In this chapter, I explore the imaginaries of prosperity underlying the European Union’s (EU) approach to industrial law and policy. Long considered a taboo in European politics, the EU began to rediscover industrial policy after the 2008 great financial crisis, gradually increasing its ambitions when it came to shaping the relations between the state and the market. Having reviewed an array of EU measures, starting with the 2010 industrial policy and including the more recent burst of legislative proposals (Chips Act, Batteries Act, Critical Minerals Act, and Net Zero Industry Act), this chapter aims to do two things. First, it identifies shifts in the background understanding of political economy, including the role and appropriate objectives of markets, politics, law, and government, that lie behind successive policy interventions. Second, this chapter sketches the contours of the new synthesis of prosperity that emerges from these recent proposals and measures, while at the same time, and in no ambiguous terms, drawing attention to its considerable limitations.

The chapter examines the relationship between the size and diversity of the expellee population and entrepreneurship and occupational change in West Germany. Using statistical data at the municipal and county levels, it documents a reversal of fortune: although expellee presence presented economic challenges in the immediate postwar period, in the long run, it increased entrepreneurship rates, education, and household incomes. The more regionally diverse the expellee population, the better the long-run economic performance in receiving communities.

This chapter presents a novel electoral strategy by which landowners have successfully influenced policymaking in democratic Brazil: a multiparty congressional caucus known as the Bancada Ruralista. It shows how agrarian elites finance the campaigns, encourage other producers to support, and subsidize the work of like-minded legislators independently of their partisan affiliation, as well as how legislators of agrarian origin collaborate across partisan lines. The chapter argues that Brazil’s Agrarian Caucus is the product of agrarian elites’ collective efforts to build a channel of electoral representation to protect their interests under democracy in a context of high political fragmentation. The threat of radical land reform during the democratic transition prompted landowners to engage in electoral politics. However, high political fragmentation among the agrarian elite rendered party-building unfeasible. The chapter discusses the advantages of an electoral, candidate-centered, multipartisan strategy over other strategies available to economic elites in democracies such as lobbying or party-building, and illustrates these advantages through the analysis of the Forest Code reform of 2012.

This chapter aims to analyse Karnataka's political economy in the postliberalisation phase. It explores the changes in policies, particularly on the agricultural sector, and the way these have affected class formation and consolidation. It examines the relationship between proprietary classes and the state to understand how the state allocates resources, such as land, water, and credit, and infers how the political settlement operates within the state. These questions have been addressed through a thorough literature review and fieldwork conducted in the state between February and July 2012. Although Karnataka has four agricultural universities that publish vast literature, these were of little pertinence to the study. This was primarily due to the technical nature, micro-view, and quantitative approach of these publications. Nonetheless, the information has been included whenever appropriate. Karnataka is a diverse state, and patterns vary between the northern and southern districts; therefore, evidence from fieldwork is juxtaposed with existing literature to present a comprehensive and nuanced picture. The north is less irrigated, has less capitalist agriculture, and has fewer commercial crops in comparison to the south.

In line with the other field-based chapters, this chapter opens with a brief description of the state, and a discussion on the economy, particularly sector growth rates, main sources of investment, and alignment of lobbies. It presents the trajectory of certain agrarian proprietary classes and links it to dominant castes, as the literature is mostly written along the parameter of caste. To make sense of proprietary classes after 1991, the scene prior, during the 1970s and 1980s, has been briefly discussed. This is followed by a brief discussion on three key features of Karnataka – corruption, farmer suicide, and decentralisation. These are relevant for explaining the field findings. Subsequently, political settlement and agrarian class formation and consolidation are reflected upon. Accumulation through diversification by fractions of rich farmers are highlighted along with that of the political leaders and state officials who have transformed into petty bourgeoisie. Field findings suggested that regional variations within the state exist, as demonstrated. Comparative assessment of these findings with Chhattisgarh and Gujarat is attempted. Finally, it is inferred that the nature of the regional state is clientelist, playing a major role side by side the market.