Collaborative Research: Reconfiguring Economies, Communities, and Regions in Post-Socialist Europe: A Study of the Apparel Industry

本项目的重点是中东欧(CEE)不断变化的服装生产经济地理。在经历了一段快速的工业崩溃和服装公司仅有的有限持久性之后，整个区域的生产最近出现了“复苏”，这主要与该行业的国际结构以及欧盟立法和市场的变化有关。该项目调查了这些变化的四个方面。首先，使用国际贸易、生产和就业数据，该项目记录了这些复杂的服装生产和贸易新地理区域的出现，并评估了行业国际结构变化和国际贸易法规变化所起的具体作用。其次，通过对西欧、美国和中东欧的品牌制造商、零售商、营销者和全国性采购公司的访谈，本研究分析了在激烈竞争的定价和快速变化的需求条件下，买方驱动的商品链在中东欧采购和控制供应商方面的重要作用。第三，通过在斯洛伐克和保加利亚的六个地区的详细案例研究，该项目考察了国际采购如何重组现有的国家工业、对新公司的创建产生影响以及产生各种工业形式和做法。第四，为了解释服装生产的多样性，该项目考察了每个国家不同地区现有的社会、制度和社区条件是如何塑造正在崛起的企业和区域经济的。这些地区创建新公司的速度令人震惊，这些公司对地区的影响及其与欧洲市场整合的范围也令人惊讶。通过这项研究，我们希望有助于我们了解更普遍地被描述为用于出口的低工资、组装生产的具体形式和做法。特别是，我们希望对经济地理学、全球化辩论和后社会主义重组方面的文献做出贡献，这些文献涉及国家供应商和市场在新公司运营中的作用，统一或差异化的生产和营销战略正在形成的程度，以及当地条件对主要是国际合同和组装生产的运营的影响。拟议的研究将使我们能够更充分地审查与后社会主义欧洲的国际一体化和地方经济重组有关的条件和矛盾。该项目将使我们能够超越单一区域和单一国家的案例研究，为服装生产区的地方经济转型提供跨国家和跨区域的分析。最后，这项研究将有助于我们理解其他经济和社会实践在塑造后社会主义服装业及其生产地区国际化方面的作用。

This project focuses on the changing economic geographies of apparel production in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). After an initial period of rapid industrial collapse and only limited persistence of apparel firms, there has been a more recent 'rebirth' of production throughout the region, linked primarily to changes in the international structure of the industry and in European Union legislation and markets. The project investigates four aspects of these changes. First, using international trade, production, and employment data, the project documents the emergence of these complex new geographies of apparel production and trade, and assess the specific roles played by changes in the international structure of the industry and by changes in international trade regulations. Second, through interviews with brand-name manufacturers, retailers, marketers, and national buying firms in Western Europe, the U.S., and CEE, the study analyzes the important role of buyer-driven commodity chains in sourcing and controlling suppliers in CEE under conditions of intensely competitive pricing and rapidly changing demand. Third, through detailed case studies in six regions in Slovakia and Bulgaria, the project examines the ways in which international sourcing restructures existing national industries, impacts upon the creation of new firms, and produces a variety of industrial forms and practices. Fourth, in seeking to explain this diversity of apparel production, the project examines the ways in which existing social, institutional, and community conditions in different regions of each country are shaping the enterprises and regional economies that are emerging. The pace of new firm creation in these regions is astonishing and the regional impacts of these firms and the scope of their integration with European markets surprising. Through this research we hope to contribute to our understanding of the specific forms and practices of what has been more generally characterized as low-wage, assembly production for export. In particular, we hope to contribute to the literatures in economic geography, globalization debates, and post-socialist restructuring about the roles of national suppliers and markets in the operation of the new firms, the extent to which uniform or differentiated production and marketing strategies are emerging, and the impacts local conditions have on the operation of primarily international contract and assembly production. The proposed research will enable us to examine more fully the conditions and contradictions associated with international integration and local economic reconfiguration in post-socialist Europe. The project will enable us to move beyond single-region and single-country case studies by providing a cross-national and cross-regional analysis of local economic transformations in apparel producing areas. Finally, the research will contribute to our understanding of the role of other economic and social practices in shaping the internationalization of the post-socialist apparel industry and its producing regions.