Analyzing industrial policy regimes within global production networks: the Ethiopian leather industry

Abstract

Abstract This article contributes to debates on how to broaden and deepen our understanding of the interrelationships between the state and global production networks (GPNs). It proposes that combining the GPN framework and the developmental regime perspective based on a strategic-relational conceptualization of institutions allows for better assessment of the interrelationship between the strategies of (supplier) firms and industrial policy institutions that (re)structure the dynamically changing, interrelated and multiscalar institutional underpinnings of states and GPNs, with important implications for upgrading and coupling processes. Empirically, the article presents a case study of the Ethiopian leather industry.