How political regimes influence global industrial competitiveness: an examination of the shipbuilding industries in China and South Korea.

Abstract

The paper reviews the influences of political regime on the global industrial competition. Many scholars have argued that the competitive advantage determines the success of a country in the global industrial competition. In contrast, this paper argues that a political regime influences the global industrial competition. Competitive advantage is leveraged by political regime. This paper attempts to examine the puzzle: "How does a political regime matter in the global industrial competition?" The unclear literature gap is considered to be filled with the theoretical relationship between a political regime, the economic structure and the industrial policy. The paper examines the impacts of different political regimes on the global shipbuilding competitions by analyzing the two world's leading shipbuilding countries, China and South Korea. The first set of theoretical linkage- between authoritarian regime, structuralism, and state-led policy- will be explored in case one, and the second set of theoretical linkage- between democratic regime, pure capitalism, and market-led policy-will be analyzed in case two. Three conclusions are reached: [1] there exists a direct relationship between political regime, economic structure, and industrial policy, [2] political regime influences the global shipbuilding competition, and [3] policy flexibility plays a vital role under both regime types.