Peer-Reviewed Publications
Gabriel Kahan. “The Machinery of the Plan: Credit Sovereignty in France, 1946-2026.” In Preparation. [abstract]
Economic planning has entered the mainstream under the rubric of national decarbonization. This has sparked debate on the proper approach to such planning and the conditions that sustain it. Among other factors, this requires constructing specific institutional machinery with which to steer firm-level investment and thereby realize large-scale developmental change. This paper describes this machinery. It begins from the premise that in market economies, the state’s capacity to command its domestic credit system is strongly associated with its capacity to plan — a capacity I term credit sovereignty. To do so, the state must install a political apparatus comprising two equally crucial policy mechanisms: one to direct domestic credit, the other to shield against foreign incursions. To illustrate, a within-case comparison is made between France’s postwar planning experience and its recent turn toward “ecological planning.” In the former period, the state drove sweeping industrial change by pairing state-supervised credit circuits with foreign exchange controls to produce “captive” borrowing. By contrast, the state is now targeting the rollout of green technologies by combining public venture capital with foreign investment screening, yet with mixed results. Empirically, the comparison presents a novel description of the evolving character of French planning. More broadly, it suggests state planning is most effective under conditions of financial repression and thus sits in direct tension with a liberalized financial order. If today’s planning experiments are to succeed, multilateral action will be required.
Gabriel Kahan & Daniel Seel. “Democracy as Investment: A Comparative Analysis of Public Asset Managers.” Under Review. [abstract]
A growing number of social scientists call for financial democracy as a “non-reformist reform,” yet scholarship still relies on disjointed case studies. In pursuit of greater conceptual and empirical rigor, this article offers a comparative analysis of financial democracy in two parts. First, we argue financial democracy can be operationalized by combining the relative volume of socialized investment with the governance structure of public financial institutions. Second, we illustrate this framework through a comparative analysis of existing institutions. Examining public asset managers in France (State Shareholding Agency), Singapore (Temasek), and China (SASAC), we demonstrate significant differences in the scale and character of shareholding aligned with public interests. Nevertheless, the cases converge toward a corporatist model in which large institutions pursuing long-term sectoral planning are insulated from popular input. Our findings point to financial democracy as a measurable phenomenon that, at present, varies greatly across institutional context while sharing key characteristics. Much like the formal institutions of political democracy, the formal institutions of financial democracy have yet to substantively incorporate the demos.
Gabriel Kahan. “The Social Life of Conditionality: Green Industrial Policy in Post-Dirigiste France.” Under Review. [abstract]
The advent of state-led decarbonization has brought with it a renaissance of industrial policy. To evaluate how such policies discipline private capital, social scientists are turning to the conditionalities embedded in public-private contracts. Yet many continue to fetishize the terms of contractual agreements at the risk of ignoring how these terms are, in actuality, enforced. This paper theorizes the “social life” of conditionality through a framework that combines contractual design with the administrative practices that determine the process of enforcement. To illustrate, I apply this framework to two green investment subsidies in France — both designed to decarbonize the 50 highest emitting industrial sites as part of the country’s turn toward “ecological planning.” Drawing on public records and interviews, the case study indicates conditionalities are in fact strong, yet the state is pursuing a form of “soft” enforcement that enables preferential treatment of firms. In doing so, the paper illustrates the contradictory character of green industrial policy in post-dirigiste France. Moreover, it demonstrates the urgency of placing greater attention on the immediate institutional environments in which industrial policies play out. Once this environment is mapped, scholars will find they are better equipped to investigate the broader power struggles that shape such policies.
Gabriel Kahan. 2025. “Green Transitions in the Periphery: Derisking, Dependency, and Alternative State-Capital Relations” Pp. 11-27 in The Emerald Handbook of Sustainable Energy Transition and Social Justice: Contemporary Issues and Debates in the Global South. Available here. [abstract]
Governments across the Global North and South are turning to green industrial policy to address the ongoing climate crisis. However, the financial architecture of these policies has become subject to debate, with critics pointing to predatory state-capital relations embedded in the "derisking" of green investments. In this chapter, I examine this "derisking" critique and its limits. While critics correctly index an ongoing subordination of the state to capital, I argue their misunderstanding of 20th century developmental states entails a misdiagnosis of contemporary industrial policy. I then apply this argument to the Global South, where Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) threaten to reproduce structural adjustments in order to ensure stable returns for Northern investors and exporters. Finally, I offer a set of recommendations for states pursuing just green transitions without core-periphery dependencies. Taken together, these alternative state-capital relations shed light on the institutional transformations necessary for meaningful low-carbon development.
Reports & Public Scholarship
Gabriel Kahan, Antoine Jourdan, Alex Amiotte Suchet, Clara Leonard, Hannah Bensussan, Hugo Pompougnac, Éric Monnet. Forthcoming. “Planification Écologique: Reality and Aspiration.” Débats du LIEPP.
Gabriel Kahan & Diana McFarland (eds). 2025. “High-Road Futures: Policy Roadmaps for Democratic Renewal.” ProGov21. [link]
Gabriel Kahan, Julia Wright, Holly West, Quincy Midthun. 2024. “Making the Most of the Moment: Building Municipal Capacity for Federal Funds." Mayors Innovation Project. [link]
Gabriel Kahan & Walker Kahn (eds). 2024. “Crisis, Experimentation, and Prosperity: A Year of Policy Advocacy.” ProGov21. [link]
Gabriel Kahan. 2020. “Infrastructural Hacktivism: Accelerationist Tactics for Those Caught Between Survival and a Better World.” engagée 9: 86-90. [link]