Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy

Citation

Dicken, P. (2015). Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy (7th ed.). Guilford Press.

Chapter Summary

The seventh edition is a 619-page, full-colour text with 228 figures, arranged in four parts. Dicken's task, in the publisher's words, is an accessible, jargon-free analysis of how the world economy works and how it affects people and places. The book synthesises ideas and empirical data on the interactions among transnational corporations, states and other actors, maps the changing centres of gravity of the global economy, and closes with in-depth studies of six industries. Every chapter was revised and updated for this edition.

Chapter 1: Opening Chapter

The first chapter sets the scene through three sections: the end of the world as we knew it, conflicting perspectives on "globalization", and the argument that geography really does matter in grounding the concept.

Part I, Chapter 2: The Centre of Gravity Shifts: Transforming the Geographies of the Global Economy

The chapter takes a long view and shows how past geographies leave their imprint, then looks at the volatility of aggregate economic growth and growing interconnectedness: trade has grown faster than output, and foreign direct investment faster than trade, alongside structural imbalances. It then maps the shift of the economic centre of gravity: the continued but changing concentration of activity, the USA and Europe, the transitional economies, the resurgence of Asia (Japan, the four tigers, China, India), Latin America and the persistent peripheries.

Part II, Chapters 3–6: Processes of Global Shift

Four chapters on the processes behind the map. Chapter 3, "Tangled Webs: Unravelling Complexity in the Global Economy", introduces institutional macro-structures and global production networks, and argues that economic activities remain geographically localised. Chapter 4, "Technological Change: Gales of Creative Destruction", covers technology and economic transformation, an evolutionary view of technological change, time–space shrinking technologies and the geographies of innovation. Chapter 5, "Transnational Corporations: The Primary Movers and Shapers of the Global Economy", asks why and how firms transnationalise and treats TNCs as networks within networks. Chapter 6, "The State Really Does Matter", sees states as containers, regulators and collaborators.

Part III, Chapters 7–11: Winning and Losing in the Global Economy

Chapter 7 examines the conflicts and collaboration between TNCs and states and the bargaining between them. Chapter 8, on capturing value within global production networks, covers how places are placed in GPNs, how value is created, enhanced and captured, and upgrading or downgrading of local economies. Chapter 9 turns to environmental impacts, covering material flows, damage to the atmosphere and waste, with a section on used clothing. Chapter 10 explains why where you live matters, with sections on incomes and poverty, jobs, dependence on a narrow economic base and migration. Chapter 11, "Making the World a Better Place", discusses corporate social responsibility, global governance and whether a better world is possible.

Part IV, Chapters 12–17: The Picture in Different Sectors

Six industry studies follow a broadly similar pattern of production circuit, global shifts, technology, the role of the state and corporate strategies: extractive industries (Chapter 12), agro-food (13), clothing (14), the automobile industry (15), advanced business services (16) and logistics and distribution services (17). The final two cover services.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Framing and the Changing Map

• Globalization debates: competing views about whether and how the world economy is globalizing.
• Centre of gravity: the shifting geographic focus of world production, trade and investment.

Chapters 3–6: Processes

• Global production networks (GPNs): the interlinked firms and activities that make a product across space.
• Creative destruction: technological change as a process of continual renewal and loss.
• Transnational corporations as networks within networks: TNCs as internal and external webs of relationships.
• States as containers, regulators and collaborators: the roles that states play in the global economy.

Chapters 7–11: Outcomes

• Value capture and upgrading: how places gain from, or are held back within, production networks.
• Corporate social responsibility and global governance: ways of regulating corporate and state behaviour.

Chapters 12–17: Sectors

• Production circuits: the series of stages and links in an industry's chain.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Framework plus cases. The book gives a conceptual framework in Parts I to III and applies it in six industry chapters, which lets readers compare how the same processes play out in different sectors.
• Empirical depth and presentation. The seventh edition uses 228 figures and covers recent topics noted by reviewers, including the 2008 financial crisis, inequality, the smartphone production network and tax avoidance.
• Reviewers' judgement. The publisher's page quotes Matthew Zook, Gary Gereffi, Erica Schoenberger, Jamie Peck and Marc Vachon, who describe it as a key resource, an analytical framework with strong visuals, and "the de facto textbook" for economic geography; this is endorsement material chosen by the publisher.
• Companion material. Student and instructor websites provide author videos, applied case studies with questions, lecture notes and flashcards.

Limitations

• Length. At 619 pages it is far more than a single course can cover; the sector chapters in particular can be chosen selectively.
• Datedness. Published in 2015, its statistics and examples need updating from current sources.
• Six sectors only. The industry studies cover extractive industries, agro-food, clothing, automobiles, advanced business services and logistics; readers interested in other sectors, such as electronics or finance, will need other sources.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the course's descriptive, empirical account of globalisation, organised around transnational corporations, states and industry case studies. Economic Geography is a comprehensive survey of spatial patterns of economic activity, Introduction to Economic Geography by MacKinnon and Cumbers is a British textbook organised around globalisation, uneven development and place, and Key Concepts in Economic Geography is a short set of concept essays; each is a shorter route in. Economic Geography by Combes, Mayer and Thisse is a formal, model-based treatment of why activity agglomerates, and complements Dicken's institutional and empirical approach. The Geography of Transport Systems adds detail on the networks that underpin the logistics chapter.

How to Use This Book

For upper-level undergraduates and master's students in geography, international business, development studies and political economy, and for professionals who want a data-rich account of how production, trade and investment are organised across borders. An introductory economic geography course is helpful; no mathematics is needed.

Read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 first, then Part II (Chapters 3–6), which holds the conceptual core. Parts III and IV can be chosen according to interest: Chapters 7 to 11 for outcomes and policy, and one or two sector chapters that match your course or project. The sector chapters share a structure, so reading one carefully makes the others quicker. Pair the text with up-to-date trade and investment data and the companion website's case studies.