Reviewing the GVC approach and its international institutionalization: a critical perspective

Abstract

The Global Value Chain (GVC) approach has become an increasingly relevant tool not only for the analysis of the current strategies of firms in global economic networks, but also for the economic development policies promoted by international organizations. While there is a substantial and growing literature regarding different aspects of GVC, little has been written about the process of consolidation and legitimization of this approach in the academic field and how their ideas began to be adopted by those organizations.This chapter conducts a theoretical analysis of the GVC literature through the examination of its main theoretical and methodological limitations, and explores the uncritical assimilation of those shortcomings within the development strategies of international organizations. It argues that the supranational institutionalization of GVC has been contributing to legitimate a subordinated and exclusive pattern of integration to the networks governed by the transnational fractions of capital, rather than constituting a development tool for the countries of the Global South.