Global production networks: mapping recent conceptual developments

TLDR

The paper maps recent conceptual developments in global production network theory, highlighting how core elements such as delimitation, political‑economic drivers, actor strategies, and development outcomes have been rethought over the past decade. It synthesizes literature across five domains—state, finance, labour, environment, and development—to expand the remit of GPN research and examine causal links between network configurations and uneven development. The authors argue that cross‑domain fertilisation can unlock GPN 2.0’s potential to explain uneven development in an interconnected world economy.

Abstract

Abstract In this framing paper for the special issue, we map significant research on global production networks during the past decade in economic geography and adjacent fields. In line with the core aim of the special issue to push for new conceptual advances, the paper focuses on the central elements of GPN theory to showcase recent rethinking related to the delimiting of global production networks, underlying political-economic drivers, actor-specific strategies and regional/national development outcomes. We suggest that the analytical purchase of this recent work is greater in research that has continued to keep a tight focus on the causal links between the organizational configurations of global production networks and uneven development. Concomitantly, considerable effort in the literature has gone into expanding the remit of GPN research in different directions, and we thus engage with five domains or ‘constituent outsides’ that relate to the state, finance, labour, environment and development. We believe such cross-domain fertilisation can help realize GPN 2.0’s potential for explaining uneven development in an interconnected world economy.