Standardized Confusion The Political Logic Of Chinas Technology Standards Policy

Download or read book Standardized Confusion? The Political Logic of China's Technology Standards Policy written by Dan Breznitz and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studying technology standards in emerging economies provides a unique opportunity to examine the comparative political economy of science, technology, and innovation, as well as to analyze how economic institutions from mature capitalist countries fare when planted in different institutional settings. Of the emerging economies, the largest and arguably most important for the international economy is China. Looking from the national systemic level we find a puzzle in explaining the Chinese policy: Why do domestic standards continue to proliferate and be led and supported by government even when there is evidence that standards policies are counterproductive in terms of fostering innovation, their political and economic raison d'etre? We argue that this is the outcome of a two steps self-reinforcing sequence dynamic. In the first stage the state initiates standards development in the hope of fostering technological independence by offering status and economic incentives. As standard development starts, however, an unintended consequence is that more and more organizations, fearing a loss of competitive advantage, begin competing standard development efforts, creating an innovation arms race and explosive growth in the number of standards. This proliferation is counterproductive, leading to more uncertainty and less innovation. Nonetheless, since this dynamic has been creating vested interests, they ensure the continuation of the current policy.