ECPR

Install the app

Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.

Just tap Share then “Add to Home Screen”

ECPR

Install the app

Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.

Just tap Share then “Add to Home Screen”

Recasting the National Economic Interest in the Age of Global Value Chains? Policy Frames, Governance and Strategies in Europe

Europe (Central and Eastern)
Governance
Trade
Comparative Perspective
Policy Change
Institutions
Marco Di Giulio
Università degli Studi di Genova
Marco Di Giulio
Università degli Studi di Genova
Francesco N. Moro
Università di Bologna

Abstract

How do States define, and protect, strategic assets in the age of global value chains? After more than three decades since the waves of privatization have begun in Europe, States did not entirely give up their willingness and capacity to define some economic areas or sectors as strategic and to accordingly operate to protect them for foreign threat. While they try and do so, they operate in a wholly different context than before. Processes of market integration occurring both worldwide and within specific regional areas such as the European Union, along with technological change, have in fact deeply affected the traditional value chains forged in the aftermath of the Second World War. This Paper explores the varieties of ways in which four West European States – France, Germany, Italy and the UK – are coping with this policy problem. The Paper focuses on two analytically distinct (albeit interwoven) aspects. First, it looks at the set of policy instruments which national governments have available and how these have been mixed and calibrated over the last three decades. Second, it deals with the different policy arenas which have emerged in each national contexts, which may vary from more state-centred to more society-centred venues. The analysis of these dimensions allows to uncover the way in which national (economic) interests have actually been re-framed in the last decades. The Paper also aims at generating hypotheses on the nature and dynamics of these transformations. Borrowing from the literature on institutional change, the Paper tries to single out the mechanisms by which patterns of continuity or more transformative change took place, focusing on the role of each country’s legacy and how policy makers and societal actors have interacted with it.