Contested green upgrading in global value chains: power and governance in French steel decarbonisation

This article examines how contested interaction among heterogeneous actors endowed with asymmetric power resources shapes multinational firms’ decarbonisation trajectories. Our contribution is to conceptualise decarbonisation as a process shaped by contestation and asymmetric power, linking firm-level strategies with broader institutional and social dynamics. We introduce the concept of contested green upgrading, organised around four contingent dimensions, to foreground the political aspect of environmental transition. We develop a political economy framework drawing on global value chains, sectoral political economy, and power resources literatures. Applied to a qualitative case study of ArcelorMittal in France, our analysis shows that while the state exercises significant influence through coercive and infrastructural power resources, the firm’s structural power constrains investment decisions according to the profitability imperative. Horizontal actors – trade unions, NGOs and local authorities – lack sufficient institutional power to alter the trajectory, though they exploit institutional openings to influence specific dimensions of contested green upgrading.