The return of industrial policy and the no-longer hidden American developmental state
After four decades of neoliberal orthodoxy, the global resurgence of industrial policy marks a major turning point in economic governance.
In the United States, this process began under the Biden administration with the enactment of four landmark laws - the American Rescue Plan, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. How should we interpret these developments, and to what extent do they represent a true departure in U.S. industrial policy? Skeptics view this wave of state intervention as a continuation of pro-business policies designed to “de-risk” private investment, while others contend that U.S. industrial policy never disappeared but persisted in “hidden” forms. I argue that these assessments overlook a deeper transformation and propose an alternative framework for understanding the current moment. While existing accounts question whether genuine change has occurred, I contend that these initiatives signal a fundamental reconfiguration of the state’s relationship with private industry, laying the groundwork for a twenty-first-century American developmental state. Three features distinguish contemporary industrial policy from earlier paradigms: (1) directionality, targeting strategic sectors such as green energy and semiconductor manufacturing as well as specific regions and communities; (2) conditionality, linking corporate support to social, environmental, and geopolitical goals; and (3) politicization, as these initiatives generate visible contestation at both domestic and international levels. Drawing on policy analysis and expert interviews, I trace how this emerging industrial strategy is reshaping the architecture of state–market relations in the post-neoliberal era.
Meet our speaker
Erez Maggor is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at Ben-Gurion University’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology. He specializes in the political economy of industrial policy, innovation, and state-aid conditionality. Maggor received his Ph.D in Sociology from NYU (2020) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and the Martin Buber Society of Fellows. Recently, he was a visiting researcher at the Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm. His research has appeared in leading journals, including Socio-Economic Review, Politics & Society, and Regulation & Governance.
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