Science, Industry, And The State

Science, Industry, And The State

In 1986, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) published The Politics of Industrial Policy, a collection of essays edited by AEI Senior Fellow Claude Barfield and Hudson Institute Senior Fellow William A. Schambra. The volume emerged from an AEI conference convened in response to shifting dynamics abroad, especially relating to foreign and trade policy,  as well as a reexamination of American economic priorities at home. The conference approached the issue of industrial policy through a “historical, political, cultural, and institutional” lens, bringing together contributors with diverse perspectives and backgrounds for discussion and debate. 

The resulting edited volume, though 40 years old, is strikingly relevant to present-day domestic and international policy challenges. As then-president of AEI, William J. Baroody Jr., wrote in his preface, 

“The United States now faces serious challenges abroad. Changing dynamics in the international marketplace as well as deliberate actions by some governments in restraint of free trade have combined to diminish the competitiveness of many American goods and services. This challenge to America’s competitive standing in the international economy has stimulated a reevaluation of U.S. policies on several fronts. Indeed, it has prompted a reevaluation of basic questions concerning the role of the public sector itself in fostering economic growth, technological advance, and sectoral and regional development.”

These concerns have returned with renewed urgency. Of course, the specifics of today’s policy debates—whether over supply chain resilience, semiconductor manufacturing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, green industrial policy, or strategic competition with China—differ in important respects from those on display in the 1986 volume. But the underlying questions remain the same: Can governments effectively guide industrial development? How do—or how should—political institutions shape scientific research and economic development? What are the risks of intervention versus non-intervention? How can the United States preserve its edge in an increasingly competitive and uncertain geopolitical climate?

AEI’s Center for Technology, Science, and Energy is pleased to announce that The Politics of Industrial Policy will be reissued by AEI Press in 2026. The new edition will contain an updated foreword by Claude Barfield and AEI senior fellow and CTSE director M. Anthony Mills and updated chapters from some of the volume’s original contributors. 

In advance of the 2026 republication, AEI’s Center for Technology, Science, and Energy is publishing a series of essays that engage with these questions in a contemporary context. These essays serve as a modern-day analogue to the original volume, examining how today’s industrial policy debates echo and diverge from those of four decades ago. Like the 1986 conference that sparked the original collection, this series brings together diverse perspectives to explore industrial policy through historical, political, cultural, and institutional lenses, demonstrating both the continuity of questions about the state’s role in economic development and the new complexities introduced by 21st-century technological and geopolitical realities.