The Creative Economy in Local Territories: Alibaba and Amazon in Territorial Competition, but Ideological Synergy to Bypass Democratic Governance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33423/jmdc.v18i3.7231Keywords:
marketing, development, digital and creative industries, digital platforms, political economy, local development, economic ecosystemAbstract
Alibaba and Amazon now dominate global e-commerce. Although their strategies partly differ, they are both territorializing their activities around sorting hubs and warehouses. This often creates tensions in local territories. In our research exploring the effects of these strategies, conducted in France and Belgium from 2019 to 2022, we hypothesized that the impacts of the digital industrialization of local and global trade go beyond sales and logistics; the concentration of these markets in the hands of two ultra-dominant actors reflects unequal power relations that are reconfiguring governance, public decision-making, and democracy, notably by obscuring the major challenges that territories face.
References
Alibaba Group. (2019). Introduction to eWTP. Alizila.
Badault, S. (2019). Nous sommes en train de redessiner les limites du commerce. Les Sommets du Digital. Retrieved from les-sommets.fr
Blanquart, C., Liu, Z., Maudhuit, N., & Zéroual, T. (2019). Les entrepôts de l’e-commerce: Quelles spécificités? Une étude du cas Amazon. Logistique & Management, 27(1), 44–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/12507970.2018.1552088
Bollier, D. (2014). La Renaissance des communs. Pour une société de coopération et de partage. Paris: Éditions Charles Léopold Mayer.
Boltanski, L., & Esquerre, A. (2017). Enrichissement: une critique de la merchandise. Paris: Gallimard.
Cabedoche, B. (2019). La ville, lieu de diffusion ou de captation des ressources? Une analyse critique des politiques urbaines d’attractivité de la “classe creative”. In W. Neira Bronttis, Y. Théorêt, & P. Giguère (Eds.), Communication, ville et espace public (pp. 91–113). Paris: Éditions de l’immatériel.
Lefebvre, H. (1992). The Production of Space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. (Original work published 1974).
Lefèvre, B., & Wiart, L. (2020). Les hubs eWTP d’Alibaba: Une stratégie globale d’articulation d’écosystèmes locaux. Les Enjeux de l’information et de la communication, 21(1), 71–89. https://doi.org/10.3917/enic.028.0071
Lyons, T. (2018). The partnership on artificial intelligence to benefit people & society. House of Representatives Oversight & Government Reform Committee Subcommittee on Information Technology. Game Changers: Artificial Intelligence Part III – AI and Public Policy.
Moeglin, P. (2019). L’hypothèse d’un paradigme créatif sociétal. Intérêts, enjeux et stratégies en lice. Communication, 36(1). https://doi.org/10.4000/communication.9702
Ostrom, E. (2010). Gouvernance des biens communs. Pour une nouvelle approche des ressources naturelles. Louvain-la-Neuve: De Boeck.
Paquienséguy, F., & Miao, H. (2018). The user as a key component of platforms: Through the Lens of Alibaba. In P. Bouquillion, & F. Moreau (Eds.), Digital Platforms and Cultural Industries (pp.91–113). Brussels: Peter Lang.
Rosa, H. (2020). Rendre le monde indisponible. Paris: La Découverte.
Rosanvallon, P. (2006). La Contre-Démocratie. La politique à l’âge de la défiance. Paris: Le Seuil.
Scott, J.C. (1999). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Star, S.L., & Griesemer, J.R. (1989). Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420.
Subra, P. (2016). Géopolitique locale: Territoires, acteurs, conflits. Paris: Armand Colin.
Tsai, W.-C., & Yuan, C. (2016). Analyzing the emergence of Alibaba Group from business ecosystem perspective. The Journal of International Management Studies, 11(2), 53–64.
Zeng, M. (2018, September–October). Alibaba and the Future of Business. Harvard Business Review, pp. 88–96.
