influence industry and firm dynamics and are, in turn, shaped by private capital interests and second, the existence of diverse and uneven up- and downgrading trajectories and of re-active adaptation, rather than intentional firm-level strategies, with important implications for regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 20th century, the global clothing industry experienced major geographical shifts, new forms of governance, changing producer and buyer relations and unevenly distributed outcomes for countries, firms and workers. This paper contextualises these global dynamics in regard to the ways in which trade policy and rules create strong regional patterns in global clothing production networks. The focus is on trade policy as both context for, and driver of, the spatial divisions of manufacture and work. It further provides an empirical overview of the ways in which trade regimes, preferential market access, regional trade agreements and rules of origin structure the division of labour and developmental opportunities and constraints in various clothing producing regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theoretical paper synthesises research on the foundational economy and its contribution to a social–ecological transformation. While foundational thinking offers rich concepts and policies to transition towards such transformation, it fails to grasp the systematic non-sustainability of capitalism. This weakness can be overcome by enriching contemporary foundational thinking with feminist and ecological economics. Whereas the feminist critique problematises foundational thinking's focus on paid labour, the ecological critique targets Sen's capability approach as a key inspiration of foundational thinking, arguing that a theory of human needs is better suited to conceptualise wellbeing within planetary boundaries. Based on this, we outline a novel schema of economic zones and discuss their differentiated contributions to the satisfaction of human needs. By privileging need satisfaction, such broadened foundational thinking demotes the tradable sector and rentier economy, thereby revaluating unpaid work as well as respecting ecological imperatives. This empowers new articulations of social and ecological struggles to improve living conditions in the short run, while having the potential in the long run to undermine capitalism from within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]