Josh Whitford
Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia University In The City of New York
Chapter Member: New York City SSN
Connect with Josh
About Josh
Volden studies legislative politics and the interaction among political institutions, including within American federalism. His current projects include studies of innovation and policy diffusion across states and localities, and an analysis of the legislative effectiveness of individual members of Congress. He is Co-director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking.
Contributions
In the News
Guest on MPR's The Daily Circuit, September 25, 2012.
Publications
"Network Failures and Innovation in the New Old Economy," Connect Innovation Institute, January 31, 2012.
Shows that the traditional justification for industrial policy – the identification of an identifiable market failure – is incomplete. Shows how "network failures" – which are often a more pressing problem insofar as the goal is to foment innovation – can be identified and remedied.
"Industrial Policy in the United States: A Neo-Polanyian Interpretation" (with ). Politics & Society 37, no. 4 (2009): 521-553.
Challenges the widely held notion that U.S. political institutions – such as federalism and the separation of powers – are incompatible with an active industrial policy.
"The New Old Economy: Networks, Institutions, and the Organizational Transformation of American Manufacturing" (Oxford University Press, 2005).
Shows how manufacturing industries have been transformed by outsourcing and the ensuing reliance of manufacturers on armies of suppliers, with a particular focus on the need to understand how the American economic development apparatus can be adjusted to better meet the challenges of a highly decentralized production regime.
"Surviving the Fall of a King: The Regional Institutional Implications of Crisis at Fiat Auto" International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29, no. 4 (2005): 771-795.
Explores the response of the automotive-centered productive system in Turin and the surrounding Piedmont region in the wake of a major crisis at Fiat Auto, and helps to understand more generally how regional industrial policy can, by focusing on the needs and importance of supplier firms, cushion a manufacturing system when such crises occur.