The Negotiated Political Economy of a Heavy Industrial Sector: The Norwegian Hydropower Complex in the 1970s and 1980s

What effect does a sector-based negotiated economy have on industrial transformation, and what are the institutional mechanisms involved in negotiated sector-regulation? These questions are tentatively answered through an analysis of the political economy of one of Norway's most important industrial sectors: the hydropower and energy-intensive industry. The study focuses on factors that have allowed the sector to continue to expand throughout the 1970s and 1980s in spite of failing economic return and extensive political opposition. The over-expansion is explained through the partial closure and self-refercnciality found in the sector's regulatory system, which provides it with relative autonomy in relation to us economic and political environment. It is suggested that the pattern found in the hydropower and energy-intensive sector may be typical of heavy industrial sectors in modern economies.