No abstract

The global economy is experiencing the digitalization of production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services. The internet and cross-border data flows are becoming important channels of trade as more products are traded through the web or integrate features that rely on digital connectivity. Reflecting the autonomy states have to enact such policies, national variations in internet governance have expanded over the previous decade, with states increasingly looking to use internet and data policies for economic and trade objectives. These dynamics are having important implications on the international trade regime through challenging existing trade rules and creating demands for new rules. This has resulted in growing debates in the trade arena around “digital trade,” as a number of states, led by the United States, push for rules as a way to discipline national internet policies and support trade in digital goods and services. This paper examines the political economy of this campaign. We argue that the objectives of this campaign go beyond updating rules to better fit the “Internet age” into achieving further liberalization of trade in goods and services. We highlight the technological contingency of existing international rules and show how technological shifts have been a driver of competitive regime creation and forum shifting contributing to processes of fragmentation of the international trade regime.

The role of labour in global production networks (GPNs) requires further theoretical and empirical research. Through the case of the qualifying industrial zones (QIZs) in Egypt and Jordan, I look at how different production and labour control regimes have emerged in the two countries to exploit preferential access to the US market. I analyse how the requirements of US buyers necessitate the building of a flexible, low‐cost, geographically mobile production and labour‐control regime that can meet the needs of buyers in terms of cost, time to market, fluctuations in demand and shifts in sourcing policy. Migrant labour from Asia and the formation of an associated dormitory labour regime facilitated the establishment of such a regime in Jordan. The social embeddedness of workers in Egypt, by contrast, hindered this process.

The expansion of ‘Greater Chinese’ capital from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan into other parts of the developing world is increasingly noted. It is especially prominent in sub‐Saharan Africa where Greater Chinese investments, firms and workers are found across a wide range of activities, from the extractive commodity sectors, to infrastructure projects, agriculture and manufacturing. One region where Greater Chinese investment is less well studied is the Middle East. This article focuses on the case of Jordan. Jordan has rapidly emerged as an important supplier of apparel to the United States, a consequence of a distinct preferential trade agreement. The article charts the ways in which this preferential trade agreement has stimulated the shifts of Greater Chinese garment manufacturers to Jordan. Using a global production networks (GPN) framework, and drawing on primary and secondary evidence, it assesses the dynamics behind Greater Chinese investments into Jordan; it also explores the ways in which Greater Chinese garment producers operating in Jordan organize their supply chains and are linked into the global garments GPNs. Finally, it considers the relationship between such capital flows and the influx of Asian migrant workers into the Jordanian export garment sector.

The global economy is experiencing digital transformation with impacts felt in developing countries. Digital firms and capabilities, however, remain concentrated in advanced economies. These processes indicate an emerging source of global economic inequality and a widening of the technological gap. Recently, there has been a growth in interventionist digital policy in developing and emerging economies but research has so far made a limited analysis of how this might fulfil economic objectives and support technological catch-up. In this paper, we examine this growth of national digital policies and highlight how industrial policy objectives are important drivers of digital strategies. Examining a number of cases based on an extensive analysis of national digital policies, with a focus on China, we illustrate that these policies often aim at facilitating global integration and linkages. However, our analysis shows that, under certain conditions, more interventionist approaches can be vital in countering structural challenges. Challenges include the power of digital platforms, limitations of domestic digital firms, and limited ability to leverage digitalisation for broad-based national development.