How policies are closed off: A multi-level policy analysis of the closure of the Amsterdam Shipyards (1968-1986)

The paper will use the example of the decline of shipyards in the city of Amsterdam to analyse the role and relationship between different policy levels (European, national, city) in this episode. Therefore, the paper is informed by and wants to contribute to improve understandings of multi-level governance in history, still an underused approach in history. The paper will show how the city government of Amsterdam tried to secure new national loans for the restart of the shipyards in period the ‘policy paradigm’ was shifting already and becoming less favourable to state aid. The broader transformation this case highlights is how the national Keynesian economic policy-approach was replaced by a new monetaristic economic policy-approach, backed by the European Commission. In addition, this is a study into how policies are closed off: no longer would the protection of employment in vulnerable (urban) regions be a major factor in economic aid decisions to industry in the decades after the RSV-scandal. In history there are many examples of policies that come to an end, but how this works precisely, so how policies are closed off, is an underdeveloped theme in historical research into policy and politics.