Is the China-effect real? Ideational change and the increasing political contestation of Chinese state-led investment in Europe

Chinese outwards investment is increasing in its relevance for the global economy; and its effects on host states are increasingly being scrutinized within International Political Economy discussions. While policy-making was ambiguous about the question of hosting Chinese state-led investment in the early 2010s, we can observe a recent surge of protectionist legal measures across Europe. What explains this trend among different European countries? Through the lens of incremental ideational change, we hypothesize that the rise of China as a global investor shifts the perceptions of policy-makers away from being a source of investment towards questions of national security. We argue that this postulated China-effect affects advanced European economies similarly. We provide evidence by studying the shift inperceptions among policy-makers in a coordinated and a liberal market economy, Germany and the UK. By drawing on document analysis and expert interviews, we unpack the policy processes in both countries in the last decade. Despite being two dissimilar cases, both show a similar outcome in increasingly rejecting Chinese state-led investment on the grounds of national security reasons. Our results add important insights to recent discussions on the ‘geopoliticization’ of European trade and investment rules in the face of a rising China.

Neoliberalism with Scandinavian characteristics: The slow formation of neoliberal common sense in Denmark

This article describes the ascension of neoliberal economic ideas in the macroeconomic establishment in Denmark. Based on a systematic analysis of documents from the Danish government and the Economic Council from the 1970s to the early 2000s, the article traces the development of the economic ideas and policy instrument that dominate the analytical process of the Danish macroeconomic establishment. The article applies a Gramscian-inspired framework to track the gradual and uneven process under which neoliberal economic ideas became common sense in the Danish context. This framework challenges some of the assumptions of the ideational focus of much constructivist literature, and offers an alternative analysis focused on the legitimating role of economic ideas. As much of the ideational change took place after policy adaptions to international economic developments, the Danish case provides little support for the theory of the causal power of ideas. Rather, it seems as though economic models and ideas are imported as ‘after the fact’ legitimations of changes in policy.

Justice, Power, and Participatory Socialism: on Piketty’s Capital and Ideology

Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology constitutes a landmark achievement in furthering our understanding of the history of inequality, and presents valuable proposals for constructing a future economic system that would allow us to transcend and move beyond contemporary forms of capitalism. This article discusses Piketty’s conceptions of ideology, property, and ‘inequality regimes’, and analyses his approach to social justice and its relation to the work of John Rawls. I examine how Piketty’s proposals for ‘participatory socialism’ would function not only to redistribute income and wealth, but also to disperse economic power within society, and I discuss the complementary roles of redistribution and predistribution in his proposals, and Piketty’s place in a tradition of egalitarian political economy associated with James Meade and Anthony Atkinson. Having elaborated on Piketty’s account of the relationship between economic policy and ideational change, and his important idea of the ‘desacralization’ of private property, I develop ‘seven theses’ on his proposals for participatory socialism, examining areas in which his approach could be enhanced or extended, so as to create a viable twenty-first century version of democratic socialism.

(Re)defining legitimacy in Canadian drug assessment policy? Comparing ideas over time

How do experts judge the legitimacy of technical policy processes, and do their ideas change as these processes are opened to other stakeholders and the public? This research examines the adoption of public and patient involvement in pharmaceutical assessment in Canada. It finds tensions between scientific legitimacy that prioritizes rigor and objectivity, and democratic legitimacy that values inclusion and a broader range of evidence. In response to policy change, experts incorporate new ideas about democratic inputs and processes, while maintaining scientific policy goals. The research responds to calls for more precise measurement of ideas and ideational change and more evaluation of public and patient involvement in health policy. It helps us understand the significance of, and limits to, ideational change among experts in health policy domains that are highly technical and publicly salient. Understanding the way democratic and scientific legitimacy are negotiated in policy decisions has a wide applicability in health, but is particularly relevant during a global pandemic when evidence is being generated rapidly, decisions must be made quickly, and these decisions have a significant, immediate effect on the lives of all citizens.

Studying Ideational Change in Russian Politics with Topic Models and Word Embeddings

This chapter applies computational methods of textual analysis to a large corpus of media texts to study ideational change. The empirical focus of the chapter is on the ideas of the political role of innovation, technology, and economic development that were introduced into Russian politics during Medvedev’s presidency. The chapter uses topic modeling, shows the limitations of the method, and provides a more nuanced analysis with the help of word embeddings. The latter method is used to analyze semantic change and to capture complex semantic relationships between the studied concepts.

Realizing urban food policy: a discursive institutionalist analysis of Ede municipality

To overcome pressing food system challenges, academics and civil society actors have called for the development of integrated food policies. Municipalities have increasingly picked up on these calls by developing municipal food strategies. It remains unclear, however, whether and how these commitments have resulted in a genuine institutionalization of food governance across local administrations. We address this gap through an in-depth study of how food governance ideas were institutionalized in the Dutch municipality of Ede, which is considered a frontrunner in municipal food policy. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, we explore how actors, ideas and discourses mutually shaped the institutionalization process. Our analysis shows that food governance ideas were institutionalized following a discursive-institutional spiral of three stages. First, an abstract food profile discourse emerged, which was institutionalized exclusively amongst a small group of policy makers. In the second stage, the discourse shifted to a more elaborate integrated food policy discourse, which was institutionalized across various departments. Finally, a food system discourse emerged, which was institutionalized across an even broader range of policy departments. Our study suggests that integrated food policy can be institutionalized within a relatively short time span. A food strategy, budget and organizational innovations seem key in this process, although they can also be constraining. At the same time, we conclude that retaining a food policy institutionalized remains challenging, as sudden ideational change may cause rapid deinstitutionalization.