James A. Dunn

Policy Networks and Industrial Revitalization: High Speed Rail Initiatives in France and Germany

Using Atkinson and Colemans typology of policy networks, this article shows how many of the differences in policy outcomes can be traced to the structure of the policy environment in each nation. French and Germany policy makers adopted a strategy of investing in high speed passenger transport to revitalize their declining railway sectors. The French TGV was developed in a state-directed policy network which insisted on cost containment and commercial viability. In Germany a corporatist style of policymaking in the rail sector led to delays and higher costs for the ICE train. A separate clientele pluralist network led by the Research Ministry developed the Transrapid maglev option, but in order to finance and deploy an operational system, the Chancellor and cabinet had to create a concertation network. The policy network approach provides a useful framework for conducting comparative analysis. In addition, these detailed cases suggest that it is useful to add a dynamic, cross-temporal dimension to the static typology.

Transportation Policy-Level Partnerships and Project-Based Partnerships

Public-private partnerships are common in transportation. The most significant are policy partnerships in which the public provides a long-term investment to create the basic infrastructure for a transportation mode. Highways are the most spectacular case of a policy partnership; governments build roads, while private motorists invest in vehicles, fuel, insurance, and so forth. Policy partnerships have also been established in declining transport modes, for example, Amtrak for intercity passenger trains and federal subsidies for urban transit. There are also project-based partnerships in which politicians offer incentives for private capital to invest at specific sites. The goal of such partnerships is often not transportation, but urban redevelopment. As policy shifts toward reducing transportations negative externalities, new possibilities for public-private partnerships emerge. After decades of wrangling over auto emissions and energy standards, Detroit and Washington created the Partnership for a New...Public-private partnerships are common in transportation. The most significant are policy partnerships in which the public provides a long-term investment to create the basic infrastructure for a transportation mode. Highways are the most spectacular case of a policy partnership; governments build roads, while private motorists invest in vehicles, fuel, insurance, and so forth. Policy partnerships have also been established in declining transport modes, for example, Amtrak for intercity passenger trains and federal subsidies for urban transit. There are also project-based partnerships in which politicians offer incentives for private capital to invest at specific sites. The goal of such partnerships is often not transportation, but urban redevelopment. As policy shifts toward reducing transportations negative externalities, new possibilities for public-private partnerships emerge. After decades of wrangling over auto emissions and energy standards, Detroit and Washington created the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) to develop dramatically cleaner and more fuel-efficient automobiles.

Reframing Automobile Fuel Economy Policy in North America: The Politics of Punctuating a Policy Equilibrium

Abstract The USA and Canada generate over one‐third of the transportation‐related emissions of carbon dioxide in the world. Motor vehicles produce a majority of these emissions. This paper examines how the US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulatory standard for light‐duty vehicles has established an underlying fuel economy policy paradigm for the highly integrated North American automotive sector. While these standards pushed North American vehicle fuel efficiency higher in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the standards have not been significantly increased since 1985. The paper details the institutional, economic and political factors that have blocked higher CAFE standards. It describes difficulties with the legal efforts to shift the main venue of fuel economy regulation from the US federal government to the state of California. In light of the Canadian tradition of establishing voluntary agreements between the government and the auto manufacturers in lieu of formal regulation, it assesses the possibility that the voluntary agreement on reducing automotive greenhouse gas emissions signed between Ottawa and Canadian auto manufacturers in April 2005 will be a step toward a new style of negotiated advances in fuel economy and greenhouse gas reduction goals throughout North America.

Reinventing Amtrak: The politics of survival

This article argues that Amtraks design as a “quasi-public, for-profit” corporation was seriously flawed from its beginnings. The corporation was isolated from Americas private railroads, and isolated from trust-funding financial mechanisms that supported highways, airports, and mass transit. It depended on powerful Democratic congressional patrons and labor union support for protection from Republican executive budget cuts. But these allies pushed Amtrak into running far more costly service than was good for its bottom line. The corporation was already engaged in an internal reorganization designed to bring it closer to its customers, when the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional election launched an external effort to reorient and restructure Amtrak. There are three possible outcomes of the two-sided reinvention process: status quo and continued slow decline; partnership based on new relationships between Amtrak, federal and state governments, and the private sector; and privatization which might still require substantial public expenditures for some time. Synchronizing the opportunities created by both the internal and the external reinvention efforts is the key to whether Amtrak can emerge as a viable and valuable provider of rail transportation in the 21st century.

Automobiles in international trade: regime change or persistence?

The concept of a “regime” is frequently used to describe and explain behavior in international political economy. Peter Cowhey and Edward Long, attempting to test theories of surplus capacity and hegemonic decline, advanced a version of a regime governing international trade in automobiles which was fundamentally liberal from 1966 to 1975, but then collapsed into protectionism. Their diagnosis is mistaken, however, because the trade regime for autos was neither as liberal as they assert during the 1950s and 1960s, nor as protectionist as they believe it has become in the 1980s. The discussion focuses on a new definition of the auto trade regime based on four fundamental rules that have persisted since the 1950s. By examining data on auto imports since 1955 on a region-by-region basis, it becomes clear that the trade expansion of the postwar years was not based on a global liberalization of the trade regime, but on carefully managed regional arrangements that favored imports within the region, or extra-regional imports that did not threaten domestic producers. The flurry of restraints on Japanese imports in recent years is not a collapse into protectionism, but a reinforcement of the fundamental regime rules. The auto industry case illustrates the tendency of analysts to underestimate protectionist elements in industry trade regimes and to overestimate the amount of changes that take place in their fundamental rules.

Vehicle of Influence: Building a European Car Market. By Roland Stephen. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. 240p.

The significance of European integration as a process and an intellectual focus is undeniable. The economic importance of the European auto sector and its worldwide dimensions are also self-evident. Roland Stephens effort to deepen our analytical understanding of the former through a detailed examination of the latter thus promises to be of interest to readers from a variety of fields, ranging from economics and politics to the analysis of corporate strategy.