Cognitive Autonomy and the Structuring of Government-Business Interaction

• In Event: 355 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 16. Cognition and the Economy

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that state-business relations function at two levels: organizational/institutional and ideational/cognitive. This represents a conceptual advancement insofar as most scholarly accounts of state-business relations either focus on the organizational aspect—whether or not state agencies’ internal organization makes relatively autonomous to outside influences, making them capable to act as a corporate entity—or conflate the two dimensions. I define lack of cognitive autonomy as an agency’s inability to formulate its own vision of what the problems deserving attention are and how to deal with these problems in a public policy context. Conversely, cognitive autonomy represents a situation whereby the state agency has the capacity to analyze unfolding events, deliberate, and develop independent policy solutions. The paper exemplifies the concept of cognitive autonomy by examining two U.S. policy domains—financial industry regulation and technology policy—that arguably possessed comparable levels of organizational autonomy, but differed sharply in their level of cognitive autonomy. Whereas financial regulatory agencies embraced a governance philosophy heavily dominated by neoliberalism, which limited government officials’ ability to deliberate collectively and adapt to change, U.S. agencies charged with promoting science and technology innovation adopted a more supple governance paradigm that allowed for internal deliberation and continuous learning. It appears, thus, that the character of the reigning policy paradigm is correlated with cognitive autonomy, in that radical paradigms seem to inhibit the growth of cognitive autonomy.

Author

• Marian Negoita, Social Policy Research Associates