On the Ground: The Microfoundations of Green Industrial Policy

Governments across the world are expanding public investments to support green industries and infrastructures under the banner of green growth and decarbonisation. Much of the political economy scholarship has examined these developments through macro-level frameworks, emphasising state capacity, macro-financial regimes, and global competition. This paper shifts the focus to the microfoundations of green industrial policy: the concrete organisational arenas, boards, and elite networks through which policy is implemented. Based on an in-depth case study of Denmark between 2002 and 2022, the analysis combines social network analysis, archival material, and a prosopographic study of policy elites to examine the governance of green R&D subsidies. The findings show that Denmark has organised its industrial policy through a ‘board model’ in which independent boards embedded within the state but dominated by private-sector actors allocate subsidies. Business representatives occupy most positions and brokerage roles, while state officials remain largely procedural. The professional backgrounds of board members further reinforce a techno-economic framing of the transition. The paper argues that the effectiveness and direction of green industrial policy cannot be understood by investment volumes alone but must be traced through its organisational microfoundations.