Abstract / Summary:
This project asks how the actors and tools of global governance converge (or diverge) to regulate labor conditions in the electronics manufacturing industry in China and Taiwan. During a first phase we will conduct interviews with both public and private organizations to map the positions that each occupies with respect to defining the nature of the problem at hand and the solutions proposed. We will document how these different institutional actors compete or cooperate to find their place in this new 'market for virtue'. During a second phase of the research, we will use ethnographic methods to examine three governance tools in greater detail: labor inspection trainings, enterprise corporate code of conduct, and workers' rights capacity building programs run by brands, their supplier firms and NGOs. The research team is multi-disciplinary and includes sustained cooperation with the ILO.
