ABSTRACT
Industrial policy is back on the European Union's (EU) political agenda. While this shift in economic policy discourse is to be welcomed in principle, from a progressive economic and political point of view, it is very important to carefully think about the why, how and for whom of industrial policy. The initial motivations underlying the EU's return to industrial policy were connected to both the existential challenge of the climate crisis and the challenges of the digital revolution. More recently, the geopolitical shifts, and in particular the war in Ukraine, have led European policymakers to increasingly prioritise security and competitive considerations. This edited volume aims at intervening into this debate from a critical perspective. Our basic premise is that the securitisation of industrial policy must not come at the expense of accelerating the green transformation. Thus, an inclusive approach to industrial policy-making, based on democratic deliberation is central. In this introduction, a number of basic conceptual issues are addressed, which give a background to the understanding of industrial policy applied in this collected volume. We address the following questions in particular: (i) What precisely is industrial policy? (ii) How should it be motivated? and (iii) What are the necessary requirements for a successful industrial policy? Thereafter, we present an outline of the volume and provide an overview of the contributions.
