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The Great Recession renewed calls for a return of state activism in support of the European economy. The widespread nationalization of ailing companies and the growing activism of national development banks led many to celebrate the reappearance of industrial policy. By reviewing the evolution of the goals, protagonists, and policy instruments of industrial policy since the postwar period, this paper shows how state intervention never ceased to be a crucial engine of growth across the EU. It argues that the decline of the Fordist wage-led production regime marked a turning point in the political economy of industrial policy with the transition from inward-looking to open-market forms of state intervention. The main features of open-market industrial policy are then discussed referring to the cases of the internationalization of national champions in public service sectors and the proliferation across the EU of industrial clusters. Finally, the paper reviews postcrisis instances of state intervention and highlights how, rather than breaking with past tendencies, the Great Recession further accelerated the shift towards open-market industrial policy.

The Great Recession renewed calls for a return of state activism in support of the European economy. The widespread nationalization of ailing companies and the growing activism of national development banks led many to celebrate the reappearance of industrial policy. By reviewing the evolution of the goals, protagonists, and policy instruments of industrial policy since the postwar period, this paper shows how state intervention never ceased to be a crucial engine of growth across the EU. It argues that the decline of the Fordist wage-led production regime marked a turning point in the political economy of industrial policy with the transition from inward-looking to open-market forms of state intervention. The main features of open-market industrial policy are then discussed referring to the cases of the internationalization of national champions in public service sectors and the proliferation across the EU of industrial clusters. Finally, the paper reviews postcrisis instances of state intervention and highlights how, rather than breaking with past tendencies, the Great Recession further accelerated the shift towards open-market industrial policy. ; Die Große Rezession hat Stimmen wieder laut werden lassen, die nach neuen Eingriffen des Staates zur Stützung der europäischen Wirtschaft verlangen. Die allerorts zu beobachtende Verstaatlichung angeschlagener Unternehmen und der wachsende Aktivismus staatlicher Entwicklungsbanken veranlassten viele dazu, die Wiederbelebung der Industriepolitik zu feiern. Anhand eines Rückblicks auf die Entwicklung der Ziele, Protagonisten und politischen Instrumente der Industriepolitik seit der Nachkriegszeit zeigt dieses Papier auf, dass staatliche Interventionen nie aufgehört haben, ein entscheidender Motor für das Wachstum in der gesamten Europäischen Union zu sein. Es vertritt die These, dass der Niedergang des fordistischen lohngetriebenen Produktionsregimes einen Wendepunkt in der politischen Ökonomie der Industriepolitik markierte, an dem ein Übergang von nach innen gerichteten zu an offenen Märkten orientierten Formen staatlicher Interventionen stattfand. Die Hauptmerkmale dieser marktwirtschaftlichen Industriepolitik werden dann anhand von Fällen der Internationalisierung nationaler Champions im öffentlichen Dienstleistungssektor und der Verbreitung industrieller Cluster in der EU diskutiert. Abschließend werden Beispiele für staatliche Interventionen im Nachhall der Krise untersucht, die aufzeigen sollen, wie die Große Rezession den Wandel hin zu einer marktwirtschaftlichen Industriepolitik weiter beschleunigt hat, anstatt mit früheren Tendenzen zu brechen.

Relying on insights from the comparative capitalism debate, this article compares the industrial policy strategies implemented by the Italian and Spanish governments to favor the internationalization of domestic electricity and telecommunications incumbents. It is shown how the cross‐sectoral and cross‐country variation in the outcome of their industrial policy efforts—that is, successful or unsuccessful internationalization—is explained by the reciprocal power relationship between governments and domestic large shareholders ("blockholders"). Successful internationalization is conditional on the availability of two power resources the government can use to influence blockholders' behavior: ownership power and regulatory power. When these resources were available, governments were able to impose a stable ownership structure on national champions, leading to successful internationalization. When they were not available, ownership instability led to failure. The findings presented here contribute to the debate on new forms of state involvement in the economy in the neoliberal era.

Defence date: 17 November 2017 ; Examining Board: Professor Pepper D. Culpepper, formerly EUI/University of Oxford (Supervisor); Professor Dorothee Bohle, European University Institute; Professor Richard Deeg, Temple University; Professor Mark Thatcher, London School of Economics ; This thesis compares the industrial policy strategy implemented by the Italian and Spanish governments to favour the internationalisation of domestic firms in the high value-added sectors of banking, electricity and telecommunications. The trajectory of six firms that successfully completed the transition from inward-looking monopolist to European champion (the banks Unicredit, Intesa-Sanpaolo, BBVA and Santander, the Italian electricity utility ENEL and the Spanish telecommunications firm Telefonica) is compared with that of two firms that failed to become European champions and are currently controlled by foreign competitors (the Spanish electricity utility Endesa and the Italian telecommunications incumbent Telecom Italia). The comparison of successes and failures makes clear the factors that led some Italian and Spanish firms to become European champions and others to be taken over.

AbstractEven when subject to comparable exogenous constraints during the Eurozone crisis and in its immediate aftermath, governments in Southern Europe have pursued distinct labour market reform agendas. What room for manoeuvre did governments of crisis‐struck peripheral countries really have in shaping their labour market reform strategies, and how can we account for the observed variation? We address these questions by making a twofold contribution to the debate on the political economy of austerity in the Eurozone periphery. First, through the first systematic analysis of all labour market and collective bargaining (CB) reforms implemented in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece over 2009–2019, we identify those elements of core labour market deregulation common across Southern European countries (namely, the loosening of employment protection for workers on open‐ended contracts and the decentralisation of CB to the firm level); and those elements of variation, both cross‐country and cross‐party, in the content of corollary labour market interventions that accompanied this core deregulation. Second, we explain these similarities and variations in reform outcomes as the product of the interaction of two factors: economic constraints and electoral dynamics. We argue that the implementation of the common core of deregulation is linked to the exogenous pressure to improve export competitiveness to which Southern European countries have been subjected since the crisis. Through the combination of survey data analysis and qualitative evidence, we then show empirically how the variation in the corollary measures accompanying deregulation is linked to the class composition of the electoral social blocs Southern European partisan governments rely on or aim to assemble. Based on this analysis, we identify four ideal‐typical labour market reformist strategies attempted by Southern European governments during the decade of the Great Recession. The analysis highlights that although domestic politics plays a crucial role in shaping structural adjustment under crisis conditions, not all reform strategies are equally viable within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union.

First published online: 7 August 2020 ; Even when subject to comparable exogenous constraints during the Eurozone crisis and in its immediate aftermath, governments in Southern Europe have pursued distinct labour market reform agendas. What room for manoeuvre did governments of crisis-struck peripheral countries really have in shaping their labour market reform strategies, and how can we account for the observed variation? We address these questions by making a twofold contribution to the debate on the political economy of austerity in the Eurozone periphery. First, through the first systematic analysis of all labour market and collective bargaining (CB) reforms implemented in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece over 2009–2019, we identify those elements of core labour market deregulation common across Southern European countries (namely, the loosening of employment protection for workers on open-ended contracts and the decentralisation of CB to the firm level); and those elements of variation, both cross-country and crossparty, in the content of corollary labour market interventions that accompanied this core deregulation. Second, we explain these similarities and variations in reform outcomes as the product of the interaction of two factors: economic constraints and electoral dynamics. We argue that the implementation of the common core of deregulation is linked to the exogenous pressure to improve export competitiveness to which Southern European countries have been subjected since the crisis. Through the combination of survey data analysis and qualitative evidence, we then show empirically how the variation in the corollary measures accompanying deregulation is linked to the class composition of the electoral social blocs Southern European partisan governments rely on or aim to assemble. Based on this analysis, we identify four ideal-typical labour market reformist strategies attempted by Southern European governments during the decade of the Great Recession. The analysis highlights that although domestic politics plays a crucial role in shaping structural adjustment under crisis conditions, not all reform strategies are equally viable within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union.

Employer organizations have been presented as strong promoters of the liberalization of industrial relations in Europe. This article, in contrast, argues that the preferences of employers vis-à-vis liberalization are heterogeneous and documents how employer organizations in Spain, Italy, and Portugal have resisted state-led reforms to liberalize collective bargaining during the Euro crisis. It shows that the dominance of small firms in the economies of these countries make employer organizations supportive of selective aspects of sectoral bargaining and state regulation. Encompassing sectoral bargaining is important for small firms for three reasons: it limits industrial conflict, reduces transaction costs related to wage-bargaining, and ensures that member firms are not undercut by rivals offering lower wages and employment conditions. Furthermore, the maintenance of sectoral bargaining and its extension to whole sectors by the state is a matter of survival for employer organizations. The article presents rationales for employer opposition to liberalization that differ from the varieties of capitalism approach.

This paper contributes to Comparative Political Economy (CPE), developing an analytical concept of corporate welfare. Corporate welfare - the transfer of public funds and benefits to corporate actors with weak or no conditionality - is a prominent form of state-business relations that CPE scholarship regularly overlooks and misinterprets. Such transfers should be understood as a structural privilege of business in a globalized post-Fordist capitalism, and an increasingly common strategy through which states attempt to steward national economic dynamism within a highly constrained range of policy options. However, without a well-developed concept of corporate welfare - premised upon the key criterion of conditionality - studies that identify a 'return' of the state in industrial planning misrepresent these transfers to business as a reassertion of state influence and control, rather than a reflection of state weakness and subordination. The paper provides the analytical building blocks to properly conceptualize transfers to business, works out the core challenges for empirical research, and provides empirical illustrations of this burgeoning phenomenon from the fields of unconventional monetary policy, privatization, and urban political economy. ; Der Aufsatz entwickelt ein analytisches Konzept der corporate welfare für die Vergleichende Politische Ökonomie. Corporate welfare - der Transfer öffentlicher Mittel an Unternehmen mit schwachen oder gar keinen Konditionalitäten - ist weitverbreitet und wird regelmäßig übersehen oder falsch eingeordnet. Solche Transfers sollten als strukturelles Privileg von Wirtschaftsunternehmen im postfordistischen Kapitalismus verstanden werden und als eine zunehmend verbreitete Strategie, mit der Staaten versuchen, wirtschaftliche Dynamik innerhalb eines stark eingeschränkten Spektrums politischer Optionen zu erzeugen. Ohne ein entwickeltes Konzept der corporate welfare - das auf dem Schlüsselkriterium der Konditionalität basiert - stellen Studien, die eine Rückkehr der Industriepolitik diagnostizieren, Transfers an Unternehmen fälschlicherweise als Wiederbelebung staatlichen Einflusses dar. Der Aufsatz liefert die analytischen Bausteine für eine angemessene Konzeptualisierung von Transfers an Unternehmen, arbeitet die zentralen Herausforderungen für die empirische Forschung heraus und liefert empirische Illustrationen des Problems aus den Bereichen unkonventionelle Geldpolitik, Privatisierungen und regionale Wirtschaftsförderung.

Frontmatter -- Index -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Which Road to Development? The Mediterranean Model Revisited -- Part I. Economic Features and Institutional Context of Southern European Countries -- 1. Is There a "Mediterranean" Growth Model? -- 2. States' Performance, Reforms, and Policy Capacity in Southern European Countries -- 3. Which Level of Analysis? Internal versus External Explanations of Eurozone Divergence -- 4. Following Different Paths of Modernization. The Changing Sociocultural Basis of Southern Europe -- Part II. Policies and Processes of Change -- 5. Labor Market (De)Regulation and Wage-Setting Institutions in Mediterranean Capitalism -- 6. Southern European Welfare Systems in Transition -- 7. How to Adjust? Italy and Spain at the Test of Financial Integration and Crisis -- 8. Human Capital Formation, Research and Development, and Innovation -- Conclusion. Mediterranean Capitalism between Change and Continuity -- References -- Contributors -- Index