Gale Raj

Gale Raj is Professor of Politics at Bard College Berlin. She holds a PhD in development studies from the University of Manchester Global Development Institute (2012) and teaches in the Politics concentration at Bard College Berlin. Her research is on labor governance in global production networks with a focus on the global electronics industry and outsourced manufacturing in the Asia Pacific region. Her research aims to understand how networked relationships and power asymmetries across different actors, such as governments, firms, and civil society organizations, shape and influence processes and outcomes for workers in outsourced factories of globalized industries.

Raj held previous faculty positions at the University of Manchester and Queen Mary University of London. She has been the recipient of research grants from the British Academy and the German Research Fund. She is currently a principal investigator of a research project on geographical reconfigurations of global production networks in a post-COVID-19 global economy (funded by the German Research Fund 2023 to 2026). Raj is an editor in chief at the journal Competition and Change. In 2019, she co-edited the Handbook on Global Value Chains (Edward Elgar).

Publications (selection)

• Raj-Reichert, G. (2022) "Labour geography I: Labour agency, informal work, global south perspectives and ontology of futures," Progress in Human Geography, 03091325221144455 
• Marlsev, K, Staritz, C, and Raj-Reichert, G. (2022) "Rethinking Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains: Worker Power, State‒Labour Relations and Intersectionality", Development and Change. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12705
• Raj-Reichert, G., Staritz, C., and Plank, L. (2022) 'Conceptualising the regulator-buyer state in the European Union for the exercise of socially responsible public procurement in global production networks', Journal of Common Market Studies. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcms.13285
• Helmerich, N, Raj-Reichert, G, and Zajak, S (2020) ‘Exercising associational and networked power through the use of digital technology by workers in global value chains’, Competition and Change, Vol. 25, no. 2: 142-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1024529420903289
• Raj-Reichert, G (2020) "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." Journal of Economic Geography. Vol. 20, no. 3: 653–678.
• Raj-Reichert, G (2020) "Global Value Chains, Contract Manufacturers, and the Middle-Income Trap: The electronics industry in Malaysia." Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 64, no. 4: 698-716.
• Raj-Reichert, G, Zajak, S, and Helmerich, N (2020) "Introduction to special issue on digitalization, labour and global production." Competition and Change, Vol. 25, no. 2: 133-141.
• Ponte, S, Gereffi, G, and Raj-Reichert, G (2019) Handbook on Global Value Chains, Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Raj-Reichert, G (2015) "Exercising power over labour governance in the electronics industry." Geoforum, Vol. 67: 89-92.
• Nadvi, K, and Raj-Reichert, G (2015) "Governing health and safety at lower tiers of the computer industry global value chain." Regulation & Governance, Vol. 9, no. 3: 243-258.
• Raj-Reichert, G (2013) "Safeguarding labour in relocated factories: Health and safety governance in an electronics global production network." Geoforum, Vol. 44: 23-31.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Gale Raj
Politics
g.raj[at]berlin.bard.edu