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Gale Raj-Reichert
Bard College Berlin
Gale Raj-Reichert is Professor of Politics at Bard College Berlin and Visiting Researcher at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB) in the research group 'Globalization, Labour, and Production.' Before, Gale was a Research Fellow at the WZB and the Principal Investigator of the DFG funded project ‘Labour governance in global production networks: Assessing labour standards in a new generation of public procurement legislation and trade agreements linked to market access into the European Union’ (LG-GPN). The project, which is in cooperation with researchers at the University of Vienna and the Technical University of Vienna, assesses in what ways socially responsible public procurement and labour standards in trade agreements in the EU improve labour governance in the electronics and clothing industries in Vietnam. Gale is currently on secondment from Queen Mary University of London School of Geography where she is a Lecturer in Economic Geography.
MORE ABOUT GALE RAJ-REICHERT >Jan 1, 2020
Nicole Helmerich, Gale Raj-Reichert, Sabrina Zajak
Exercising associational and networked power through the use of digital technology by workers in global value chains
While there are heated debates about how digitalization affects production, management and consumption in the context of global value chains, less attention is paid to how workers use digital technologies to organize and formulate demands and hence exercise power. This paper explores how workers in ...
Jan 1, 2019
Gale Raj-Reichert
The powers of a social auditor in a global production network: the case of Verité and the exposure of forced labour in the electronics industry
Research on labour governance actors in global production networks (GPNs) has been limited to civil society organisations, firms and governments. Understanding the influence of actors in GPNs has been dealt with singular and overt modes of relational power. This paper contributes to both debates by ...
Jan 1, 2019
Gale Raj-Reichert
Global Value Chains, Contract Manufacturers, and the Middle-Income Trap: The Electronics Industry in Malaysia
The electronics industry has been a cornerstone to the successful industrialisation process in Malaysia since the 1970s. However, since the 2000s the industry, which is deeply integrated in global value chains, has failed to upgrade. Its stagnation is indicative of the general economic situation in ...
Jan 1, 2020
Gale Raj-Reichert, Helena Gräf
Socially responsible public procurement by the city and districts of Berlin: protecting workers in global supply chains
Workers in factories of global supply chains in the global South producing goods governments purchase often face poor working conditions. A governance tool to improve the situation is socially responsible public procurement. We assess this potential vis-à-vis the newly revised public procurement la...
Jan 1, 2019
Stefano Ponte, Gary Gereffi, Gale Raj-Reichert
Handbook on Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVCs) are a key feature of the global economy in the 21st century. They show how international investment and trade create cross-border production networks that link countries, firms and workers around the globe. This Handbook describes how GVCs arise and vary across industries ...
Apr 5, 2022
Sustainable Global Supply Chains Report 2022
Global supply chains affect the economy, the environment and social welfare in many ways. Worldwide, economies are experiencing global supply shortages today, affecting key industries such as automotive and consumer electronics as well as vaccine and medical supplies industries. These preoccupy poli...
Feb 2, 2022
Kristoffer Marslev,Cornelia Staritz,and Gale Raj-Reichert
Rethinking Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains: Worker Power, State‒Labour Relations and Intersectionality
This article builds on critiques of the concept of social upgrading in global value chain (GVC) research, which problematize its coupling to lead firm strategies and economic upgrading by supplier firms, by reconceptualizing social upgrading through the lens of worker power. It argues that a better ...
Jan 25, 2022
GALE RAJ-REICHERT, CORNELIA STARITZ and LEONHARD PLANK
Conceptualizing the Regulator-Buyer State in the European Union for the Exercise of Socially Responsible Public Procurement in Global Production Networks
Labour rights violations and poor working conditions are rife in global production networks (GPNs). Until now research on labour governance in GPNs has been dominated by private measures. We ignite discussions on the role of the state in governing labour conditions in GPNs by focusing on a less well...
Feb 23, 2022
Kristoffer Marslev, Cornelia Staritz, and Gale Raj-Reichert
Rethinking social upgrading in global value chains around worker power
