The creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 was a landmark in the development of the liberal international economic order. Yet the global economic crisis of 2008 put the spotlight on the longstanding question whether WTO membership limited the policy choices of governments coping with distress. This Special Issue of Business and Politics uses the crisis as a “stress test” for evaluating the prominent thesis that multilateral trade rules presently impose sharp limits on national industrial policies. The evidence from a wide range of sectoral and national contexts suggests that the WTO's ability to constrain member governments’ use of industrial policy is highly exaggerated. As we argue in this introductory essay, and as the studies in this Issue show, assertions of the WTO's strength do not reflect the incomplete and contested nature of its accords and the imperatives of policymaking in an era when many governments simultaneously intervene in national economies.

Wind power remains one of the fastest growing energy sources in the world, even as countries have struggled to come back from the global economic crisis of 2008. Yet the sector's rise has been the product of a crucial shift in how governments approach renewable energy. To build political support for wind power, governments have added industrial policy instruments to traditional renewable energy deployment mechanisms. This paper argues that we are witnessing a rise in protectionism in the wind power sector growing out of specific political and economic challenges at the national level that have arisen in the period following the 2008 crisis. In addition, this paper demonstrates that protectionism, justified by a rationale of promoting local economic development, takes many forms, and countries have come up with ever more varied and sophisticated methods of using industrial policy to establish and protect nascent, strategic industries. Finally, it challenges conventional wisdom that protectionism is reserved for the emerging economies as either a strategy to improve economic competitiveness or as a short cut to technological innovation. It demonstrates that while these strategies do indeed persist in emerging economies, North America and Western Europe continue to protect their own wind industries, even as they initiate disputes with countries for implementing similar measures.

The dual pressures of the global economic crisis in 2008 and high crude prices through the subsequent recovery period have prompted oil-producing countries to adopt a wide range of protectionist measures including subsidies in all forms and trade and investment restrictions. Focusing on fiscal and industrial policy adjustments in the UK and the People's Republic of China since 2008, this paper argues that both governments have sought an increase in tax contributions from the corporate sector in exchange for intensified, targeted support for specific capital investments that will address the challenges of overall decline in domestic oil production and new field exploration and oil recovery opportunities. These novel “rent-sharing” schemes – inadequately captured in recent academic debates over precise measurements of fuel subsidies – raise concerns for fair competition in the upstream market and politicians’ long-term commitment to the transitioning of energy mix toward green and renewable sources.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, governments turned to protectionist policies to support their financial sectors. Yet these policy choices have been highly variegated, and like many recent protectionist policies reflect a process of adaptation to changing circumstances. Using data on a variety of government interventions in the financial sector since the crisis, I show that financial protectionism comes in at least three types, only two of which have witnessed a traceable increase since the global financial crisis. These are protection through market entry restrictions (Type 1), through asymmetrically applied regulation (Type 2) and protection through subsidies (Type 3). While Type 1 has not appeared to change significantly since the crisis, Type 2 and Type 3 have. I present empirical evidence which suggests that while Type 3 financial protectionism proliferated during and shortly after the crisis, it is unlikely to continue. Type 2 financial protectionism, I conclude, is more likely to take off into the future because of the nature of interest group effects associated with asymmetric regulation as a form of government intervention.

The commercial aircraft industry is no stranger to trade friction, which has brought bitter international disputes over industrial policy to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Yet despite the fact that several countries, notably China, Japan and Russia have stated their intentions to develop aircraft that can compete with other countries, these efforts have not led to a trade dispute. What explains this pattern? Drawing on sources such as the Global Trade Alert database, this paper argues that that the complexity of the aircraft industry generates considerable barriers to entry. Moreover, emerging aerospace states have not repeated earlier efforts of direct subsidy, but rather, they have sought to position themselves in the global aerospace value chain, with selective government interventions designed to help national champions accumulate the necessary technical experience though collaboration with incumbent firms. However, the very diversity of government supports may make protectionist measures more difficult to identify.

Apart from being one of the hardest hit sectors during the 2008 financial crisis, the auto sector is also a prominent sector where emerging auto markets such as China have fared relatively well compared to their competitors in North America and Europe. This paper examines various ways that nations have shifted their policy gears to revive and restructure the automotive industry by using the case studies of the USA, France, and China. New sets of policy initiatives are contingent on particular industrial and institutional contexts, but both developed and developing countries have employed wide range of “murky” protectionist measures. This makes it unlikely for the WTO member countries to take a naming and shaming approach and file a case at the WTO level, which poses challenges to the WTO rules and trade liberalization.