Regulatory Means for Interventionist Ends
Abstract: Despite its new-found penchant for market interventionism, the European Union (EU) is often portrayed as lacking the fiscal and administrative capacity to conduct industrial policy. The EU can…
Research Interests and Projects
The Professorship of Political Economy looks at the intersection of politics and the economy. We investigate how ideas and institutions as well as politics and power shape and are shaped by economic processes, focusing on the causes and consequences of technological change. We want to understand how political and economic power, geopolitical and distributional conflict, or institutional legacies and influential ideas shape how and which technologies are developed and deployed—and how this in turn shapes economies and societies.
Further information on Timo Seidl's research interests and projects can be found on the website:
Publications
26 Publications
The costs of conditionality. IPCEIs and the constrained politics of EU industrial policy
Abstract: With the global return of industrial policy, most literature examines why states increasingly resort to market activism. Much less is known about how industrial policy works “on the ground.” In this…
Waking a Dormant Legal Resource
Abstract: Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs) have become a central tool of the European Union's (EU) new industrial policy. IPCEIs derive their peculiar name from an exemption to the…
Picking Sectors
Abstract: A central feature of industrial policy today is governments’ growing willingness to direct economic activity into strategic sectors. However, identifying which sectors or technologies are strategic is…
Doing Industrial Policy in a Geo‐Tech World
Abstract: In recent years, industrial policy has made a comeback across the globe, with governments increasingly willing to redirect economic activity towards strategically important technologies. While a…
Picking Sectors: IPCEIs and Europe’s Emerging State Capacity for Strategic Identification
Abstract: A central feature of industrial policy today is governments’ growing willingness to direct economic activity into strategic sectors. However, identifying which sectors or technologies are strategic is…
Moving on to not fall behind? Technological sovereignty and the ‘geo-dirigiste’ turn in EU industrial policy
Abstract: The fear of falling behind has been a driving force of European integration. Historically, Europe’s response to the looming angst of declining competitiveness has been more market-creation, not…
The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism
Abstract: Digital technologies are rapidly transforming economies and societies. Scholars have approached this rise of digital capitalism from various angles. However, relatively little attention has been paid…
Charting the Contours of the Geo-Tech World
Digital sovereignty - Rhetoric and reality
Abstract: In recent years, the language of digital sovereignty has become ubiquitous in Europe. However, we still lack systematic knowledge if and to what extent the discourse on digital sovereignty is…
Investing in the knowledge economy
Abstract: Investments in education and retraining, or research and development have become essential in today's knowledge-intensive economies. While private actors often underprovided such knowledge-based…
The (False) promise of solutionism
Abstract: Digital technologies are transforming security governance, bringing new risks and opportunities. The resulting uncertainty creates interpretative contests about what these new challenges are and who…
As Open as Possible, as Autonomous as Necessary
Abstract: For decades, the EU's trade policy has been centred around open(ing) markets. Why, then, has the EU recently embraced open strategic autonomy as the conceptual cornerstone of its renewed trade policy?…
Der solutionistische Geist des digitalen Kapitalismus
Commodification and Disruption
Abstract: There is little disagreement that digital technologies are transforming contemporary economies and societies. However, scholars have only begun to systematically think about how digitalization – the…
Lehdonvirta, Vili (2022). Cloud Empires: How digital platforms are overtaking the state and how we can regain control. MA, USA: The MIT Press.
The politics of platform capitalism
Abstract: Platform companies like Uber not only disrupt existing markets but also contest existing regulatory regimes. This raises the question of how, when, and why such companies are regulated. This article…
Ideas, Politics, and Technological Change
The discursive construction of digitalization
Abstract: New forms of work intermediation - the gig economy - and the growing use of advanced digital technologies - the new knowledge economy - are changing the nature of work. The digitalization of work,…
Regulating the European Data-Driven Economy
Abstract: In recent years, data have become part and parcel of contemporary capitalism. This has created tensions between the growing demand for personal data and the fundamental right to data protection.…
Appadurai & Alexander, Failure
Ideologie und der Geist des digitalen Kapitalismus
Eine Stabilitäts- und Wettbewerbsunion der Regierungen
Kompatibilität statt Reduktion
Im »Südwesten« nichts Neues?
Abstract: Der Beitrag widmet sich der Frage, welche grundlegenden Handlungsregeln diedeutsche Namibiapolitik anleiten und welche Rückschlüsse sich daraus für die Dis-kussion um das Verhältnis von Interessen und…