Seeding an Energy Technology Revolution in the United States: Re-conceptualising the Nature of Innovation in ‘Liberal-Market Economies’

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to comparative capitalisms debates about the nature of the so-called liberal-market economy/coordinated-market economy divide by drawing attention to the extent and nature of the developmental state apparatus being deployed in Washington's efforts to develop markets for novel climate and energy technologies. Against the deluge of literatures in comparative capitalisms debates which suggest that liberal market economies typically breed ‘radical’ innovation cycles based on the relative absence of states, internal corporate hierarchies, and competitive market arrangements, this article uses a regulationist framework to understand how critical tensions and contradictions inherent to liberal market economies serve to engender new forms of direct state intervention, particularly within the innovation process. Building on Block's (2008) concept of a ‘hidden developmental network state’ emerging in Washington beginning in the late 1970s, this article explores the tensions that have led to the use of such developmental policies in the climate and energy realms, and provides a description of how these policies function.