Technology and technology policy in the postwar UK : « market failure » or « network failure » ?

Abstract

The case for government intervention via technology policy in the UK in the later 20th century was typically justified by « market failure » arguments. In this paper I argue firstly that an analysis of technology trends indicates that non-market failures, mainly systemic and dynamic in nature, were a more basic source of British technological shortcomings. Secondly, an analysis of trends in technology policy suggests that narrowly economics-based views too often hampered good intentions to reform policy along more appropriate lines, and restricted development of any serious capabilities for « policy learning » in the field. The main line of argument represents an application of the Richardson-Sen model of capabilities and networking to the government/policy field. There follows a discussion of policy learning in a context of network misalignment and systemic failure over the longer term of British technology policy, although there have been more encouraging efforts to overcome some of these problems in recent times. The paper concludes that « market failure » is at best a gross simplification of the issues confronting British technology policy in this era, and often an obstruction in the way of applying more constructive network-oriented policies.

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“…Correspondingly, others have argued that hierarchical modes of governance are problematic in the case of widespread "government failures" (Weiner and Alexander 1998;Provan and Kenis 2008). What is much less known in the governance literature, however, is the existence of "network failures" (Weiner and Alexander 1998;Provan and Kenis 2008;Tunzelmann 2010;Uribe 2012). These include problems such as a lack of societal leadership, poor associational structures, and weak state steering capacities which make adoption of network governance modes problematic.…”

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