Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-zlvph Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-18T03:24:59.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Institutions, Elites, and Technological Change in France and Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

J. Nicholas Ziegler
Affiliation:
Sloan School of Management, MIT
Get access

Abstract

Most comparative studies of public strategies for competitiveness focus on the links between public agencies and industrial sectors. This paper argues that the professions—or knowledge-bearing elites—that animate these organizational links are equally significant. For public policies to promote technological advance, the visions and self-images of knowledge-bearing elites are particularly important. By examining administrative and technical elites in France and Germany in the 1980s, the paper identifies characteristics that enable these elites to implement policy in some cases but not in others. France's “state-created” elites were well positioned to initiate and implement large technology projects, such as digitizing the telecommunications network. By contrast, Germany's state-recognized elites were better positioned to facilitate framework-oriented programs aimed at the diffusion of new technologies throughout industry. The linkages between administrative and technical elites also explain why French policymakers had difficulty adapting policy to changing circumstances over time, whereas German policymakers managed in many cases to learn more from previous policy experiences and to adapt subsequent initiatives accordingly.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable