Beyond Competitiveness: How the Hard Times of the 1970s and 1980s Molded U.S. Technology Policy.

Over the past decade, scholars such as Glenn Fong, Linda Weiss and Fred Block have noted the increasingly commercial orientation in U.S. technology policy. This paper argues that the hard times of the late 1970s and early 1980s marked a break with post-war policy, under which the government's investment in basic research and research for government missions was assumed to lead automatically to commercial benefits. During the late 1970s and 1980s, the dominant view emerged that the government needed to do more to reform its policies to promote competitiveness, including technological competitiveness. At the same time, this paper argues that attempts to consider the U.S. as a competition state or even a type of development state neglect key non-economic factors. Policy was shaped by the controversies that arose over the most appropriate policies for promoting technological competitiveness and how these fit into the government's other roles. As a result of these controversies, the U.S. policies that developed in the 1980s focused on promoting technological innovation through the transfer of federally-funded technology to the private sector, preferential assistance to small companies, and the development of technology that could serve specific government roles, such as national defense, and health. Despite the reputation of the United States for having a vacillating approach to technology policies, policies in these areas have been fairly stable. Over the past two decades, policies to reduce dependence on oil may have achieved sufficient support. In contrast, policies with an overwhelmingly economic focus remained underfunded and vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]