When [President] Georges Pompidou died in April 1974, there was a dramatic turnaround in the economic situation. While the industrial world had lived since 1945 in a context of strong growth that the economist Jean Fourastié named les trente glorieuses, a new situation took hold, marked by slowdown in the production of goods & services, or even by their decline in certain years…it [became]…the great national problem that has determined political life since 1974.
Berstein & Milza, 1994, Histoire de la France au XXe siècle: de 1974 à nos jours, pp. 11-12.
The above paraphrases the introduction to a well-known French history book; while admitting that a good deal of French political history is retold as one crisis after another (La fièvre hexagonale…), I guess roughly similar phrasing could be used for other parts of the Western world during this period (citing Hobsbawm’s ‘crisis decades’; more recently, Piketty, etc.)
The literature on this topic is obviously *vast*. I am not a historian, nor an economist & I am never going to have the time to read it. What I do take from the limited material I have read is that economies grew fast (les 30 glorieuses, Wirtschaftswunder, Golden Age, etc.) – and then conditions changed. The period bookmarked roughly by the first oil shock in 1973, possibly ending around 1990, is therefore seen by historians & economists as one of crisis & transition.
My plan is to gather material on how states wielded science in the period of crisis after 1973. This will be a Euro-centric view for the time being, as I intend to cover scientific responses on other continents elsewhere on this website. What can we learn about how science responded to the changing world around it, and what might this tell us about science & crises in general (if anything)?
Below is a (incomplete) record of my very patchy reading over more than a decade; it barely scratches the surface. Its incoherent – just jumbled notes that I will never have time to think through. For my own convenience I have divided the topic into the following categories purely because they suited my interests: (1) long term trends in science (intellectual history, etc.) & R&D; (2) survey of governmental policy responses (sampling of some actors I read about); & (3) science, technology & culture. Scroll to the end for the conclusions such as I can make any.
Long term trends in R&D & science
[T]here has been a continuing increase in global expenditure on research and development activities since the 1970s – more than a tenfold increase from about US $100 billion in 1973 to nearly 1,138 billion in 2007…But this has not quite kept up with the general growth of the world economy as measured in GDP. This is reflected in the estimates for global R&D intensity: falling from 2.1% in 1973 to a more or less stable level of about 1.7% between 1990 and 2007.
[I]n the immediate aftermath of the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, there was a large surge in US private sector investments in energy R&D that peaked in the period between 1980 and 1982 at approximately $3.7 billion to $6.7 billion per year (in inflation adjusted 2010 U.S. dollars)…Private sector investments in energy R&D declined from this peak to a nadir of approximately $1-$1.8 billion per year in 1999. US private sector support for energy R&D has recovered somewhat over the past decade and now stands at $2.2-$3.4 billion…[T]he US private sector’s support for energy R&D has been and remains dominated by fossil energy R&D, particularly R&D related to the needs of the oil and gas industry…[P]rivate sector investments in energy R&D were strongly correlated to real price of crude oil throughout the 1970s and 1980s. That correlation has weakened substantially since the 1990s, suggesting that R&D aimed at developing non-fossil energy alternatives may have become a more prominent and durable private sector energy R&D priority.
Arond & Bell, 2010, Trends in the Global Distribution of R&D since the 1970s: data, their interpretation & limitations, p. 16; Dooley, 2010, The Rise and Decline of US Private Sector Investments in Energy R&D since the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, US DOE, p. 12.
The big picture globally would appear to be a rise in energy R&D across both public & private sectors after the oil crises of the 1970s, followed by R&D contraction in the 1980s due to oil price drops, privatization, bedding-in of new tech, & deregulatory policies. This took place against a general background of falling R&D intensity (although rising absolute R&D expenditure) which has been linked to falling overall productivity of manufacturing.
As such, the energy R&D enterprise, which was relatively well-funded and diverse in terms of different types of energy device in 1980, became one that was slimmed down and focused on fossil fuel recovery & refining, by the turn of the millennium. This was evidently a very poor scientific preparation for climate change.
It is also worth noting, citing the above work by Dooley, that during the 1970s, as much as 20% of private sector investments in energy R&D were devoted to nuclear (fission) energy R&D, mainly for the development of new power reactor designs…[by contrast] during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, nuclear fission energy R&D typically accounted for only 4% to 8% of the private sector’s overall energy R&D effort and these investments became more focused on life-extension technologies for existing nuclear power plants.
Caveats on the above are that it refers primarily to energy R&D; & that R&D is only a fraction of scientific activity. I have also taken no note of the various topics of science & how these changed through time; The Cambridge History of Science is a great resource on that point, while admittedly lacking in some areas.
USA: Project Independence; Department of Energy (DOE)
Project Independence is a wide-ranging program this growing dependence on foreign sources of energy, and to develop positive programs to reduce our vulnerability to future oil cut-offs and price increases…The Federal Energy Administration will hold public hearings on Project Independence Blueprint, covering major aspects of the program and focusing on both local and national energy concerns. The opportunity to…be involved in the decision-making process will be available to everyone – representatives of the energy industries, environmental groups, consumers, & public officials.
Federal Energy Administration, 1974, Project Independence Blueprint: Transcript of First Public Hearing, p. iv
In the US, the Department of Energy (DOE), a bureaucratic innovation in the Federal Government, was created relatively late into the oil crisis, in 1977 (President Jimmy Carter). It merged the Atomic Energy Commission, which dated from the WWII atomic bomb project, alongside disparate programs created in the early 1970s in the first stages of the oil crisis, such as the Federal Energy Administration, Project Independence (established by President Richard M. Nixon in 1973 with the goal of achieving energy self-sufficiency by 1980), etc. (A resource: Graf, 2014, Claiming Sovereignty in the Oil Crisis “Project Independence” and Global Interdependence in the United States, 1973/74.)
As the above quotation suggests, Project Independence was a wide-ranging and quite consultative program (with public consultations held in major cities). There is a lot of information on the web and so forth which regrettably I have not had time to read, but broadly it seems in preparing the project, officials analyzed fossil fuel supplies, geothermal, energy materials, solar & nuclear energy, transport, synthetic fuels, energy efficiency, labor needs, water requirements, historical review, etc. Basically the entire gamut; a remarkable body of work (while also admittedly drawing on prescient ideas established in the 1952 Resources for Freedom report). Presumably these reviews then led to action programs.
The DOE’s national laboratory system emerged over subsequent years, combining the old atomic bomb labs, such as Argonne, with newer laboratories such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), founded in 1977. Today, there are 17 labs in the DOE system. This entire topic warrants further investigation, and might, time allowing, form the basis of a substantive article on this website; noting Westwick, 2003, The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974.
European Community: response to the oil crises
The energy crisis years…highlighted the vulnerability that stemmed from the lack of a Community energy market. On a political level, such heterogeneity hindered the solidarity measures needed in the event of an oil supply crisis. On an economic level, it artificially amplified the effects of scarcity on prices. Over the years the Commission had therefore been able to demonstrate the need for profound change and lay the groundwork for the creation of a large energy market from the late 1980s onwards.
Lethé et al., 2014, The European Commission 1958-72: history and memories of an institution, p. 383
It is important to remember at the time of the first oil crisis, the European Commission DG Energy had just 200 staff; it was not a significant player. Commission officials had already started talking about a unified energy policy that included R&D as early as 1968; however there was no coordinated response to the first oil shock. It was only in 1973 that steps were taken to begin designing a coordinated response.
Policy proposed in December 1974 was built around reducing the level of dependence on fuel supplies outside the community from 63% to 40% within a decade (i.e., 1985), i.e., by shifting from oil to coal, gas, and nuclear power, all of which could in principle be acquired endogenously (without denying the dependence on imported nuclear fuels). This objective was updated in 1980 & 1986, with fuel from endogenous sources set to 50% & 40% respectively.
While generally member states actions inadvertently contributed to achievement of this goal, they did not work collaboratively, but along separate tracks, e.g.:
| Leading entity | Approach |
| BE, FR | Nuclear; EURODIF (enriched uranium production – alliance of BE, FR, IT, ES) |
| DE | Nuclear; Urenco (enriched uranium production – alliance of DE, NL, UK) |
| UK | North Sea oil & gas |
| European Commission | Stabilization of coal production through restructuring, exploration & encouragement of consumption by steel industry & electricity generation (ECSC Treaty); ‘increasingly large’ subsidies directed towards R&D; promotion of new technologies for the exploration & production of oil & uranium; development of potential new sources of energy, e.g., coal gasification & liquefaction, geothermal & solar energy) |
| Oil companies | Reduction & restructuring of refining techniques implemented at company level (without any impact from European Commission) |
| Coal industry | Decreased steadily; European Commission intervention not effective |
The aforementioned Lethé, et al. concludes the range of solutions sought did not deliver as hoped; new solutions were therefore brought into play in the 1980s through creation of the European market.
Henri Simonet (BE) was vice-president of the European Commission at the time of the oil crisis, responsible for energy. He apparently harbored ambitious plans that were thwarted. At this time, of course, the Commission was completely subordinate to the member states, but it seems Simonet’s agenda merits re-appraisal, even if it was not realized.
Moving forward to the early 1980s, one must note the Framework Programme (FP), a bureaucratic innovation of the Research Commissioner, Davignon, and his Director-General, Fasella.
Rejecting a linear interpretation of the process of technological innovation, the Commission wanted to create an organisation which reflected in its administration the complexity of the development process. From this point of view, the Framework Programme resembled a multi-dimensional matrix in which all the single programmes found different points of intersection with each other and with other Community policies. The importance of the system did not lie in the sum of the individual programmes, but rather in their interaction as they worked together towards the aims of Community policy in the fields of agriculture, industry, communications, etc…All the single programmes gathered together by the Framework Programme would be prepared and approved at the same time, guaranteeing their subsequent beneficial interaction.
Guzzetti, 1995, A Brief History of European Union Research Policy, p. 83
Finally it is worth noting that the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) started life as a multilateral initiative concerned exclusively with nuclear energy (EURATOM), as still reflected in the JRC’s sites at Ispra, Petten and Karlsruhe. But the JRC took on other roles besides nuclear energy; its activities during the energy crisis and after therefore merit investigation.
FR & UK: evaluation of responses
I regret to say I lack a coherent picture of France’s taxpayer-funded science & R&D activities through this period; I have a better grasp of UK, but also by no means complete. What follows is generally obvious stuff that you will pick up from reading around the topic. The table at the end of this section summarizes the limited areas that I have personally heard about or stumbled upon over the years.
One theme that emerges is obviously how to design effective scientific activities within national boundaries – yet in the context of a global capitalist economy that relatively small nation states such as UK & FR struggled to shape to their liking (& that was, crucially, not sympathetic to ‘activist’ plans no matter how sincere).
One might cite most crucially here the ultimately failed attempts to create a version of the Japanese MITI in both countries, i.e., France’s MRT & the UK’s MinTech, led by, respectively, Jean-Pierre Chevènement & Tony Benn (both left-wing, Eurosceptic, & nationalist politicians). I am being very a-historical here, because MinTech was an entity of the 1960s which was abolished in 1970, while MRT was created in the 1980s. (I have no evidence of any connections between the two initiatives.)
Regrettably, I have not been able to uncover detailed specifics of either MRT or MinTech. No doubt appraisals exist, but I have not found them yet. Overall, we simply *must* learn more about these kind of activities that seem absolutely vital to our understanding of taxpayer-funded science through this period.
In regard to tensions between national & global, one should also note the growing importance of European projects in the 1980s, as the European Commission began to have a certain degree of influence over R&D under the Jenkins, Thorn, & (particularly) Delors Commissions. In terms of multinational projects, the Channel Tunnel, Airbus, Future European Fighter Aircraft program (France left this one at an early stage), and the role of French state-owned firms taking over parts of UK’s private sector science & research, such as Rhône-Poulenc absorbing divisions of Boots & Fisons; Alst(h)om with GEC, etc., ought also to be considered. The latter, of course, was not confined to French firms.
I guess a second theme could be the similarity between the two country’s approaches, but with probably more successful big projects on the French side, such as the Plan Messmer (nuclear energy & electrification), Minitel, & the TGV (comparing like-for-like the UK’s AGR, Alvey, & ATP). Generally the French projects tend to be seen as more successful than the British ones, but on reflection perhaps both sides did about as well as the other, or anyone else for that matter would have done under the circumstances.
Referring to the nuclear energy projects in particular, while plans existed before the oil crisis, the crisis provided the crucial political justification to expand them. The fact French officials had abandoned the French-developed UNGG reactor in *1969*, in favor of the (American) Westinghouse light-water design, seems the critical decision that led to French success later on; whereas the more nationalistic British stuck with their less workable indigenous design (AGR – see, e.g., here & here for discussion).
It is important to remember, though, that such decisions were probably not as clear cut at the time. The criticism of the UK program, most famously by Burn, is perhaps a little unfair. In France, & more widely in European discussions, the tensions around technological choices were known as the guerre des filières. The situation was clarified in France when President Georges Pompidou chose the American device because he thought it was cheaper. (His predecessor, De Gaulle, had promoted the French device as he believed it to be the guarantor of energy independence.) After Pompidou’s intervention (alongside his prime minister, Messmer), implementation of overseas (American) technology became the core task of the French program.
The Plan Messmer differs from the nuclear power plant projects of the 1950s & 1960s. In contrast to these, [which were] largely driven by technical & military ambitions (French nuclear technology + French bomb), the Plan Messmer is a program focused on questions of profitability and international competition. This resulted in the choice of the American light water reactor, considered more profitable (even if there was no lack of uncertainties on the subject at the time) & technically more suited to large-scale production, compared to the French UNGG.
Topçu, 2010, L’agir contestataire à l’épreuve de l’atome: critique et gouvernement de la critique dans l’histoire de l’énergie nucléaire en France (1968-2008), p. 61
Regardless of the mostly-forgotten historical details, we must be quite circumspect in evaluating such high-tech projects in the longer term. While the French nuclear program might have made sense in light of energy needs at the time, nuclear power makes less sense now in a world of cheap renewable energy. Serious downsides, particularly the waste, dangers, cost, & excessive water use, were well-known then, and well-known now. Excessive water use, for example, means a substantial climate risk as French nuclear power stations were sited on rivers with unreliable flow during droughts.
It turned out the UK never actually had to rely on its nuclear programs for energy because it had increasing amounts from North Sea oil & gas, by luck of what lay under the continental shelf. While the French *had* to succeed in gaining energy, the British pursued other purposes with their nuclear R&D, such as proof of national technological prowess, or hopes of international sales from a new reactor design.
In this sense, the UK’s grand projet industriel responding directly to the oil crisis was not nuclear, but the North Sea & the (later) dash for gas. Here the UK exploited developments in offshore gas recovery & gas turbines developed elsewhere, just as the French exploited the American reactor design. In its way, the dash for gas was as ‘successful’ as the Plan Messmer in securing energy. One could even say the UK got off lightly with the collapse of its civil nuclear program – thereby avoiding expansion that would have locked the country into ever more expensive, dangerous & polluting devices that are, in essence, just for boiling water.
France’s TGV is widely praised. It is important to remember that prior to 1974, French officials focused considerable efforts on the Aérotrain (a train that floated on a cushion of air – google it to see how many enthusiasts there still are). By any standards, it was a brilliant idea – capable of 400 km/h speeds; De Gaulle was particularly keen on it. Yet President Giscard stopped the program and put all efforts behind the now familiar, but much slower, TGV, which launched on the Paris-Lyon line less than a decade later. I simply don’t know enough about the program, and decision-making around it, to say if this had anything to do with the oil crisis, or why he &/or the SNCF took this decision.
The TGV famously sucked cash from the rest of the French railway network, with consequences for local mobility. The train itself is now the dullard of the transport scene; many countries have an equivalent – the new, new railway innovation is sleeper trains (again) or Maglev (which has some uncanny similarities to the aforementioned Aérotrain). The UK’s ATP (high-speed train), it must be said, *almost* worked; its significance, even had it worked as planned, would be hard to guess at, given all the subsequent disasters in the UK railway system such as privatization, accidents, etc.
Turning to IT, Alvey & Mintel, would seem to have been direct responses to a feeling of lack of technological competitiveness & prowess, relative to Japan &/or the USA. It is hard to evaluate if either did good for the respective industries. Minitel, much like the Alvey program (& a European program, Esprit) had as one major goal stimulating a new Silicon Valley (in the Minitel case it was supposed to be in Brittany). Minitel certainly worked as a device (a kind of alternative internet), and was indeed implemented in many French homes; it may even have contributed to the French IT industry, but it did not establish an alternative Silicon Valley. Despite considerable efforts predating the oil crisis such as Plan Calcul (1966-1975), as well as subsequent to it, French efforts in the IT field have apparently fallen into decline as compared to international competitors in Asia & the USA (much like counterparts in UK).
A third important theme: we must also note in both countries regulatory & science advisory systems unprepared for the challenges that befell them, as exposed by such scandals as BSE & the HIV/AIDS blood contamination scandals. I have nothing yet to add on this topic, except to note my very limited knowledge of it, and to refer readers to the section below on science & society.
Turning now to an *apparent* point of policy difference between the two countries – views on application-oriented R&D. One could say at the end of the 1970s, the UK had a number of promising application-oriented structures that *might* have delivered some measure of industrial & commercial renewal, had they been allowed to evolve. These included the National Enterprise Board (NEB), the polytechnic system (reformed & expanded in 1960s, not in this period), & some relatively effective high-technology projects, e.g., BAe 146. This is not to mention a very extensive application-oriented R&D infrastructure embedded in both the private sector, and in the state-owned firms (reviewed elsewhere on this website, e.g., here, here & here).
Thatcher (who was of course herself a scientist) pursued instead a policy of detaching taxpayer-funded science from civilian (economic & social) use (so-called ‘science policy’); she increasingly came to believe the taxpayer should focus on what was termed basic or pure research in the universities (application-oriented research was the province of private sector in her view).
This agenda aside, probably the major factor that cut the UK’s application-oriented R&D in the 1980s & 1990s was that much of it resided in state owned industry, & large private manufacturing firms such as as I.C.I. As these firms were privatized, went bust, or were broken up & sold to overseas buyers, R&D was collateral damage in overall *business strategy* (e.g., mergers & acquisitions). It is said that ‘industrial R&D employment’ fell by 6.1% between 1980 & 1988, i.e., from 195k to 183k (citing Howells, 1992, Patterns of research & development, in: Regional Development in the 1990s: The British Isles in Transition).
French governments in this period might have been less hell-bent on these particular goals, and therefore took a more pragmatic perspective on the state in general, thereby preserving application-oriented R&D to a far greater extent than UK. But to be honest, that is just a guess; we would need to understand in detail the fate of application-oriented R&D in the around 50 firms that were nationalized by Mitterrand (and then some were later re-privatized) to make a definitive comment.
| Topic | FR | UK |
| Research on alternative energy. At this time a ‘cottage industry’ & never pursued with the commitment that would have been required (c.f. America’s Project Independence) | CNRS & Anvar programs (1974), e.g., Programme interdisciplinaire de recherche pour le développement de l’énergie solaire (PIRDES) (1) | Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU), integral to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (2) |
| Decolonization. While most of FR & UK colonies had gained formal independence by this time, one must still consider the two countries’ relationship with their former colonies, including its scientific elements (now termed, development). No information thus far gathered. | Office de la recherche scientifique et technique Outre-mer (1953-1984); Institut français de recherche scientifique pour le développement en coopération (1984-1999) (see here) | Ministry of Development (1966-1970);Overseas Development Administration (1970-1997) |
| Grands projets industriels (1970s-1980s) (3) | Plan Messmer (nuclear energy & electrification), TGV, Minitel | AGR (nuclear reactor), North Sea oil & gas/dash for gas, APT, BAe 146, Alvey |
| Attempts to create a version of Japan’s MITI, a ministry that was felt to be responsible for Japan’s economic success at the time (in the UK case, Italy’s IRI was apparently also cited as an influence) | Ministère de la Recherche et de la Technologie (MRT) & Jean-Pierre Chevènement (1981-1983) (4). It is also worth noting CESTA, a think-tank associated with the ministry (5) | Ministry of Technology (MinTech) & Tony Benn. Very a-historical because MinTech pre-dated the oil crises, although Benn was also active in government in the 1970s; I believe the comparison warrants note, however (6) |
| Nationalization & privatization. Impacts on the conduct of R&D in state-owned (& privatized) firms | Nationalization under first Mitterrand government of around 50 firms (early 1980s); subsequent privatizations (later 1980s & 1990s) (7) | National Economic Board (NEB) under Callaghan & Wilson (Labour) 1970s; privatizations under Thatcher & Major (Conservative) 1980s-1990s (8) |
| Warfare & weapons. Important but no information thus far gathered. | I guess an important area to look would be the nuclear weapons program. France created its own weapons; UK bought American devices. I have not looked. | |
| Bureaucratic deck-chair rearranging. Various agencies were restructured, merged etc. Does not seem very significant in the grand scheme, although no doubt significant at the time for those involved in it. | See here for FR & UK |
(1) Apparently CNRS brought together various groups, including representatives from industry, to identify the main lines of research required to overcome the energy crisis. Themes identified included petroleum, petrochemicals & industrial chemistry; waste and materials (recycling and usage optimization); chemical and electrical energy storage; solar energy; thermodynamics, solid state physics; economics; and earth sciences. PIRDES was launched in 1974, drawing on this process. Ref.: Ramunni & Deflandre, 2001, Faire face à la crise du pétrole : l’énergie solaire au CNRS, in: Revue pour l’histoire du CNRS. Agence nationale de valorisation de la recherche (Anvar), roughly equivalent to the British Technology Group.
(2) ETSU – please see here for details. Other notable activities included the Wave Energy Programme (1975-1982). This was a scheme, promoted by the Chief Scientist of the (then) Department of Energy, Dr Walter Marshall, to create device that would generate electricity from waves around the coast of the UK. Various devices were developed and tested e.g., Salter’s Duck, Cockerell’s Raft, Masuda’s buoy, Russell’s Rectifier, the Flexible Bag, the triplate, the cylinder, & ‘the Clam’. Ref.: Wilson, 2012, A history of the UK renewable energy programme, 1974-88: some social, political, and economic aspects, PhD thesis.
(3) Simply a list of big projects I have heard about; no doubt far from comprehensive. One must also cite the Channel Tunnel (1980s). Projects often but not always delivered by consortia of governmental agencies & national (not overseas) private firms (although firms may have licensed overseas technology). Example: Plan Messmer involved the agencies CEA & EDF; & private French firms such as Creusot-Loire, Pechniney-UgineKuhlman, Alsthom, etc., implementing licensed American technology in France. In regard to UK, the significance of developments in offshore oil & gas recovery, and gas turbines, and the ways various devices were deployed to facilitate the dash for gas (1990s), is worth exploring. Kemp, 2013, The Official History of North Sea Oil and Gas, vol 1, is quite interesting in terms of extraction (plenty of books & articles on UK electricity markets cover the generation side). Kolb, 2013, The Natural Gas Revolution: At the Pivot of the World’s Energy Future is informative on the technology involved. Big literature & not one I am familiar with or ever likely to tackle.
(4) Décret n° 81-723 du 28 juillet 1981 created new ministière de la Recherche et de la Technologie (MRT). Mitterrand apparently said MRT would be the ‘advocate of the future’ with initial ambitions to become a French version of the Japanese MITI. Associated abolition of structures such as délégation générale à la Recherche scientifique et technique (DGRST). Get a sense there was bureaucratic politics about the role & reach of the new ministry, wing-clipping, to-and-fro, etc.; hard to say. Chevènement: left-wing minister of research & technology in the first, reforming Mitterrand government (1981-1983); in other words, the socialist phase. Chevènement was a significant figure in that government; he resigned when it turned rightwards. Some have made political parallels between Chevènement, & British political figures such as Peter Shore & Tony Benn due to the left-wing yet nationalist & euro-skeptic agendas they espoused. I have really struggled to find more material on some of Chevènement’s policies in the sciences, which I guess are pretty much forgotten now, although at the time they attracted international coverage because the socialist government promised so much; but then I have not devoted much time to research on it. Chevènement’s advisors possibly included Françoise Bellanger; Jean-Pierre Chevillot (technical adviser); Geneviève Potier De Courcy (research); Yves Stourdzé (CESTA). No data on these individuals.
(5) Creation in 1983 of a science policy advisory center/think tank, centre d’études des systèmes et des technologies avancées (CESTA), under the directorship of a sociologist called Yves Stourdzé, located at rue Descartes, Paris, near MRT (see: here). Addressed such topics as local and regional aspects of growth, technology & law as tools of economic regulation, energy supplies, information & communication technologies, etc. Many intriguing-sounding publications, regrettably none seemingly available online, e.g., reports by Groupe de travail technologie, croissance, emploi. Closed 1987. Seems to have UK parallels to the much later Nesta, established under Blair government which might not be coincidental (I do not know).
(6) MinTech created in 1964; closed in 1970; and aimed to bring advanced technology and new processes into industry. This story is covered in the work of historian David Edgerton (e.g., here); I would also note this intriguing article by Coopey (2008), which features comments by the original participants (obtained in a seminar chaired by Hennessy), & the wider context written up by the same author in Coopey, et al., 1993, The Wilson Governments, 1964-1970. There are also many books on the Wilson government. Overall, we could say MinTech was not tried for long enough to work.
(7) Firms in what were presumably considered ‘strategic’ sectors, mostly high-tech, notably, Saint-Gobain, Rhone-Poulenc (chemicals) & CH-Honeywell-Bull (IT); defense such as Matra; and various major banks. In this regard, France entered a process quite the reverse to the UK, while also recalling these were joint-stock firms, i.e., a degree of private capital was preserved in many of them.
France will be plowing 2.5% of its gross national product back into research…The government will pay for this out of profits from nationalized versions of France’s existing high technology companies, as well as loans from state banks…the President also wants to form a national pharmaceutical research center by pooling the resources of France’s largest drug firms. – Lloyd, Mitterrand promises new deal for science, New Scientist, 14 May 1981.
Initially it seems there were plans to use the firms as social laboratories to try out different types of management, such as workers’ councils (autogestion); however these plans do not appear to have been carried out.
(8) NEB was a state-backed merchant bank, or venture fund (in modern parlance) – but it regrettably only operated for about five years, 1975-1981 (never given a chance). NEB was wound down because Joseph, the relevant Conservative minister, did not like back-door nationalization, as he saw it, not because the agency was under-performing as an investment operation. The NEB was appraised in detail by Daniel C. Kramer in 2019. Kramer wrote that the NEB managed about 150 investments over its brief life-span (c.f. BBB’s 89k investments); these were in ‘lame duck’ firms the government had lumbered it with, but also firms it bought on its own initiative (in what was a state-run venture capital operation). In this class it invested in high-tech – IT, medical diagnostics, and biotechnology. Based on his analysis of the accounts, he argues that although the rates of return achieved were not as high as the stellar US venture capitalists, NEB performance was ‘not that weak’, and it outperformed some UK-based venture capital firms of the time.
‘Living on the Volcano of Civilization’ (Beck): analysts’ takes on science, technology & their relations to society
In advanced modernity the social production of wealth is systematically accompanied by the social production of…techno-scientifically produced risks…How can the[se] risks and hazards…be prevented, minimized, dramatized, or channeled? [H]ow can they be limited and distributed away so that they neither hamper the modernization process nor exceed the limits of that which is ‘tolerable’ – ecologically, medically, psychologically and socially? Modernization is becoming reflexive; it is becoming its own theme.
Beck, 1992, Risk Society (transl. Mark Ritter), p. 19 [abridgment]
Beck’s Risikogesellschaft (risk society), emerging from a particular moment in West German sociology (1986), is obviously a key text that one has to grapple with to understand what analysts thought during this period. But that literature is well beyond my reach; even if I had the brains, I wouldn’t have the time to read it. The following four points – (1) HIV/AIDS; (2) analysis of disasters; (3) popular culture; (4) changes in the structure & conduct of R&D – are, therefore, just unrelated thoughts that I think warrant further reading on my part (in other words, simply a map of my own ignorance across a vast topic).
1. HIV/AIDS. The major catastrophe of those years, by far the worst, was the start of the HIV/AIDS pandemic (1981 was the first year of significant medical concern – pneumonia cases in gay men in Los Angeles spotted by the US CDC).
There has been a good deal of debate about how HIV/AIDS emerged. The microbiologist Pepin, in The Origins of AIDS (2011), argues the virus crossed over from chimpanzees to humans ‘sometime in the first three decades’ of the 20th century. He attributes its initial spread to colonial medical campaigns in the Congo, particularly the use of re-usable needles for injection that ‘jump started’ the pandemic; as well as various colonial projects such as railway building which featured massive slave labor, thereby contributing to population mixing (this highlights again the centrality of the Congo to 20th century scientific history, citing also the nuclear programs reliant on Congolese uranium).
I guess one could say the pandemic showed that despite some scientific know-how, we could not suppress it. Indeed, suppression of the virus largely came down to very low tech methods, namely, behavior change & condoms. These methods generally proved unequal to the challenge and a global pandemic developed.
2. Analysis of disasters. In the period we are talking about, various disasters occurred, many of them dreadful. Analysts have argued these disasters shaped public views of science or called into question treatment of the environment, etc.
Seveso, Three Mile Island, Bhopal & Chernobyl disasters (respectively, 1976, 1979, 1984 & 1986) are often cited cases. One might also add critique of the Green Revolution (1970s), the ozone hole (1980s), & climate change (1990s), etc. Given a certain amount of chronological flexibility, one could also highlight earlier disasters that were acknowledged around the same period, e.g., the long-running Minamata mercury pollution in Japan (acknowledged around 1968), not to mention the critique of pesticides (Carson’s Silent Spring, 1962).
While these varied human-made disasters no doubt had salutary impacts on public opinion in the West, it must also be said none of them led to the closure of the chemical and nuclear industries, decarbonization, or the wide-scale adoption of biological or organic agriculture; indeed, pollution in all senses was expanded (the notable exception appears to be the ozone hole, where generally effective action, the Montreal Protocol, was indeed taken).
3. Popular culture. The 1964 film by Antonioni, Il deserto rosso, while strikingly misogynistic from a contemporary perspective, is famous for the way it evokes a general feeling of unease about the chemical industry (citing the intriguing book by Past, 2019, Italian Ecocinema Beyond the Human). It is, possibly, an early example of a genre that stretched through this period, broadly bookmarked by Silent Spring (1962) at one end, and by Chernobyl (1986) at the other.
It is often said that since the 1960s, public confidence in science and technology eroded. The extent to which this is a reasonable assessment of a series of long-run cultural changes is hard for me to judge, far from being myself an expert on this topic. But I would suggest that while it certainly has merits as a claim, the evidence is probably quite weak.
I think there was quite a lot of public skepticism about science & technology in the period between the wars as well, and indeed, after WW2. I mean, was there ever a moment in history when at least some people were *not* skeptical about some aspects of science & technology? Measuring increases and decreases in societal skepticism therefore seems quite a fraught & unreliable business, to say the least. While it is probably relatively easy to condemn vaccine denial (as opposed to reasonable concern that vaccine safety is checked), it has to be said in many cases, skepticism is indeed the logical & appropriate response; many scientists themselves claim skepticism as a scientific virtue.
4. Changes in the structure & conduct of R&D – impact on taxpayer-funded science. In the pharmaceutical sector, which is one of the few areas of industry that is relatively R&D intensive, business strategy is sometimes called (now, not then) ‘asset-centric, virtual R&D‘, by which I believe is meant various contract research firms, start-ups with IP assets of perceived value, and so forth, joined by legal contracts & finance.
This appears to be a shift from the previous model, based on the in-house R&D department. Management of R&D therefore became a question of managing activities at different sites (often located around the world), among different firms and sub-contractors, and so forth. Ideas such as stages of a clinical trial, investment rounds, legal contracts, and so forth, became particularly salient to understanding and regulating these activities.
The extent to which these practices interpenetrated with the public sector is the primary concern here as the purpose of this website is mostly to address how taxpayers wield scientific activity. On this point, an agenda particularly associated with Mirowski & his colleagues (e.g., Science Mart), refers to the new and deeper interpenetration of commercial goals with the science funded by taxpayers in universities after 1980 (phrasing such as innovation system, knowledge economy, triple & quadruple helix, etc. seem to capture this). This has degraded the quality of the science produced, in Mirowski’s view (and the view of many other analysts).
The slight problem I have with some versions of the Mirowski thesis (not associated with Mirowski’s work but from other hands) is that it seems to imply there was a golden age when science was somehow better. But as we can see from the outputs of science before 1980, there was plenty that was not morally virtuous, misleading, and indeed downright dangerous due to the interpenetration of military interests (the military-industrial complex), or indeed other prevailing cultural values such as racism. In other words, society gets the the science & technology it deserves, rather than the one it needs. That is very much Mirowski’s point as far as I can see.
The table beneath covers some strands in my reading. It does not imply connections, nor is it remotely comprehensive; it is just a summary of reading over the years (year refers to date of publication, not when I heard about it). It is worth noting that these ideas emerge mainly from German, French, British, and American academia; some of them are very Euro-centric.
| Year(s) | Agenda | Originators, advocates, critics |
| 1968/9 | Union of Concerned Scientists, British Society for Social Responsibility in Science, etc.* | Kendall, Gottfried , Rose |
| 1972 | Limits to Growth* | Club of Rome |
| 1973 | Small is Beautiful* | Schumacher |
| 1976 | Sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) | Bloor |
| 1979 | Actor Network Theory (ANT)† | Akrich, Callon, Latour, Mol, Law |
| 1986 | The Science Question in Feminism‡ | Harding, Harraway |
| 1986 | Risikogesellschaft (risk society) | Beck, Douglas, Giddens, Lash, Jasanoff (?) |
| 2006 | Shock of the Old | Edgerton |
| 2011 | Science Mart | Mirowski |
Any sustained challenges to the patriarchy in science during this period possibly came in Communist countries and outside Europe; areas where Western academic thought presumably did not gain purchase. Undoubtedly the picture is complicated; please see here for links to analysis of gender & the scientific enterprise in Communist countries of Eastern Europe (before 1989). The example of Chinese science prior to the 1990s is also worth noting: China’s *only* Nobel Prize winner in the sciences is Tu Youyou; her biography seems crucial in understanding the relations between science & politics in Maoist & post-Mao China.
Conclusion
The above are just notes dealing with *very* patchy and often random coverage of the territory & a lot of diverse ideas (have not looked at a whole host of topics). I lack the expertise & insight to draw conclusions. I have missed out vast areas of knowledge – easy to spot in the above (e.g. limited or no coverage of key Western players e.g., USA, Japan, West Germany, Italy, etc.).
Based purely on what I have read, the key development is the struggle of science, as wielded by nation states, to accommodate broader trends given grand names such as globalization, neoliberalism, financialization, etc. However, within this overall picture, we must also highlight a certain complexity.
States wielding science (institutional bases for action):
The most important phenomenon in the state was the creation of entities capable of purposefully conceiving, developing & deploying science. In other words, there seems to have been effort to make the state more expert. This idea needs further exploration, but my guess is that US Department of Energy (DOE) is the foremost of such new expert entities developed during this period (created by President Jimmy Carter in 1977). DOE is now one of those rare entities that could compete with Google. (This added to the US Department of Defense, which was established after WWII, in other words, before the crises discussed.)
The European Commission started this period as a weak actor (including in science); however, it emerged stronger. In principle it could be an equivalent to DOE in terms of its ability to act with impact in the globalized environment it faces (necessarily conceived at a continental scale because the member states, small as they were, could not deliver the same as individual nations). But perhaps the Commission did not fully realize this ambition, & to an extent it did not quite live up to expectations.
The Framework Program, created by Research Commissioner, Davignon, and his Director-General, Fasella, in the early 1980s, seems a crucial element in this agenda of creating an actor that could wield science in a way that shaped the wider system. It did not play out exactly as hoped, I guess, but the concept was there. It is my view therefore that ideas around the creation of the both the US DOE & the Framework Program warrant re-appraisal.
Neither France nor UK succeeded in establishing an equivalent of the above, despite attempts (MRT & MinTech). While the early Mitterrand government in France articulated various strategic purposes for its nationalization plans, and developed a think-tank (CESTA) that could have in principle developed strategy, it did not stick with the plans for long enough, and was perhaps not cunning enough in their implementation (sincerity is rarely of benefit when delivering such plans). MinTech, for its part, was wiped out by the Conservative Heath government in 1970; experiment therefore ended abruptly, although its ‘spirit’ perhaps (?) continued in such structures as the National Enterprise Board (NEB) in the 1970s.
Overall I am tempted to say that the thinking in creating MRT & MinTech was along the right lines, but because such schemes were led by such nationalist politicians as Benn & Chevènement, they did not realize their ideas could only be fully developed at a European scale. Nationalist approaches might have worked in a superpower like the USA, but did not work in smaller nations such as UK or France. Politicians such as Delors grasped this insight; perhaps even Jenkins (his predecessor but one) did. Hence, strengthening of the European Commission through this period, under otherwise very inauspicious conditions, including in its scientific activities (pure guess).
The fact leading UK politicians on the nationalist left such as Benn, Castle et al., erred in their analysis is well-known, but perhaps they were never thinking enough about science and the way the state ought to wield it anyway (I do not know enough about them to say). It was soon too late; we could say that Thatcherite interventions introduced a new & profound crisis into UK science that future governments would have to face (particularly in regard to the absence of application-oriented research). Yet, the world did not wait for UK; conditions changed & fixing the issues was not so easy.
It is often said, especially on the right, that Margaret Thatcher was (apparently) prescient in her realization of the threat of global warming. But ironically enough, it was also Thatcher who contributed most to the destruction of the UK’s application-oriented R&D, an instrument that would have helped alleviate global warming.
On this particular point it is worth noting gestures to that kind of science. One of these is the early grasping of the importance of research on renewable energy, pursued through such activities as Project Independence (USA), ETSU (UK) & PIRDES (FR). However, none of these schemes were backed sufficiently; international cooperation and coordination might also have been absent. These activities therefore achieved little. In the 1980s, UK in particular lost all its institutional capacity to undertake R&D in renewable energy, whereas the USA at least in principal maintained it in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Response to societal needs (getting the science & technology we need):
The World Health Organization (WHO) attributes 24% of disease, and 23% of deaths globally to environmental factors, notably, pollution of various kinds. Take chemicals; WHO estimated that 1.6 million people lost their lives due to ‘selected chemicals’ in 2018. Backdating these numbers in a purely back-of-the-envelope manner, we could estimate between 1970 & the present, around 50 million people died from exposure to chemicals.
Add in our failure to control the HIV/AIDS pandemic: 30 million people have died to date from infection with the virus (the worst pandemic since the Black Death). In very round numbers, we have therefore it seems suffered a death toll, taking into account chemicals, environmental factors such as air pollution, & AIDS, approximately equal to that of WW2. This obviously shows how dreadful the experience has been, albeit less noticeably so to historians than WW2 perhaps because it has been over a longer period and deaths have mostly occurred in private & in poor countries.
In this context, we should note the general failure to conduct substantial amounts of R&D on the environmental determinants of health. One neglected issue, for example, has been understanding how mixes of pollutants impact human health, and that of the environment, in real world conditions.
Science & technology could without doubt answer questions on this topic so crucial for controlling & regulating the actions of chemical firms; but the science & technology we currently have is unable to add much, or at least insufficient amounts to counter legal challenges from industry. This is not because the science & technology has not advanced enough, but simply because the requisite science has not been done (for very particular reasons). It is also notable the general failure to devote substantial resources and effort to prepare for pandemics & climate change. As such, our science & technology is not really in an adequate state to respond to the world around us.
As would be expected society never gets enough of the science it needs; most scientific activity is, in the long run, at best rather equivocal in its impacts; at worst, positively counterproductive. Time and again, investment goes into the wrong things, at the wrong time. We should not expect this to change; it is the nature of the rulers to behave in this way.
Grands projets industriels:
The grands projets industriels, despite their obvious scale & impacts, seem the least interesting from the perspective of how states wield science – they are in reality ‘just’ examples of large infrastructure projects as a category of action that states undertake (it seems this would be another study, concerning the management of large infrastructure projects). Where they *are* significant is not as projects in all their complexity, but as ciphers for arguments about the role of the state, notions of national technological prowess, perceived conservatism of the powers-that-be, etc.
Even before starting the Promethean project of the Aérotrain, five obstacles arose in front of Bertin [a French engineer]: the British, the press, the banks, conservatism and the inherent inertia of a public authority that has drifted away from its original mission to become an instrument to protect the privileges of an oligarchy…From the gems of optimism emitted by…the Aérotrain, we fell into the pessimism of the Club of Rome and the narcissist vomiting of Jean-Paul Sartre. – Karel Vereycken, undated, Aérotrain, high speed rail and nuclear technology: the lessons of Jean Bertin (an article by the left-wing Eurosceptic & techno-nationalist (?), Vereycken, commenting on the cancelled French government Aérotrain project – among other topics), p. 13.
The actual lesson might be more pedestrian, along the lines of having high-quality and objective technology assessment, contract delivery, etc., and being prepared to buy the ‘most appropriate’ (unpack that phrase!) devices. But that is an easy conclusion to draw in hindsight, because presumably no one at the time set out to deliberately fail. Besides which, an ‘ideal’ decision-making scenario probably never prevails when the sums of money are so vast. (This is not a topic I have any knowledge about!).
Overall, my preliminary conclusion is nothing more than obvious: taxpayers are not getting the science & technology they need; where positive action has occurred, it has not been at the right scale, has not been pursued long enough, or has occurred by chance. This deficit would be very hard to put right now given the long lead times required to develop new areas of science & technology. It will also never likely be put right, and is not in general being put right either (quite the opposite, in fact).
Note on sources
Please note list is incomplete and listed in no particular order.
Jasanoff, 1994, Learning from Disaster: Risk Management After Bhopal
Jasanoff, 1986, Risk Management and Political Culture
Jasanoff, 1997, Civilization and madness: the great BSE scare of 1996, in: Public Understanding of Science
Beck, 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity
Edelstein, Tysiachniouk [Тысячнюк] & Smirnova, 2007, Cultures of Contamination: Legacies of Pollution in Russia and the U.S. See Edelstein’s website & Tysiachniouk’s website for related publications & interesting projects.
One particularly useful source on the institutional history of French scientific research is the Revue pour l’histoire du CNRS, later entitled Histoire de la recherche contemporaine, published by the CNRS.
Brenner, The Economics of Global Turbulence: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Long Boom to Long Downturn, 1945–2005
Hess, 2013, Neoliberalism and the History of STS Theory: Toward a Reflexive Sociology, in: Social Epistemology
Pierre Cayez, 1988, Rhône-Poulenc 1895-1975
Simonet, 1986, Je n’efface rien et je recommence
Commission of the European Communities, 1974, Synthèse de l’exposé fait par
M. Henri Simonet Vice-Président de la Commission des Communautés Européennes
devant le Parlement européen le 11 juillet 1974
Simonet, 1975, Speech: Oil & gas policy in the European Community: ‘Quite clearly, the development of the North Sea must be one of the central pillars of the Community’s energy supply policy.’
Beaud, 1999, Le sang contaminé: essai critique sur la criminalisation de la responsabilité
Cummings, 2010, Rethinking the BSE Crisis: A Study of Scientific Reasoning under Uncertainty.
Pepin, 2011, The Origins of AIDS. Useful commentary by De Cock, 2012, Book review: The origins of AIDS, in: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Doering-Manteuffel & Raphael, 2008, Nach dem Boom. Perspektiven auf die Zeitgeschichte seit 1970
Hoerber, 2012, The Origins of Energy and Environmental Policy in Europe: the Beginnings of an European Environmental Conscience
Delanghe et al., 2009, European Science and Technology Policy: Towards Integration Or Fragmentation?
Walsh, 1974, European Community Energy Policy: Regulation or Mainly Information? in: Science
Dumoulin et al., 2014, The European Commission 1973-86: History and memories of an institution: p. 48; chapter 20
Stork, 1973, Middle East Oil and the Energy Crisis: Part 1, in: MERIP Reports [interesting take on the topic]
Bernard, 2015, Les Années Mitterrand: du changement socialiste au tournant libéral. See also here for review by Ismaïl Ferhat (11 July 2016).
Mailland & Driscoll, 2017, Minitel: Welcome to the Internet
Hecht, 2009, The Radiation of France
Porter, 2013, Book review: Science-Mart By Philip Mirowski, in: Society + Space
Topçu, 2010, L’agir contestataire à l’épreuve de l’atome: critique et gouvernement de la critique dans l’histoire de l’énergie nucléaire en France (1968-2008), PhD thesis (EHESS).
Foasso, 2003, Histoire de la sûreté de l’énergie nucléaire civile en France (1945-2000): technique d’ingénieur, processus d’expertise, questions de société, PhD thesis (Université Lumière Lyon II).
France Archives:
- Recherche et technologie (1979-1991)
- Mission Gréjébine: les priorités d’une nouvelle politique industrielle (11 janvier 1982)
- Finding Aid: Recherche et technologie (1979-1991)
Jasanoff, 1997, Comparative Science and Technology Policy
Agar, 2019, Science Policy under Thatcher. I read this title literally to take ‘science policy’ as a term of art to describe the way Thatcher conceived relations between science & the state, not a generic term. This is why we must be so careful with the term ‘science policy’ when talking about the UK (ditto terms such as ‘evidence-based policy’ or ‘impact’ which I think have very particular cultural & historical meanings in the UK policy context).
Weber, 2006, From Science and Technology to Feminist Technoscience (Universität Bielefeld)
Ministère de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche, Historique de l’institution Recherche
New Scientist, 21 Apr 1988, vol. 118, no. 1609, p. 29: ‘When Mitterrand was elected in 1981, his research minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement said he would push up research spending to 2.5 per cent of GNP by 1985…Chevènement introduced a law allowing researchers in agencies and universities to sign contracts with industry…and created CESTA, an agency for evaluating new fields of science and technology.’
George, 2001, Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan
Lave, et al., 2010, Introduction: STS and Neoliberal Science in: Social Studies of Science
Mirowski, 2010, Science Mart. See also: Pilkington, 2013, From Episteme to Institution: An Interview with Philip Mirowski, in: Inicio.
Busch, 2014, Le marché aux connaissances: néolibéralisme, enseignement et recherche
Mirowski, 2019, Hell Is Truth Seen Too Late, in: boundary 2
Oliveira, 2014, Technology and basic science: the linear model of innovation, in: Scientiae Studia
Saltelli, et al., undated, Who will solve the crisis in science?
Weinstein, 2016, Critiquing and Transcending STEM, in: JASTE
Brickman, et al., 1985, Controlling Chemicals: The Politics of Regulation in Europe and the United States
Jasanoff, 1991, Acceptable evidence in a pluralistic society, in: Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management
Saltelli & Funtowicz, 2017, What is science’s crisis really about? in: Futures
Grundmann, 2017, The problem of expertise in knowledge societies, in: Minerva
Ziegler, 1997, Governing Ideas: Strategies for Innovation in France and Germany
Sullivan, 1982, Seeking technological gains the French socialize science, in: New York Times
Christofferson, 1991, The French Socialists in Power, 1981-1986: from Autogestion to Cohabitation
Brown, 1990, Worker Democracy in France: Are You Serious? in: French Politics and Society
Georgi, 2003, Autogestion, la dernière utopie
Cooper, 1975, Resource needs revisited, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
Salisbury, undated, Story of the Lucas Plan
Chopplet, 2016, Penser l’avenir. Un think tank atypique : le CESTA (1982-1986), in: Quaderni
Hagedoorn, 2002, Inter-firm R&D partnerships: an overview of major trends
and patterns since 1960, in: Research Policy
Chopplet, 2015/16, Penser l’avenir. Un think tank atypique: le CESTA (1982-1986), in: Quaderni
Venn, 2002, The Oil Crisis, pp. 58-59: ‘Until the mid-1980s, there was little change in world demand for oil: from 65 mbd in 1979 it had actually dropped slightly to 61 million by 1986. However, as a consequence, with demand relatively static and supplies apparently plentiful, interest in energy conservation and alternative sources of energy declined. While some consumer countries showed a sustained determination to develop other sources…investment in research & development for renewable energy resources by IEA members generally tended to drop as oil prices fell. In 1979 they were spending over a billion dollars on renewable energy research & development, but by 1985 the figure had slumped to under half a billion’
IIASA, 1981, Energy in a Finite World
Burn, 1978, Nuclear Power and the Energy Crisis: Politics and the Atomic Industry
Rose & Rose, 1976, The Radicalization of Science: ideology of/in the natural sciences
Appendix: various notes on political contexts in FR & UK
France’s policy response to the crisis after 1974 had ‘neo-liberal’ (1974-1981), socialist (1981-1984), & liberal (1984+) phases, according to the aforementioned history by Berstein & Milza. (Note the term ‘neo-liberal’ as used by these historians does *not* coincide with contemporary Anglo-Saxon understanding, referring to ‘Keynesian interventionist neo-liberalism which had dominated the world since 1945’).
Analysis from another perspective holds the 1970s as ‘enchanted parentheses’ between 1968 & 1980; while the 1980s was either a ‘nightmare’ when progressive ideals were abandoned, or a decade that constituted the ‘sociopolitical model’ for the 21st century (citing introductory essay in Bernard, 2015, Les Années Mitterrand: du changement socialiste au tournant libéral).
The first Mitterrand government possibly seemed at the time to represent a genuine departure from the supposed dominance of the right across the West – noting Thatcherism, Reaganism, ‘Kohlism’, Mulroney in Canada, etc. – but excepting to some degree contemporaneous left-leaning politicians e.g., Australia’s Hawke & Keating (1983-1996); Italy’s Craxi (1983-1987); Spain’s González (1982-1996), European Commission President Delors (1985-1994); & (slightly later) Japan’s Murayama (1994-1996).
In the above, I have devoted my attention exclusively to Mitterrand’s socialist phase (1981-1984), with Mauroy as PM. Some features of the early Mitterrand government were greater power to local government (grande affaire du septennat); & also various mostly unrealized but intriguing democratic proposals such as workers’ councils (autogestion). I have not yet looked at science under Giscard d’Estaing, nor Mitterrand’s second socialist government (1988-1993), featuring, in chronological order, PM Rocard, Cresson, & Bérégovoy (Cresson perhaps the only actually-existing socialist among them?); nor the period when Fabius was PM; nor the co-habitation.
It seems that consensus was that the socialist government failed because its leaders had not understood that France was part of a global economy; a sort of Keynesian version of shock therapy conceived at a national level did not work when the global economy hated it. Unemployment, inflation, depreciation of the Franc, strikes, chaos, etc., ensued. By 1983, there were apparently fears of a right-wing coup on the Chilean model. Mitterrand crept rightwards; the experiment ended.
It is not entirely clear to me – and that is simply because I have not read enough – why Mitterrand launched a left-wing program in the early 1980s. He was definitely not politically naive and by no means a do-good humanitarian, recalling for example his brutal response to the Algerian independence movement while serving as interior then justice minister (admittedly some time before in the 1950s). Perhaps a left-wing program was considered politically realistic, at least in the early 1980s. This is a question historians can answer; I am not a student of Mitterrand thought, nor the period in question.
Turning now to the UK, it often amounts to ‘common knowledge’ that the 1970s was a time of chaos and strikes in the UK, evoking terms such as ‘the winter of discontent’, ‘the sick man of Europe’ and ‘the three day week’. Britain was ‘a country exhausted by decline [that] eventually turned to Margaret Thatcher for salvation’.
An article in Reviews in History usefully cites the books that tell this story, namely, Beckett, When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (2010); Turner, Crisis? What Crisis?: Britain in the 1970s (2013); & Sandbrook, Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974-1979 (2013). To this we should add a second of Sandbrook’s efforts, State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974 (2011).
This image of the 1970s as a decade of chaos has, however, come under challenge from historians such as John Shepherd and Colin Hay. The image, it is said, was constructed for political reasons by Thatcherites after the fact and fails to tell us what the decade really felt like. Hugh Pemberton makes the point that the ‘winter of discontent’ crisis of the late 1970s under Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan, has in contemporary understanding, been conflated with crises of the early 1970s, under Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. This conflation, while obviously chronologically faulty, may not of course cloud the big picture entirely; equally, it can hardly help our understanding.
Reassessing 1970s Britain, the 2013 book edited by Lawrence Black, the aforementioned Pemberton, & Pat Thane, also argues against this ‘popular discourse [in which] the 1970s…[are] commonly characterized as a dismal decade of economic and political failure from which the country was apparently rescued by Thatcherism.’ Some detail on the contents of this book was revealed in a panel discussion involving the authors in 2009, and recorded by the British Academy. The key economic point (made in discussion by the historian Jim Tomlinson), is that the 1970s were not that bad – thanks to government spending, neither employment, nor productivity, fell as precipitously as they did in the 1980s, and the recession was mild. Nor were the consequences of rapid inflation all that great in terms of redistribution of wealth, despite elite fears that inflation would undermine capitalism.
A final point when comparing France & UK is that the chronology of the politics does quite not translate. one-for-one, across the Channel during this period. France had a right-wing president in the 1970s (Giscard), and then a left-winger in the 1980s who then drifted rightwards (Mitterrand). Whereas, the UK had mainly left-leaning government in the late 1970s (Wilson & Callaghan) & then a lurch right after 1979 under Thatcher. To my knowledge, Giscard, who preceded Thatcher, was a great advocate of capitalism & did apparently talk about libéralisme avancé & néolibéralisme français but his policies were not Thatcherite or neo-liberal in the way we later understood them.
Thatcher’s solutions were quite different – though, ironically, producing similar effects as the early socialist government of Mitterrand, namely, unemployment, strikes, chaos, etc., (but obviously with quite different goals in mind). Herein, perhaps, one could say the left-wing nationalist agenda pursued by the early Mitterrand government was never given a chance, unlike Thatcher’s shock doctrine, which was.
Science Think Tank 