COMPETITION & CHANGE, Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2008 49–67 E-mail address: mtewari@unc.edu © the Editors and W. S. Maney & Son Ltd DOI: 10.1179/102452907X264520 Varieties of Global Integration: Navigating Institutional Legacies and Global Networks in India’s Garment Industry MEENU TEWARI University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA The ongoing restructuring of the global textile and apparel industry brings renewed atten- tion to processes of industrial upgrading as mechanisms of adjustment to volatile market conditions. This literature has however focused largely on external drivers of adjustment: notably, the ‘disciplining’ pressures of trade liberalization, insertion of firms within global value chains, the role of foreign buyers, global standards and preferential trade agreements in shaping export performance. I use the case of Indian apparel, and the history of its recent export growth, to highlight the domestic dimensions of export competitiveness. I argue that the role of the state, contradictory institutional legacies of India’s Import Substitution Industrialization, contested shifts within local regulatory regimes and the changing structure of the domestic market were of central importance to shaping the incorporation of a shielded industry into the global economy and the nature of its export trajectory. KEY WORDS India, Post-MFA, Textile and apparel, Export competitiveness, Institutional legacies, State policy Introduction The elimination of global textile quotas under the Multi-Fibre Arrangement on 1 January 2005 has triggered a restructuring of existing patterns of sourcing and supply in the global textile and apparel industry. 1 With suppliers free to export as much product as they can to any destination, the widespread expectation was that the removal of quotas would lead to a substantial consolidation of global supply networks and that large low cost suppliers in countries such as China and India would gain market share at the cost of more precarious suppliers in smaller countries whose apparel sectors had grown under quota protections. 2 Yet, two years after the elimination of quotas the early outcomes of adjustment hold many surprises and embody tremendous variation. While China and India initially increased their apparel exports significantly, as predicted (UN Statistical Division, various years), many smaller countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia also performed surprisingly well, holding their own in major markets. In the first half of 2006, for