One Movement, Two Registers: Scholarship, Advocacy, and their Division of Labor in the Pluralism-in-Economics Movement

Europe is confronted with multiple crises which also affect Austrian industry. This chapter analyses the strengths and vulnerabilities of the Austrian manufacturing sector in face of the new challenges. Against this backdrop, we scrutinise Austria’s industrial policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, the twin transition, and to reinforcing geoeconomic competition. We are interested in how it (re-)shaped the prevailing industrial structure and to which extent did Austrian corporatism shape the outcomes. Theoretically, we draw on the Varieties of Capitalism approach to facilitate comparison with other countries. It classifies Austria as a coordinated market economy. Of all non-market institutions, Social Partnership had the most significant influence on industrial policy making. Methodologically, we draw on empirical data from official statistics and secondary literature to substantiate our thesis that Austrian neo-corporatism has produced ambiguous effects: it is characterised by the persistence of relatively solid neo-corporatist structures, which recently resorted to ‘crisis corporatism’ to combat dwindling price competitiveness of Austrian exports and backed the development of a new national industrial strategy. At the same time, the search for a broad societal compromise and a certain 'stickiness' of institutions impede to timely adapt in a more radical way to the changed circumstances.