12nd The Role of the State in Varieties of Capitalism (SVOC) conference
The Institute of World Economics, the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, ELTE, organised the 12nd New Perspectives on (New) Industrial Policies in the Era of Geoeconomic Shifts (in the series State in the Varieties of Capitalism – SVOC) International Conference in person in Budapest at the Research Centre for Humanities on 1st and 2nd of June 2026. The conference was organized with the support of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary under Grant FK-138317.
The annual international conference focused this year on ongoing theoretical and policy debates, as well as advanced empirical research in comparative and international political economy on (re-)industrialisation and industrial policy. It also emphasised the challenges of the green and digital transitions, as well as the implications of techno-nationalist and geoeconomic rivalries. The conference hosted international scholars to present their novel work on industrial transformation and its broader implications for economies, societies and political regimes.
The theme of the conference this year “New Perspectives on (New) Industrial Policies in the Era of Geoeconomic Shifts” captured a profound paradigm shift in the contemporary global political economy. Long dismissed by mainstream economists as mere “picking winners” or even as “the policy that shall not be named,” industrial policy has re-emerged as a central instrument of governance. Crucially, it is no longer primarily concerned with accelerating domestic growth in a narrow developmental sense; rather, it has been increasingly securitised and weaponised as a key tool for navigating intensifying geoeconomic rivalries.
The conference was organized in a way to not only provide platform for discussions of established scholars’, but it also offered PhD students the possibility to present their works in dedicated panels. The first day of the conference hosted two keynote speeches and a round table discussion, followed by
The first keynote speech was delivered by Réka Juhász, a most distinguished scholar of contemporary industrial policy research from the University of British Columbia on the topic of “Insights from the New Economics of Industrial Policy (A Cautiously Optimistic Take)” and was chaired by John Szabó (IWE CERS ELTE). Juhász discussed how the state shapes the composition of economic activity, focusing primarily on industrial policy first in historical and empirical perspective, then embedding it into the global economy context (on the example of the semiconductor value chain), and finally highlighting the role of political vision. Based on the empirical evaluation of individual episodes of industrial policy Juhász painted a rather optimistic picture, based on examples from the US, and also from low(er) capacity environments (such as Italy, Brazil and Romania).
This year, the roundtable discussion focused on „New Industrial Policy and the EV Industry: Pericentric Perspectives across Wider Europe”, chaired by Ágnes Szunomár (Institute of World Economics, CERS, ELTE). The panelists were: Réka Juhász (University of British Columbia); Petr Pavlínek (University of Nebraska at Omaha); Anastas Vangeli (University of Ljubljana); Adam A. Ambroziak (SGH Warsaw School of Economics). The discussion centred on the outlook for Europe’s automotive industry and the potential of industrial policy, considering China’s growing role in the EV sector, with a focus on the special situation of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
The second keynote speech was delivered by the most distinguished scholar of the automotive industry in CEE, Petr Pavlínek from the University of Nebraska at Omaha on the topic of “Geopolitical Decoupling in the Russian Automotive Industry after 2022”. The session was chaired by Magdolna Sass, director of the Institute of World Economics (IWE CERS ELTE). Pavlínek’s research on geopolitical decoupling in Russia has contributed to the Global Product Network (GPN) literature by extending previous works and highlighting the under-studied active role of states in breaking GNPs, and demonstrating diverse sub-national interpretations of decoupling within a single theoretical framework.
Both days also featured parallel sessions, with topics related to new perspectives on industrial policy, including innovation, green and spatial aspects by focusing on both the global North and South, as well as the European (semi-)periphery.
The two-day conference gave place to almost 70 presentations and one roundtable discussions, delivered by 70 scholars, from over ten different countries from all over the world.
