Publications - MPIfG

10 Project Areas and Research Projects
The Research Program
The general theme of research at the institute is the conditions under which modern
societies may be able to solve problems through collective action. The research
program of the period from 1986–1995 focused on historically and internationally
comparative studies of the interaction between political-administrative
intervention and societal self-organization in selected sectors “close to the state” –
namely in health care systems, organized research systems and large technical
infrastructure systems, with a special emphasis on telecommunications. In the
new program, the subjects of empirical research have changed in response to the
growing importance of market interaction and international competition even in
sectors that were formerly protected and tightly controlled by the authority of the
nation state. In telecommunications, for instance, privatization and deregulation
have progressed widely. The same holds true for other sectors traditionally close
to the state, such as air and rail transportation, road hauling, the electronic media
and energy supply. Similarly, the influence of government policy on industrial
research has declined. Looking back at the last decade, we find a growing importance
of market coordination in almost all functional sectors. This can be attributed
in part to changes in political ideologies and perceptions of reality. But it is
also a response to actual constraints presented by European integration, economic
globalization and international regime competition, which have tended to make
“market-correcting” national systems of regulation appear to be liabilities for
international competitiveness.
Real-world changes like these require a historically grounded definition of the
questions guiding the institute’s second program period. While we continue to be