How do states shape Global Production Networks?

Comparing state developmental strategies and their impact on the Vietnamese and Bangladeshi garment industries.
This project consequently compares the evolution of the Bangladeshi and Vietnamese garment sectors. These nations embody distinct state forms - market-liberal vs authoritarian-developmental - and have pursued markedly different developmental strategies to become the largest garment and textile manufacturers after China. However, they occupy very different positions within GPNs: Vietnam has a more integrated industry with higher productivity, labour costs and penetration of foreign capital; Bangladesh has a fragmented industry, with low labour costs, productivity and which is largely domestically owned (Buckley, 2021). Their comparative study will allow the following questions to be addressed:
1. Why have Vietnam and Bangladesh pursued divergent strategies to integrate their textile sectors globally, and how has this shaped their respective positions within GPNs?
2. How has the composition of the state, and patterns of contestation between it and domestic social forces, influenced the nature of GPN integration?
3. What do these processes tell us about how different types of states upgrade within GPNs, the nature of the capitalist state in developing countries, and the role of the state within GVC literatures more broadly?