The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Termination of Keynesian Policies: A Multilevel Governance Analysis of the Closure of the Amsterdam Shipyards, 1968–1986

Abstract

By looking at the policy termination of state aid to shipbuilders in Amsterdam, this article illustrates how a major policy paradigm shift within recent history, and the change from Keynesian to neoliberal policies, can be explained. The article is informed by a multilevel governance approach to policy change analysis and is based on different types of sources. It presents an in-depth case study of the closing of the Amsterdam shipyards and analyzes the role of policy change at different governance levels (i.e., city government, national Parliament, national government, and the European Commission). In doing so, we are able to illustrate how new actors—in this case the European Commission and the Commissioner for Competition—were able to terminate long-existing policies of state aid to shipbuilders under the auspices of improving competition and the free market at the start of the 1980s.