Europe de l'Ouest

Drawing on his doctoral work on the making of emission standards in Sweden, and inscribing the analysed case into the European context, Näsman provides us with valuable inputs that can enrich the broader debate on environmental regulations, on the current Green Deal and on a Just Transition in the automotive industry.

He traces the historical trajectory that led Sweden from the first serious discussions on environmental standards in the 1960s to the approval of European emission regulations based on the use of three-way catalytic converters in the 1980s. Through his case, Näsman highlights several, crucial issues. Firstly, he sheds light on the political economic environment that may affect the design and the implementation of new regulations – including political institutions, business and technical authorities. Secondly, he delves into the relationship between national and European institutional forces, and into the way this can either facilitate or hamper the advancement of progressive policy regulations. Thirdly, he shows how the development of emission standards may encounter technical obstacles, like the actual availability of material infrastructure (ex. fuel infrastructure). lire la suite

Asia is the host of some of the largest automobile markets and top global brands. It has recently taken several initiatives to foster its regional integration, such as Asia-wide trade agreements and infrastructure projects. This article examines the impact of these initiatives on the automobile fragmented production networks of Northeast, Southeast Asia and South Asia to see if they are becoming more regionalised or globalised, and to see if an Asia-wide production network is emerging. We focus on automobile component trade as a proxy of network trade and follow its evolution over the period 2001–2016 at the Asian and subregional level with a special emphasis on two major players, China and Japan. Our results show that a regionalisation process is under way between the three subregions, driven by China and Japan. However, this process is still slow due to the persistence of a high level of protectionism between the three subregions.