States & industry
Industrial Policy
How nations reason about their industrial base.
Governments make consequential, long-horizon decisions about industry with fragmented evidence and short memory. Institutional reasoning is directly applicable to the state as an organization.
What it contributes
Supplies the highest-stakes proving ground: whole-of-nation decisions where memory, evidence, and accountable judgment are scarce and valuable.
Foundational ideas
- Strategic sectors
- Capabilities a nation must retain.
- Supply-chain resilience
- Reasoning about dependency and risk.
- Mission orientation
- Directing capability toward goals.
Open questions
- How should governments institutionalize strategic learning across electoral cycles?
- What is the right memory horizon for national industrial decisions?