Industrial Policy in Western Europe since the 1960s: Historical Varieties and Perspectives
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Ralf Ahrens
Ralf Ahrens studied Modern History, Political Science and Economics at Frankfurt/Main and Freiburg/ Breisgau. After receiving his doctorate in Economic History at the Technische Universität Dresden and research positions at the departments of Contemporary History at Dresden and Jena, he has been doing research at the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam since 2009. Book publications include: Flick. Der Konzern, die Familie, die Macht, München 2009 (with Tim Schanetzky, Jörg Osterloh and Norbert Frei); Jürgen Ponto. Bankier und Bürger. Eine Biografie, München 2013 (with Johannes Bähr); Die “Deutschland AG”. Historische Annäherungen an den bundesdeutschen Kapitalismus, Essen 2013 (ed. with Boris Gehlen and Alfred Reckendrees).
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Astrid M. Eckert
Astrid M. Eckert is Associate Professor of Modern European History at Emory University in Atlanta. Before moving to Emory, she was a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute (GHI) in Washington, D. C. She publishedThe Struggle for the Files. The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War with Cambridge University Press (2012, Pb. 2014), which had previously appeared in German asKampf um die Akten with Steiner Verlag Stuttgart. She held multiple prestigious fellowships, including at the American Academy Berlin (2011) and as a Humboldt Research Fellow affiliated with the Hamburg Research Center for Contemporary History (2015/16). Her current book projectWest Germany and the Iron Curtain explores the meaning and consequences of the inter-German border in economic, cultural and environmental terms, thereby re-reading the history of the Federal Republic from its Cold War periphery.
Abstract
Historical research on industrial policy has only recently begun to focus on the crisis-shaken decades of the 1970s and 1980s, demonstrating the broadness of the topic as well as the need for further research. In the first section of this introduction, we address the challenges in arriving at a definition of industrial policy that would encompass the wide variety of this type of state intervention into economic structures. In a second step, we provide a short survey of the variations of industrial policy in Western market economies since the 1960s, emphasizing the plurality of goals and methods that make this topic such a promising avenue of historical research. Finally, we suggest some perspectives for future research, including its potential for interdisciplinary connections.
About the authors
Ralf Ahrens studied Modern History, Political Science and Economics at Frankfurt/Main and Freiburg/ Breisgau. After receiving his doctorate in Economic History at the Technische Universität Dresden and research positions at the departments of Contemporary History at Dresden and Jena, he has been doing research at the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam since 2009. Book publications include: Flick. Der Konzern, die Familie, die Macht, München 2009 (with Tim Schanetzky, Jörg Osterloh and Norbert Frei); Jürgen Ponto. Bankier und Bürger. Eine Biografie, München 2013 (with Johannes Bähr); Die “Deutschland AG”. Historische Annäherungen an den bundesdeutschen Kapitalismus, Essen 2013 (ed. with Boris Gehlen and Alfred Reckendrees).
Astrid M. Eckert is Associate Professor of Modern European History at Emory University in Atlanta. Before moving to Emory, she was a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute (GHI) in Washington, D. C. She published The Struggle for the Files. The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War with Cambridge University Press (2012, Pb. 2014), which had previously appeared in German as Kampf um die Akten with Steiner Verlag Stuttgart. She held multiple prestigious fellowships, including at the American Academy Berlin (2011) and as a Humboldt Research Fellow affiliated with the Hamburg Research Center for Contemporary History (2015/16). Her current book project West Germany and the Iron Curtain explores the meaning and consequences of the inter-German border in economic, cultural and environmental terms, thereby re-reading the history of the Federal Republic from its Cold War periphery.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- In eigener Sache. 25 Jahre Jahrbuch unter neuer Leitung
- Abhandlungen
- Industrial Policy in Western Europe since the 1960s: Historical Varieties and Perspectives
- Abhandlungen
- Industrial Policy in Britain since 1970: Changing Values, Assumptions and Mechanisms
- Abhandlungen
- Sectoral Subsidies in West German Industrial Policy: Programmatic Objectives and Pragmatic Applications from the 1960s to the 1980s
- Abhandlungen
- Structural Policies, regional Development and industrial Specialization in Italy, 1952-2002
- Abhandlungen
- West German Borderland Aid and European State Aid Control
- Abhandlungen
- When Germany Accepted a European Industrial Policy: Managing the Decline of Steel from 1977 to 1984
- Abhandlungen
- A European Structural Crisis Cartel as Solution to a Sectoral Depression?
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- Angst, Anpassung oder Anregung?
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- Ein glücksökonomisch modifizierter Human Development Index für Deutschland (1920-1960)
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- „Ära Voss“
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- In eigener Sache. 25 Jahre Jahrbuch unter neuer Leitung
- Abhandlungen
- Industrial Policy in Western Europe since the 1960s: Historical Varieties and Perspectives
- Abhandlungen
- Industrial Policy in Britain since 1970: Changing Values, Assumptions and Mechanisms
- Abhandlungen
- Sectoral Subsidies in West German Industrial Policy: Programmatic Objectives and Pragmatic Applications from the 1960s to the 1980s
- Abhandlungen
- Structural Policies, regional Development and industrial Specialization in Italy, 1952-2002
- Abhandlungen
- West German Borderland Aid and European State Aid Control
- Abhandlungen
- When Germany Accepted a European Industrial Policy: Managing the Decline of Steel from 1977 to 1984
- Abhandlungen
- A European Structural Crisis Cartel as Solution to a Sectoral Depression?
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- Angst, Anpassung oder Anregung?
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- Ein glücksökonomisch modifizierter Human Development Index für Deutschland (1920-1960)
- Forschungs- und Literaturbericht
- „Ära Voss“
