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Transnational Governance of Labour Standards: Insights from the Clothing Industry in Turkey

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The Transnationalization of Economies, States, and Civil Societies

Rapid transnationalization at the global scale has been transforming the governance structures of nation-states for more than three decades. One of the areas most influenced by transnationalization is the governance of the labour market at the national level. While the ever-increasing pressures to reduce cost in order to stay competitive in the global market have been influencing the labour market policies especially in developing countries, the proliferation and expansion of new modes of regulation such as standards, codes of conduct, certification and monitoring frames has introduced new dynamics into the governance structures.

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Notes

  1. 1.

     See Gourevitch 1978 for an early study of the dynamics of the intricate relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy. See also Risse 2002 for an example of the revival of study of interwoven domestic and international political processes.

  2. 2.

     Any candidate country seeking membership of the EU must meet three criteria established by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 in order to join the Union: political criterion, economic criterion and the acceptance of the community acquis. The political criterion requires the achievement of ‘stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities’ (Bull. EC 6/1993, pt. I.13).

  3. 3.

     For a critical survey of the history of consumer movements in support of labour rights from the late nineteenth century through the present, see Frank 2003. For a discussion of labour–civil society alliances that span the divide between them, see Anner and Evans 2004.

  4. 4.

     For detailed studies of labour standards violations see, for example, Collins 2003; Esbenshade 2004; Rosenberg 2005 for Mexico; Brown 2001; Roberts et al. 2006; Sum and Ngai 2005 for China.

  5. 5.

     For a critical evaluation of various monitoring practices of different private regulatory initiatives, see Bulut and Lane (2009).

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Acknowledgments

The sections of this chapter that cover an overview of the current situation of the clothing industry in Turkey and a review of the code of conducts of transnational branded companies also appear in Bulut, T., and Lane, C. (2009) The private regulation of labour standards and rights in the global clothing industry: An evaluation of its effectiveness in two developing countries, unpublished manuscript, which can be obtained from the author. I would like to thank Fikret Adaman, László Bruszt, Marie-Laure Djelic and Christel Lane, as well as all participants of the European Research Colloquium, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. The usual disclaimer applies.

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  1. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Tugce Bulut

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  1. Tugce Bulut
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  1. Dept. Political & Social Sciences, European University Institute, Via dei Roccettini 9, San Domenico di Fiesole, 50016, Italy

    Laszlo Bruszt

  2. Dept. Political Science, University of Twente, Enschede, 7500 AE, Netherlands

    Ronald Holzhacker

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Bulut, T. (2009). Transnational Governance of Labour Standards: Insights from the Clothing Industry in Turkey. In: Bruszt, L., Holzhacker, R. (eds) The Transnationalization of Economies, States, and Civil Societies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89339-6_11

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