Moving on to not fall behind? Technological sovereignty and the ‘geo-dirigiste’ turn in EU industrial policy

The fear of falling behind has been a driving force of European integration. Historically, Europe’s response to the looming <i>angst</i> of declining competitiveness has been more market-creation, not market-direction. Recently, however, Europe has – in the name of safeguarding Europe’s technological sovereignty – taken on a much more active role in directing economic activity towards sectors and technologies deemed geopolitically or geoeconomically important. In this paper, we attempt to explain this ‘geo-dirigiste’ turn. We reconstruct the evolution of EU industrial policy through the lens of Europe’s fear of falling behind, drawing not only on primary (including archival) and secondary sources, but also on original interviews and deep transfer learning applied to an original dataset of 66.548 documents. Focusing on Europe’s changing technological and geopolitical context, its coalitional underpinnings, and the role of ideational politics, we document and explain the historic shift away from market-creation and towards supranational market-direction in EU industrial policy.

对落后的恐惧始终是欧洲一体化的核心驱动力。历史上，面对竞争力下滑迫在眉睫的焦虑，欧洲的应对路径更多聚焦于市场构建，而非市场调控。然而近年来，欧洲以维护技术主权为名，在将经济活动导向被视为地缘政治或地缘经济重要领域与技术的方向上，承担了更为积极的角色。本文旨在阐释这一"地缘统制主义（geo-dirigiste）"转向。我们以欧洲对落后的恐惧为视角，重构欧盟（European Union）产业政策的演进历程，不仅依托一手资料（含档案史料）与二手文献，还结合原创访谈与针对66548份原始文档数据集开展的深度迁移学习（deep transfer learning）。本文聚焦欧洲不断变化的技术与地缘政治环境、其联盟支撑基础以及观念政治的作用，对欧盟产业政策从市场构建转向超国家层面市场调控的历史性转变进行了系统梳理与阐释。