From liberalization to interventionism: Policy paradigm change in EU digital and energy infrastructure policies

The late 20th century has been characterized by a worldwide dominance of neoliberalism in economic public policies. This paper argues that we are in the midst of a policy paradigm change, characterized by a rise of interventionism. We examine this conjecture based on an examination of the evolution of energy and telecommunications public policies in the European Union (EU). Utilities sectors, such as energy, telecommunications and railways, were subject to far-reaching liberalization policy reforms since the 1980s. As a result, many public monopolies were dismantled and replaced them by markets and regulation. This is particularly true in the European Union. Indeed, often pointed at for its bias towards liberal economic policies, the EU has been instrumental in triggering and diffusing neoliberal policy reforms across Europe. Hence the combination of the EU and the energy and telecommunications sector constitute least likely cases for the rise of interventionism. Based on a two-fold conceptualization of paradigm change including policy objectives and policy instruments, we combine qualitative and quantitative data to systematically map and compare the evolution of energy and telecommunications policies in the EU since their inception in the 1990s. The comparison of both policies will shed light on the extent to which there is a common trend towards the rise of interventionism in the EU, and the different timing and magnitude of this shift across sectors. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the comeback of interventionism in economic policymaking by mapping its various manifestation across sectors.