Technological innovation in a corporatist state: The case of biotechnology in the Federal Republic of Germany

This article examines a decade of federal support for biotechnology in the Federal Republic of Germany in order to determine the impact of liberal corporatist patterns of decision-making on industrial policy. For this purpose, industrial policy is taken to include both public initiatives aimed at promoting the new technology and those designed to control its risks.Two distinct forms of corporatism are discernible in this case study. In the first, the principal actors are large businesses, the state, and to a lesser extent, the academic reserch community. These actors have been most influential in defining the scope and specific objectives of the federally funced R&D program in biotechnology. A more traditional form of corporatism, including organized labor, has been engaged in the debate on regulatory policies.In the case of biotechnology, these patterns of corporatism have created the consensus necessary for the adoption of a comprehensive R&D program, but have perpetuated certain barriers to technological innovation. In particular, the reliance on established peak organizations to formulate policy has discouraged structural changes that could have enhanced Germany's early competitiveness in biotechnology. Incrementalism has produced more favorable results in the context of regulatory policy, by permitting control strategies to develop in step with technological progress.