The globally spreading privatisation wave that occurred in the 1990s deeply changed the structure of economic institutions worldwide. This turmoil overturned not only economic institutions, but shared cultural and societal institutions as well.
This book is the result of an investigation into the history of the privatisation of the steel industry in Italy, completed between 1994 and 1995. It explores the history of the Italian steel industry by looking at the interplay of local intertwined interests, political relations, and ideological formations that characterised an idiosyncratic hegemonic historical bloc. Rather than stigmatising this pattern as the legacy of a dysfunctional provincialism, the authors mobilise Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to explain how the Italian privatisation process unfolded to accommodate economic pressures, political interests, and ideological constraints of a hegemonic social group, or aggregation of social groups. Thus, in reconstructing the privatisation of Italian steel, this book proposes a hegemony theory of privatisation and, more generally, describes a model that explains how political and cultural dynamics give rise to idiosyncratic local variations in globally spreading policies.
It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of business history, economics, sociology, and political science.
Author(s): Edoardo Mollona, Luca Pareschi
Series: Routledge International Studies in Business History
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 216
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Figures
Tables
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
1.1 Our motivation in writing this book
1.2 Post-factum
1.3 Caveat: against indisputable technical solutions
1.4 Global versus local interests: the dubious behaviour of ArcelorMittal
1.5 How to read this book
1.5.1 The three directions for our investigation
1.5.2 The structure of this book
1.5.3 The logic of analysis: a conceptual map
Notes
References
2. Institutional theory
2.1 Isomorphism in privatisation policies
2.1.1 Introduction
2.1.2 The concept of isomorphism
2.1.3 Institutionalism and the concept of institution
2.1.4 Isomorphism in the global diffusion of policies: institutionalism and the world society theory
2.1.5 The spread of neo-liberal policies and privatisations: the "privatization wave" isomorphism in steel privatisation
2.2 Privatisations as institutional change
2.2.1 Introduction
2.2.2 The locus of institutional change: the concept of field
2.2.3 The engine of institutional change: the concept of institutional entrepreneur
2.2.4 The content of institutional entrepreneurship: the link with research in social movements
2.2.4.1 Framing and the power of discourse
2.2.4.2 The political activity of the skilled institutional entrepreneur
2.2.5 The structural constraints to institutional entrepreneurship
2.2.5.1 The concept of discursive opportunity structures
2.2.5.2 The concept of political opportunity structures
2.3 Explaining local variations in institutions and policies
2.3.1 The Italian case as a local variation to be explained
2.3.2 Explanations of local variations of privatisation policies in economics
2.3.3 An institutional approach to the explanation of local variations of privatisation policies
Note
References
3. Gramscian theory of hegemony
3.1 A Gramscian approach to the analysis of local variations of privatisation policies
3.2 Gramsci and hegemony theory
3.2.1 Why Gramsci?
3.2.2 The concept of the historical bloc
3.2.3 The concept of hegemony
3.2.4 The discursive nature of hegemonic practices
3.2.5 The political dimension of hegemony
3.2.6 Consistency of Gramscian framework with institutional analysis
References
4. Methodology
4.1 Data collection process
4.1.1 Data regarding the political opportunity structure and the economic structure
4.1.2 Data regarding the discursive opportunity structure
4.1.2.1 Newspapers' articles for the qualitative analysis of the state steel privatisation during fragmentation and settlement (1984-1995)
4.1.2.2 Newspapers' articles for the semi-automatic analysis of the privatisation issue in Italy during fragmentation, settlement, and stabilisation (1984-2014)
4.2 Logic of enquiry and methods of analysis
4.2.1 Content analysis
4.2.2 Multiple correspondence analysis
4.2.2.1 Technical details on multiple correspondence analysis
4.2.3 Topic Modeling
Notes
References
5. Latent meaning spaces
5.1 Framing of the privatisation issue
5.1.1 Systemic frames
5.1.2 Tactical frames
5.1.3 Technical frames
5.2 Proposed privatisation models
5.3 Latent meaning spaces
5.3.1 MCA relating actors, frames, and positions toward privatisations: structure
5.3.2 MCA relating actors and proposed privatisation models: discursive strategising
Notes
References
6. Fragmentation of the historical bloc
6.1 The state of the field before the fragmentation phase
6.1.1 IRI and the birth of the state economy in the post Second World War Italy
6.1.2 IRI and the state steel
6.1.3 A historical bloc
6.2 The fragmentation phase
6.2.1 Material pressures and the misalignment of economic interests during fragmentation
6.2.1.1 The crisis of the Italian state-owned steel production system
6.2.1.2 Privatisation and the economic interests of elites
6.2.2 Political opportunity structure during fragmentation
6.2.2.1 The issue of plant closure and state aid in the steel industry: a trigger for privatising
6.2.3 Discursive opportunity structure during fragmentation
6.3 Strategic manoeuvring in the field
6.3.1 Political manoeuvring: search of alternative alignments
6.3.2 Discursive manoeuvring: awakening of discursive battles
6.4 Weaving together political and discursive manoeuvring: formation of competing hegemonic practices
Notes
References
7. Settlement of the historical bloc
7.1 Heading towards the settlement of the field: how to re-align actors' economic interests
7.1.1 The material pressures agitating the steel field
7.1.1.1 The economic interests of field's actors: why private producers liked privatisations
7.1.2 Discursive opportunity structure during settlement
7.1.3 Political opportunity structure during settlement
7.1.3.1 The European Union, the discipline on state aid, and the pressure of privatisation
7.2 Strategic manoeuvring in the field
7.2.1 Discoursive manoeuvring: sedating antagonising logics of equivalence
7.2.2 Political manoeuvring: the emerging of a winning alliance
7.3 Weaving together political and discursive manoeuvring to re-align the interests of field's actors: A hegemonic practice emerges to solidify a new historical bloc
Notes
References
8. Stabilisation
8.1 Topic modeling
8.1.1 Clusters of topic
8.1.1.1 Industries
Topic 10 - Transportations
Topic 11 - Manufacturing firms
Topic 16 - Telecommunications and utilities
Topic 17 - The credit system
Topic 2 - Local services and municipal utilities
8.1.1.2 Resistance
Topic 5 - Labour and unions
Topic 8 - Protests, students, and the civil society
Topic 21 - Values of developmental state
Topic 4 - Stigma privatisations
8.2 Validation: privatisation of specific industries
8.3 Resistance to privatisations in public discourse
8.4 A long stabilisation
Notes
References
9. Conclusion
9.1 The pedagogy and rhetoric of privatisations
9.2 Using Gramscian theory of hegemony for explaining local variations in globally spreading policies
9.3 Privatisations as the emerging configuration of a historical bloc
9.4 A contribution to the theory of institutional change
9.5 The revision of the concept of agency
References
Index
