Unpacking state-led upgrading: empirical evidence from Uzbek horticulture value chain governance

Lorena Lombardozzi

Review of International Political Economy, 2021, vol. 28, issue 4, 947-973

Abstract: This paper brings together the Global Value Chain/Global Production Network (GVC/GPNs) and the Developmental State (DS) literature to analyze state-led upgrading. By triangulating primary and secondary data on Uzbekistan’s horticulture value chain, it provides a micro-meso analysis of how the state, by creating vertical and horizontal linkages, shaped the pace and direction of agro-industrial upgrading. It discusses how targeted macroeconomic policies enabled upgrading and argues that the state should be seen not only as a regulator, facilitator, buyer and producer within GVC/GPNs, but also as a coordinator of strategic developmental objectives beyond and across the GVCs. Drawing on a strategic-relational approach and using the concept of organisational upgrading, it shows how the state articulates the institutional context of GVC/GPNs through the establishment of financial and political partnerships with international actors to avoid predatory competition; the coordination of inter-sectorial spillovers for short and long-term collective learning and capacity building; and the creation of linkages to enable multi-dimensional and inter-temporal developmental objectives. Coordinated state interventions and a gradual approach to market reforms were instrumental in ensuring the sustainability of the economic transformation.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2020.1737563

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