Density, distance, division and global production networks: the case of Brazil’s oil and gas sector

Abstract In addition to fostering increased trade between countries, globalization has significantly changed economic processes by enabling companies to divide production and marketing chains into various segments, which have spread throughout the world. Therefore, organizationally fragmented and spatially dispersed global production networks (GPNs) have become a new structure that is increasingly driving the world economy. Based on the concepts of density, distance and division, which are deemed by the World Bank’s World Development Report 2009 as determining factors of forging regional development, this article aims to analyze the way in which Brazil’s oil and gas sector has connected to GPNs, the conditions that benefit as well as hinder these connections and the implications of this for regional development.