The political economy of global production networks: regional industrial change and differential upgrading in the East European clothing industry

Recent years have been testing times for the Eastern European clothing sector. Following two decades of deepening integration into European production networks, the sector has been struggling with the removal of trade quotas, increasing competitive pressures and the global economic crisis. This article takes a long-term view of the trajectories of change in the East European clothing industry drawing on the experience of the Slovak Republic. It examines the regional economic transformations that have resulted, how regional concentrations of clothing production sustained employment during the 1990s, and how tightening competitive pressures have unravelled these regional production systems leading to a differentiated landscape of firm-level upgrading strategies. The article argues that understandings of firm and regional upgrading and downgrading need to be attentive to the role of labour in the tightening landscape of 'relative competitiveness' and the political economy of regional integration policies, foreign ownership and the global economic crisis.