The Industrial Reorganisation Corporation and the British Economic Policymaking Process

工业重组公司（IRC）是哈罗德·威尔逊政府于1966年成立的实体。他们的委员会得到了资金来促进合并，希望这能帮助英国工业合理化。几乎所有关于该主题的关键文献都发表于20世纪80年代，除了2017年的一篇论文外，自20世纪90年代以来，IRC几乎没有受到关注。关于IRC的最全面的工作仍然是海牙和威尔金森于1983年出版的专著。我们早就应该对这个组织进行重新评估，因为它整合了史学的最新发展，特别是考虑到许多现有的工作都是在档案基本上关闭的时候写的。尽管有许多其他的途径可以进行原创性研究（如我完整的研究计划所述），但最有可能的是更密切地关注IRC决策的过程，而不仅仅是结果。在历史学家能够接触到21世纪初开放的国家档案馆（National Archives）中有关IRC的相关文件之前，老式著作的典型方法（对结果表现出更大的兴趣）——基本上将IRC视为一个黑盒子，检查投入（资金）和产出（合并），但将这些投入转化为产出的过程变成一个谜——是有意义的。这一点现在可以得到改进，通过IRC的档案，我们可以更好地理解决策过程，而不仅仅是结果。

The Industrial Reorganisation Corporation (IRC) was an entity established by Harold Wilson's government in 1966. TheIRC was given funds to promote mergers which it was hoped could help rationalise British industry. Almost all of the keyliterature on the topic was published in the 1980s, and with the exception of one 2017 paper, the IRC has received littleattention since the 1990s. The most comprehensive work on the IRC remains Hague and Wilkinson's monograph,published in 1983. A re-evaluation of the organisation which integrates recent developments in the historiography is longoverdue, particularly given that much of the existing work was written when the archives were still largely closed. Thoughthere are a number of other avenues for original research (as detailed in my full research proposal), the most potentiallikely lies in looking more closely at the process, rather than just the outcomes, of policymaking in the IRC. The typicalapproach of older works, which showed more interest in outcomes - essentially treating the IRC as a black box,examining inputs (money) and outputs (mergers), but leaving the process of turning these inputs into outputs a mystery -made sense before historians had access to the relevant papers for the IRC in the National Archives, which were openedin the early 2000s. This can now be improved upon, as through the IRC's archives, we can establish a betterunderstanding of the policymaking process, rather than just outcomes.