Minimal norm compliance in global value chains: contesting local vaccine production in Africa

This article examines why multinational biopharmaceutical firms supported local vaccine manufacturing in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic despite having previously opposed agendas to promote geographical diversification of production. Focusing on BioNTech and Moderna’s planned investments in African mRNA vaccine manufacturing facilities, we argue that these initiatives amounted to ‘minimal norm compliance’: firms responded to mounting pressure to support equitable vaccine access while interpreting local production in narrow terms and retaining the option to scale back or exit their investment plans at a later date. The article makes a theoretical contribution to debates on global value chains (GVCs) by bringing literatures on contested GVC governance into dialogue with constructivist insights on rhetorical entrapment. We argue that attempts by firms to generate legitimacy through compliance with global norms can expose them to state and civil society pressure that meaningfully constrains their future action. However, under conditions of fragmented and contested norm interpretation, firms may navigate these pressures through minimalist forms of compliance that reflect core commercial interests. In this way, the article specifies a distinct causal process through which the constitutive power of norms shapes firm behavior in GVCs without necessarily transforming underlying structures of market power.