'Constructuring' the First Maritime Globalization. Competing Shipping Subsidies and the Race for the Commercial Spaces 1881-1914

The aim of this paper is to investigate the process of politicization of the highest levels of the global commercial connectivity network, during its formative decades. The paper highlights the role played by the differences among the national approaches, along with some of the key mechanisms driving the development of the maritime sector during the considered period. As the preferred instrument for the development of the national system of long-range maritime connectivity, the shipping subsidies were diffused almost everywhere. However, the interactions with the institutional, sociotechnical and commercial national environments produced very dissimilar outcomes in different countries, with direct reflections in the construction of the commercial connectivity conditions, acting indirectly also over the evolution of the geopolitical scenario. JEL Classification: F02, F14, F52, N40, N70