The indirect effects of structural power: Political diffusion in the global value chain network

In the past few years, scholars have focused on how states use Global Value Chains (GVCs) to weaponize economic and political interdependencies. However, the unintended political consequences stemming from states’ positions within these GVCs have not been thoroughly explored. Drawing from Susan Strange’s theory of structural power, I argue that GVCs serve as a mechanism for shaping political preferences: States indirectly align with United States policy positions due to their interactions with other partners in the GVC network. In Strange’s words, the United States effectively exercises structural power by just “being there.” To test this idea, I estimate a multiparametric spatiotemporal autoregressive model (mSTAR) using vote similarity in the UN General Assembly and arms acquisitions as indicators of political preferences and bilateral GVC data as the diffusion mechanism. The results indicate that the existing GVC structure favors the US, irrespective of its interactions with other countries, including China’s interactions with other countries.