Ultra Lingua German - English 3.4.1 serial key or number

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarianultranationalism^[1][2] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy^[3] which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.^[4] The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries.^[4] Opposed to liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism, fascism is placed on the far right within the traditional left–right spectrum.^[4][5][6]

Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society, the state, and technology. The advent of total war and the total mass mobilization of society had broken down the distinction between civilians and combatants. A "military citizenship" arose in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner during the war.^[7][8] The war had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines and providing economic production and logistics to support them, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.^[7][8]

Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarianone-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties.^[9] Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society.^[9] Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation.^[10][11] Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.^[12]

Since the end of World War II in , few parties have openly described themselves as fascist, and the term is instead now usually used pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptions neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied more formally to describe parties of the far right with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements.^[4][13]

Etymology

The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio meaning "a bundle of sticks", ultimately from the Latin word fasces.^[14] This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates. According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in ^[15] In , Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later. The Fascists came to associate the term with the ancient Roman fasces or fascio littorio^[16]—a bundle of rods tied around an axe,^[17] an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate^[18] carried by his lictors, which could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command.^[19][20]

The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.^[21] Similar symbols were developed by different fascist movements: for example, the Falange symbol is five arrows joined together by a yoke.^[22]

Definitions

Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism.^[23] Each group described as fascist has at least some unique elements, and many definitions of fascism have been criticized as either too wide or narrow.^[24][25]

According to many scholars, fascism &#; especially once in power &#; has historically attacked communism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the far-right.^[26]

One common definition of the term, frequently cited by reliable sources as a standard definition, is that of historian Stanley G. Payne. He focuses on three concepts:

1. the "fascist negations": anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism;
2. "fascist goals": the creation of a nationalist dictatorship to regulate economic structure and to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture, and the expansion of the nation into an empire; and
3. "fascist style": a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership.^{[27][28][29][30]}

Professor Jason Stanley, in his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, observed that "The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors." Stanley says recent global events, including the pandemic and the protests, have substantiated his concern about how fascist rhetoric is showing up in politics and policies around the world.^[31]

Historian John Lukacs argues that there is no such thing as generic fascism. He claims that Nazism and communism are essentially manifestations of populism and that states such as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are more different than similar.^[32]

Roger Griffin describes fascism as "a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populistultranationalism".^[33] Griffin describes the ideology as having three core components: "(i) the rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism, and (iii) the myth of decadence".^[34] In Griffin's view, fascism is "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist "armed party" politics opposing socialism and liberalism and promising radical politics to rescue the nation from decadence.^[35] In Against the Fascist Creep, Alexander Reid Ross writes regarding Griffin's view:

Following the Cold War and shifts in fascist organizing techniques, a number of scholars have moved toward the minimalist "new consensus" refined by Roger Griffin: "the mythic core" of fascism is "a populist form of palingenetic ultranationalism." That means that fascism is an ideology that draws on old, ancient, and even arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop a plan for the "new man."^[36]

Indeed, Griffin himself explored this 'mythic' or 'eliminable' core of fascism with his concept of post-fascism to explore the continuation of Nazism in the modern era.^[37] Additionally, other historians have applied this minimalist core to explore proto-fascist movements.^[38]

Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser argue that although fascism "flirted with populism in an attempt to generate mass support", it is better seen as an elitist ideology. They cite in particular its exaltation of the Leader, the race, and the state, rather than the people. They see populism as a "thin-centered ideology" with a "restricted morphology" which necessarily becomes attached to "thick-centered" ideologies such as fascism, liberalism, or socialism. Thus populism can be found as an aspect of many specific ideologies, without necessarily being a defining characteristic of those ideologies. They refer to the combination of populism, authoritarianism and ultranationalism as "a marriage of convenience."^[39]

Robert Paxton says that:

[Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.^[40]

Roger Eatwell defines fascism as "an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on a holistic-national radical Third Way",^[41] while Walter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as "self-evident: nationalism; Social Darwinism; racialism, the need for leadership, a new aristocracy, and obedience; and the negation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution."^[42]

Racism was a key feature of German fascism, for which the Holocaust was a high priority. According to the historiography of genocide, "In dealing with the Holocaust, it is the consensus of historians that Nazi Germany targeted Jews as a race, not as a religious group."^[43]Umberto Eco,^[44] Kevin Passmore,^[45] John Weiss,^[46] Ian Adams,^[47] and Moyra Grant^[48] stress racism as a characteristic component of German fascism. Historian Robert Soucy stated that "Hitler envisioned the ideal German society as a Volksgemeinschaft, a racially unified and hierarchically organized body in which the interests of individuals would be strictly subordinate to those of the nation, or Volk."^[49] Fascist philosophies vary by application, but remain distinct by one theoretical commonality: all traditionally fall into the far-right sector of any political spectrum, catalyzed by afflicted class identities over conventional social inequities.^[4]

Position in the political spectrum

Most scholars place fascism on the far right of the political spectrum.^[4][5] Such scholarship focuses on its social conservatism and its authoritarian means of opposing egalitarianism.^[50][51] Roderick Stackelberg places fascism—including Nazism, which he says is "a radical variant of fascism"—on the political right by explaining: "The more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be".^[52]

Fascism's origins, however, are complex and include many seemingly contradictory viewpoints, ultimately centered around a mythos of national rebirth from decadence.^[53] Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon both left-wing organizational tactics and right-wing political views.^[54]

Italian Fascism gravitated to the right in the early s.^[55][56] A major element of fascist ideology that has been deemed to be far-right is its stated goal to promote the right of a supposedly superior people to dominate, while purging society of supposedly inferior elements.^[57]

In the s, the Italian Fascists described their ideology as right-wing in the political program The Doctrine of Fascism, stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century".^[58][59] Mussolini stated that fascism's position on the political spectrum was not a serious issue for fascists: "Fascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center&#; These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged meaning: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don't give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words".^[60]

Major Italian groups politically on the right, especially rich landowners and big business, feared an uprising by groups on the left such as sharecroppers and labour unions.^[61] They welcomed Fascism and supported its violent suppression of opponents on the left.^[62] The accommodation of the political right into the Italian Fascist movement in the early s created internal factions within the movement. The "Fascist left" included Michele Bianchi, Giuseppe Bottai, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti, Sergio Panunzio, and Edmondo Rossoni, who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize the economy and advance the interests of workers and the common people.^[63] The "Fascist right" included members of the paramilitary Squadristi and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI).^[63] The Squadristi wanted to establish Fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco, sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace the liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites.^[63] Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.^[63]

After the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, when King Victor Emmanuel III forced Mussolini to resign as head of government and placed him under arrest in , Mussolini was rescued by German forces. While continuing to rely on Germany for support, Mussolini and the remaining loyal Fascists founded the Italian Social Republic with Mussolini as head of state. Mussolini sought to re-radicalize Italian Fascism, declaring that the Fascist state had been overthrown because Italian Fascism had been subverted by Italian conservatives and the bourgeoisie.^[64] Then the new Fascist government proposed the creation of workers' councils and profit-sharing in industry, although the German authorities, who effectively controlled northern Italy at this point, ignored these measures and did not seek to enforce them.^[64]

A number of post-World War II fascist movements described themselves as a "third position" outside the traditional political spectrum.^[65] Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera said: "[B]asically the Right stands for the maintenance of an economic structure, albeit an unjust one, while the Left stands for the attempt to subvert that economic structure, even though the subversion thereof would entail the destruction of much that was worthwhile".^[66]

"Fascist" as a pejorative

The term "fascist" has been used as a pejorative,^[67] regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum.^[68]George Orwell wrote in that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless&#; almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'".^[68]

Despite fascist movements' history of anti-communism, communist states have sometimes been referred to as "fascist", typically as an insult. For example, it has been applied to Marxist-Leninist regimes in Cuba under Fidel Castro and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh.^[69] Chinese Marxists used the term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet Split, and likewise the Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists^[70] and social democracy (coining a new term in "social fascism").

In the United States, Herbert Matthews of The New York Times asked in "Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?".^[71]J. Edgar Hoover, longtime FBI director and ardent anti-communist, wrote extensively of "Red Fascism".^[72] The Ku Klux Klan in the s was sometimes called "fascist". Historian Peter Amann states that, "Undeniably, the Klan had some traits in common with European fascism—chauvinism, racism, a mystique of violence, an affirmation of a certain kind of archaic traditionalism—yet their differences were fundamental[the KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system."^[73]

Professor Richard Griffiths of the University of Wales^[74] wrote in that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".^[25] "Fascist" is sometimes applied to post-World War II organizations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly term "neo-fascist".^[75]

History

19th-century roots

Georges Valois, founder of the first non-Italian fascist party Faisceau,^[76] claimed the roots of fascism stemmed from the late 18th century Jacobin movement, seeing in its totalitarian nature a foreshadowing of the fascist state. Historian George Mosse similarly analyzed fascism as an inheritor of the mass ideology and civil religion of the French Revolution, as well as a result of the brutalization of societies in –^[77]

Historians such as Irene Collins and Howard C Payne see Napoleon III, who ran a 'police state' and suppressed the media, as a forerunner of fascism.^[78] According to David Thomson,^[79] the Italian Risorgimento of led to the 'nemesis of fascism'. William L Shirer^[80] sees a continuity from the views of Fichte and Hegel, through Bismarck, to Hitler; Robert Gerwarth speaks of a 'direct line' from Bismarck to Hitler.^[81]Julian Dierkes sees fascism as a 'particularly violent form of imperialism'.^[82]

Fin de siècle era and the fusion of Maurrasism with Sorelianism (–)

The historian Zeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the s and in particular to the fin de siècle theme of that time.^[83][84] The theme was based on a revolt against materialism, rationalism, positivism, bourgeois society and democracy.^[85] The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism and vitalism.^[86] They regarded civilization as being in crisis, requiring a massive and total solution.^[85] Their intellectual school considered the individual as only one part of the larger collectivity, which should not be viewed as a numerical sum of atomized individuals.^[85] They condemned the rationalistic individualism of liberal society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society.^[85]

The fin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by various intellectual developments, including Darwinianbiology; Wagnerian aesthetics; Arthur de Gobineau's racialism; Gustave Le Bon's psychology; and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Henri Bergson.^[87]Social Darwinism, which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed the human condition as being an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest.^[87] Social Darwinism challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment.^[87] Social Darwinism's emphasis on biogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered the legitimacy and appeal of nationalism.^[88] New theories of social and political psychology also rejected the notion of human behaviour being governed by rational choice and instead claimed that emotion was more influential in political issues than reason.^[87] Nietzsche's argument that "God is dead" coincided with his attack on the "herd mentality" of Christianity, democracy and modern collectivism; his concept of the übermensch; and his advocacy of the will to power as a primordial instinct, were major influences upon many of the fin-de-siècle generation.^[89] Bergson's claim of the existence of an "élan vital" or vital instinct centred upon free choice and rejected the processes of materialism and determinism; this challenged Marxism.^[90]

Gaetano Mosca in his work The Ruling Class () developed the theory that claims that in all societies an "organized minority" will dominate and rule over the "disorganized majority".^[91][92] Mosca claims that there are only two classes in society, "the governing" (the organized minority) and "the governed" (the disorganized majority).^[93] He claims that the organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority.^[93]

French nationalist and reactionary monarchist Charles Maurras influenced fascism.^[94] Maurras promoted what he called integral nationalism, which called for the organic unity of a nation and Maurras insisted that a powerful monarch was an ideal leader of a nation. Maurras distrusted what he considered the democratic mystification of the popular will that created an impersonal collective subject.^[94] He claimed that a powerful monarch was a personified sovereign who could exercise authority to unite a nation's people.^[94] Maurras' integral nationalism was idealized by fascists, but modified into a modernized revolutionary form that was devoid of Maurras' monarchism.^[94]

French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel promoted the legitimacy of political violence in his work Reflections on Violence () and other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie through a general strike.^[95] In Reflections on Violence, Sorel emphasized need for a revolutionary political religion.^[96] Also in his work The Illusions of Progress, Sorel denounced democracy as reactionary, saying "nothing is more aristocratic than democracy".^[97] By after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views—advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries.^[98] Initially Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in , using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that "socialism is dead" because of the "decomposition of Marxism".^[99] Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in that influenced his works.^[99] Maurras held interest in merging his nationalist ideals with Soreliansyndicalism as a means to confront democracy.^[] Maurras stated "a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a well made glove fits a beautiful hand".^[]

The fusion of Maurrassian nationalism and Sorelian syndicalism influenced radical Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini.^[] Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight.^[] Corradini spoke of Italy as being a "proletarian nation" that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the "plutocratic" French and British.^[] Corradini's views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI), which claimed that Italy's economic backwardness was caused by corruption in its political class, liberalism, and division caused by "ignoble socialism".^[] The ANI held ties and influence among conservatives, Catholics and the business community.^[] Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeois values, democracy, liberalism, Marxism, internationalism and pacifism; and the promotion of heroism, vitalism and violence.^[] The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism, claiming that humans are naturally predatory and that nations were in a constant struggle, in which only the strongest could survive.^[]

Futurism was both an artistic-cultural movement and initially a political movement in Italy led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who founded the Futurist Manifesto (), that championed the causes of modernism, action, and political violence as necessary elements of politics while denouncing liberalism and parliamentary politics. Marinetti rejected conventional democracy based on majority rule and egalitarianism, for a new form of democracy, promoting what he described in his work "The Futurist Conception of Democracy" as the following: "We are therefore able to give the directions to create and to dismantle to numbers, to quantity, to the mass, for with us number, quantity and mass will never be—as they are in Germany and Russia—the number, quantity and mass of mediocre men, incapable and indecisive".^[]

Futurism influenced fascism in its emphasis on recognizing the virile nature of violent action and war as being necessities of modern civilization.^[] Marinetti promoted the need of physical training of young men, saying that in male education, gymnastics should take precedence over books, and he advocated segregation of the genders on this matter, in that womanly sensibility must not enter men's education whom Marinetti claimed must be "lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic".^[]

Abstract

The war to technology and economic powers has been the driver for industrialization in most developed countries. The first industrial revolution (industry ) earned millions for textile mill owners, while the second industrial revolution (industry ) opened the way for tycoons and captains of industry such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan. The third industrial revolution (industry ) engendered technology giants such as Apple and Microsoft and made magnates of men such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Now, the race for the fourth industrial revolution (industry ) is on and there is no option, and every country whether developed or developing must participate. Many countries have positively responded to industry by developing strategic initiatives to strengthen industry implementation. Unlocking the country’s potential to industry has been of interest to researchers in the recent past. However, the extent to which industry initiatives are being launched globally has never been divulged. Therefore, the present study aimed at exploring industry initiatives through a comprehensive electronic survey of the literature to estimate the extent of their launching in different regions. Inferences were drawn from industry initiatives in developed nations to be used as the recommendations for the East African Community. Results of the survey revealed that industry initiatives have been launched in 56 countries worldwide consisting of five regions: Europe (37%), North America (28%), Asia and Oceania (17%), Latin America and the Caribbean (10%), and Middle East and Africa (8%). The worldwide percentage was estimated as 25%. This revealed that there is a big gap existing between countries in the race for industry

1. Introduction

The race towards industry is on [1], and it is crucial that the East African Community (EAC) must participate [2, 3]. Unlike the previous industrial revolutions where Africa was left out, industry is fast, disruptive, and destructive to all industrial sectors including healthcare, education, and finance [4], and thus Africa cannot escape [5]. For this reason, every country must join the revolution either way [6]. Most importantly, it requires early and strong preparation from every country to be successful. In addition, industry is developing at an astounding pace and high speed, while creating a lot of great opportunities. Therefore, if countries do not get ready, industry will increase the visibility of inequalities among them including companies and people (i.e., the have and have-nots, the skilled and unskilled, and the rich and the poor). This depicts that attempting to maintain the status quo is not an option for any region, country, or company [6, 7].

Germany emerged the first country to put forward the idea of industry , focusing on engineering excellence to dilate its strengths in engineering and machine building to informatization [8]. Japan egressed as the robotic superpower, and it is strategizing on integrating robots with Internet of things (IoT) and M2M technologies under the umbrella “Robot Revolution Initiative (RRI)” [9]. On the other hand, the US is the world leader in information technology and it focuses on increasing its strengths to robotization, commonly known as Industrial Internet or industrial Internet of things (IIoT). The IIoT involves integration and linking of big data, analytical tools, and wireless networks with physical and industrial equipment [10]. However, nowadays, the concept of industry has expanded tremendously and its definition spans beyond engineering, smart and connected machines, and systems. Its waves of disruption and destruction are also breakthroughs in areas ranging from gene sequencing to nanotechnology, renewable energy to quantum computing, and simulation to 3D printing of objects (buildings to body organs) [11, 12]. Simply put, industry is the fusion of disruptive technologies and their interaction across the virtual, physical, digital, and biological domains making it rudimentarily unique from previous revolutions [13]. In other words, industry is an intelligent manufacturing, digitalization, automation, and robotization, as well as e-commercialization of the economy [2, 14–16]. Its wave of disruptive transformation includes “digital transformation,” “circular economy,” and “bio-based system,” each of which will occur at different periods [17]. A number of countries are apparently embracing digital transformation and thus the first transformational wave of industry The main characteristics of industry include interoperability, visualization, decentralization, real-time capability, service orientation, modularity, convergence, cost reduction, efficiency, and mass customization [18].

Industry is a collective term for disruptive technologies and concepts of value chain organization [19] and a wave of disruptions and uncertainties with a core of industrial transformation, revitalization, and development [20]. This has escalated global competitions among developed and developing countries. Therefore, one of the survival strategies is for the governments to establish critical programs that can drastically change the global structures of major industrial sectors [21]. This is because industrialization remains emblematic to long-term development ambition for developing and least-developed countries, and it is indispensable for competitiveness [22, 23]. However, the wealthy or developed countries view industrialization at different angles; they are doing it intelligently through public policies that promote innovation [23]. For instance, three approaches used by the leading manufacturing nations towards the adoption of industry has been divulged [24, 25]. These approaches were labeled as “coordinated” for Germany [26], “managed” for China, and “market-driven” for the US to reflect the government’s role towards industry effectuation in a country [23, 27]. Because there is no set formula or single scheme for the execution of industry technologies, companies are generally adopting industry technologies specific to the requirements of their businesses [28, 29].

Despite the enormous negative impacts of industry on almost everything, there are numerous benefits that come with its adoption. For instance, the benefits identified to change the fundamental equation of manufacturing can be classified into six categories: competitiveness, productivity, profitability, revenue, traceability, and record keeping [1]. Competition has reached unprecedented phases globally, and the industrial structure is rapidly changing with important foreign investments, including those of emerging economies in Europe, the US, and China [17, 30]. In the current competition dilemma, it is not just a matter of being a winner but also maintaining a leadership position through clear focus and coordinated efforts to invest in industry technologies [31–33]. In addition, organizations or policy makers should think strategically when determining where to focus and invest, so as to build their capabilities in manufacturing [34, 35]. Moreover, exciting the domestic competitiveness in manufacturing is emblematic to global competitiveness of the country. Therefore, there is a dire need for developing new approaches and transformational roadmaps for integrating the industry infrastructure in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) [36, 37].

Todays’ manufacturing landscape is full of uncertainties with ever-changing demands, greater customization, smaller lot sizes, sudden supply-chain changes, and disruptions. It is a complex heterogeneous ecosystem with a broader range of actors, including companies (SMEs), technology and material suppliers, universities, training centres, research and technology organizations, customers, and consumers. Therefore, sustainable manufacturing will have to be merged with industry technologies [38, 39]. These technologies including Internet of things, Big data, and Blockchain are reshaping business dynamics [11, 12]. Consequently, all countries regardless of their levels of development need to coordinate their policies and tools to benefit from these technologies. Moreover, the rapid convergence of these technologies is not only reshaping production and consumption but also redefining the competitive landscape [40–42]. Innovative manufacturing is a central lineament of industry , and businesses will need to compete with one another by lowering costs and improving efficiency in the use of technology [43]. The reality is that manufacturing embraces a wider range of activities beyond production, and therefore fortifying manufacturing sectors is indispensable for the global sustainable competitiveness [44–46].

As one way to strengthen industry deployment and penetration in countries, national strategic initiatives have been launched by governments, private sectors, or public-private partnerships. However, the extent of industry initiatives that have been launched in different countries worldwide remains unclear. In order to unlock this, the current study was conducted to compare the different industry initiatives launched by different countries. In addition, it aimed at identifying these initiatives from developed and developing countries in comparison to the EAC and derived a suitable recommendation to strengthen industry adaptation in the EAC alongside the existing ICT policy. As industry is a convergence of every sector, this paper was intended to reach a large audience including political and corporate leaders, policy makers, academia, industry, and the society at large.

2. Methodology

A comprehensive literature search was conducted in electronic databases: Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, Sage, Taylor & Francis, Springer, and Emerald Insight from January to April following procedures employed in previous studies [11, 47]. The search was performed independently in all the databases and then combined with “and” operators. The multidisciplinary databases included original research peer-reviewed journal articles, books, theses, dissertations, working papers, white papers, discussion papers, patents, and reports covering concepts on industry initiatives between and Thus, articles in the returned results were assessed concerning their inclusion in this study, and further searches were carried out at the Google search engine. The first online literature search was done using the search term “Industry initiative.” Because of the manageable criteria, all the relevant literatures were downloaded (PDF files) and saved on the computer. However, only important literature that focused and contained the industry initiative(s) were considered for the in-depth search on industry initiatives of a specific country (Figure 1). Basically, the first online literature search was done to get an overview of the industry initiatives launched around the world. More focalized searches were then conducted with the following search terms: “industry initiative and Germany,” “Industry initiative and China,” “Industry initiative and United States,” “Industry initiative and India,” “Industry initiative and Mexico,” “Industry and Japan,” “Digital Strategy ,” “High-Tech Strategy ,” “Manufacturing USA,” “Society ,” “Made in China ,” “Make in India,” “Crafting the Future,” “East African Community or EAC,” “East African Community and industry initiative,” “Rwanda and industry initiative,” “Kenya and industry initiative,” “Uganda and industry initiative,” “Tanzania and industry initiative,” “Burundi and industry ,” “South Sudan and industry ” “ICT and Rwanda,” “ICT and Kenya,” “ICT and Uganda,” “ICT and Tanzania,” “ICT and Burundi,” and “ICT and South Sudan.” The last search was done on 10 April The search outputs were saved on databases, and the authors received notification of any new searches meeting the search criteria (from Science Direct, Scopus, and Google Scholar).

3. Results and Discussion

Industry Initiatives Overview

In the electronic survey, only policies, programs, strategies, or plans developed between and and focusing on industry were considered as industry initiatives. The industry initiatives launched by 56 countries and international cooperation around the world were identified in the published literature. The countries were categorized into 5 regions for the purpose of quantitative analysis. These regions included: (i) Latin America and the Caribbean region with 15 national industry initiatives for 7 countries (Table 1); (ii) North America with 7 initiatives for 2 countries (Table 2); (iii) Europe region has 41 initiatives for 25 countries aspresented in Table 3; (iv) Asia and Oceania region has 39 initiatives for 14 countries as shown in Table 4; and (v) Middle East and Africa region has 15 initiatives for 8 countries as presented in Table 5. Besides, Table 6 shows 6 initiatives for 4 regional and international cooperation.

The number of countries and the total number of industry initiatives launched per region are depicted in Table 7. For statistical analysis, the list of countries was adopted from that prepared by “Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs” []. The total number of countries per region, and the total of countries with industry initiatives and their percentage are summarized in Table 7. Figure 2 illustrates that Europe (37%) leads the rest of the regions in launching industry initiatives, followed by North America (28%), Asia and Oceania (17%), Latin America and the Caribbean (10%), and Middle East and Africa (8%). The overall percentage of countries with industry initiatives was estimated as 25%. Evidence from this study shows that European countries are progressing faster than the rest of the world in adopting industry This could be because of the strong international cooperation (European Union) with focalized industry policies. As demonstrated, every region as well as country is adopting industry at their own pace. This is due to the fact that launching industry initiatives and technological developments require huge finances and resources. For this reason, the inequality is very visible among countries and regions, as developed nations are not limited with finances unlike developing countries. This is supported by the fact that Europe has more economically and technologically advanced countries than the rest of the regions combined [–].

Comparison of Industry Initiatives

Further literature search and study were conducted to understand the differences existing between the different industry initiatives that have been launched in different countries. In order to narrow the scope of the literature searches, six countries were selected from which six initiatives were selected and compared in terms of their goals and industry technologies focus areas. As illustrated in Figure 3, Germany, US, China, and Japan were selected because of their outstanding economic and technology powers [89]. While India and Mexico were also selected because of their unprecedented technological leapfrogging in the 21^st century. It was quoted that these two countries were able to “jump” directly from industry to industry []. Evidently, it was necessary to compare each of them with the economic power countries. Due to the fact that each country has launched more than one industry initiative, only recently launched initiative(s) in each country was selected for this study: the “Digital Strategy and High-Tech Strategy (DS & HTS )” from Germany, “Manufacturing USA (MUSA)” from the US, “Made in China (MIC )” from China, “Society ” from Japan, “Make in India” from India, and “Crafting the future” from Mexico. The compounding of HTS and DS in this study is due to the fact that both initiatives have the same timeline, and HTS is the successor of Germany’s new High-Tech Strategy []. Therefore, their combined strength can be well compared with other country’s initiatives.

Digital Strategy and High-Tech Strategy

Digital Strategy and High-Tech Strategy (DS & HTS ) are two complementary industry programs that have been launched recently. The Digital Strategy initiative was launched in under the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) [90]. Its central focus is on digitizing everything, including the products [] and small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) to attain a competitive advantage []. It also aimed at enabling the German economy in responding to new challenges and enhancing its competitiveness both in quality and technology, by combining traditional competitive advantages with the newest technology, modern methods, and specific support programmes [90]. Germany was quick to realize their digitization weakness in the industry sectors (automotive, machine tools, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals) over its competitors (USA, Japan, and China) []. This has triggered the launch of the Digital Strategy to knead alongside the existing initiatives (industrie and Mittelstand ) so that the German economy remains competitive. Germany launched another initiative called the “High-Tech Strategy ” in September as the strategic framework for research and innovation policy []. They reasoned that ability to gain sustainable competitiveness is focalized around strengthening education, research, and innovation. HTS aims at scaling up investment in research and development []. It also focuses on leveraging key society challenges, namely, healthcare sustainability, climate protection and energy, mobility, urban and rural areas, safety and security, and economy and work The intention is to shape the economy, working life, and lifestyles by creating a universal environment for harnessing the competitiveness, the preservation of the natural life-support systems, and social equity []. This is quite similar to the goal of Japanese Society initiative. However, HTS is being driven by a mission-oriented approach to bring together the activities of the ministries involved in the fields of action and relevant players from the science and research community, the private sector, and civil society. There are 12 research areas of the HTS ’s mission-oriented approach including combating cancer, creating sustainable circular economies, and finding new sources for new knowledge [].

Manufacturing USA

Manufacturing USA (MUSA) formally known as the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) is a successful program that has laid down the foundation for American manufacturing competitiveness for generations to come. It is the US federal government program for coordinating public and private investments and academia to improve the competitiveness and productivity of the US manufacturing through the creation of a robust network of manufacturing innovation institutes, each focused on a specific and promising advanced manufacturing technology area [60]. NNMI was introduced and launched in in the fiscal year (FY) budget by President Barrack Obama which was then renamed as Manufacturing USA on September by the Secretary of Commerce in the FY It was to raise awareness of the value of the program to industry, academia, nonprofits, the public, and the entire US manufacturing community, recognizing the program’s impact on securing America’s manufacturing future [61, ]. The technology focus areas include additive manufacturing, biomanufacturing, nanomanufacturing, advanced materials, robotics, modeling and simulation, and real-time optimized production (smart manufacturing) []. The Manufacturing USA program is a network of 14 manufacturing institutes which are operational and implementing activities in their technology areas with each institute funded by a unique public-private partnership as shown in Table 8 [60, , ].

Made in China

Made in China (MIC ) is a national strategy of industry , announced by China’s State Council in May [92, ]. The goal of MIC is to comprehensively upgrade, consolidate, and balance China’s manufacturing industry, turning it into a global leader in innovation and manufacturing []. This will be achieved in three stages of strategic plans: (i) transforming China into a major manufacturing power by ; (ii) reaching an intermediate level among world’s manufacturing powers by ; and (iii) becoming the leader among the world’s manufacturing powers by []. MIC is to some extend inspired by the Germany’s Industry with reference to the inclusion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the supply chain and extensive use of new information technologies. MIC accentuates terms such as “indigenous innovations” and “self-sufficiency” which aggressively intends to increase the domestic market share of Chinese suppliers for basic core components and valuable materials by the year []. Thus, it imposes devastating fear of distorting global markets and negatively affects US and Germany []. MIC focuses on ten industrial sectors, namely, (i) advanced marine equipment and high-tech vessels; (ii) advanced rail and equipment; (iii) agricultural machinery and technology; (iv) aviation and aerospace equipment; (v) biopharmaceuticals and high-end medical equipment; (vi) integrated circuits and new IT technology; (vii) high-end electronic equipment; (viii) high-end manufacturing control machinery and robotics; (ix) low and new-energy vehicles; (x) new and advanced materials []. The key focused industry technologies for MIC include cyber physical systems (CPS), Internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, Big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics [53].

Society

Society or super smart society was officially coined in the 5^th Science and Technology Basic Plan in FYFY by the Japanese’s Council for Science, Technology, and Innovation which was affirmed by a cabinet choice in January []. Society aims to provide a common societal infrastructure for prosperity based on an advanced service platform []. It also aims to realize a society where people enjoy life to the fullest. The Society is not only for prosperity of Japan but also countries worldwide [20]. In addition, Society aims to create a cyber physical society in which citizens’ daily lives will be enhanced through increasingly close collaboration with artificially intelligent systems forming a super smart cyber physical system []. The Society adverts to the new monetary society following the seeker gatherer (Society ), peaceful agrarian (Society ), modern social order (Society ), and data social orders (Society ) []. The technology focus of Society includes [53] CPS, IoT, cyber security, cloud computing, Big data, artificial intelligence, and smart services/smart city.

Make in India

Make in India was initiated and launched in September by the Indian President as an initiative with the goal of positioning India in a forefront of global manufacturing and design []. It is a measure taken by the government of India to strengthen and improve competitiveness in the manufacturing sector by creating competitively priced and quality products. The flagship Make in India initiative aims to aggressively transform India into a manufacturing and technology hub. The prioritization of the manufacturing sector by this initiative was done after garnered considerable attention from all industry sectors which was based on the fact that the manufacturing sector of any economy is one of the key drivers of its employment and growth []. The key focus areas of the initiative include increased foreign direct investment (FDI) in manufacturing, minimize reliance on imports, enhance job opportunities, expand infrastructure, and promote technological evolution []. Its technology focus areas include industrial mobility, cloud platform, Big data analytics, and industrial cyber security. With these technologies, Make in India aims to achieve the best practices and strengthen India’s competitiveness in 25 industry sectors including automobile, defense, aviation, biotechnology, chemicals, electrical machinery, electronics, food processing, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals [].

Crafting the Future

Crafting the future is the strategic initiative of industry of Mexico founded in with partnership from government entities (science and academia), companies (Intel, Continental Automotive, Honeywell, and the Volkswagen Group), and trade associations [52]. Mexico is well known for its cost competitiveness advantage (i.e., low-cost labour force and high-volume production) that has made it become a world-class manufacturing hub [72]. With its industry initiatives, Mexico aspires to be competitive with technological advanced manufacturing super power countries (UK, Germany, US, etc.). Crafting the future initiative focuses on the key industry technologies which include Internet of things, Big data, cloud computing, system integration, collaborative robots, modeling, and simulation [52]. These strategies focus on establishing smart factories in the production process via technological advancements which prioritizes the main industry sectors such as chemical industry, aerospace economy, automotive industry, space industry, energy sector, and logistics [53].

Generally, Crafting the future initiative has a similar goal of attaining competitiveness as the rest of the initiatives. It can be concluded that both industry initiatives focus on boosting domestic manufacturing and beefing up SMEs with the use of industry technologies. The visible difference that exists between the industry initiatives is mainly on the technology focus areas. Each initiative has different technology focus areas except for the “Digital Strategy and the High-Tech Strategy ” which have no technology focus areas. They focus on all technology areas because they are mainly research and development- (R&D-) based initiatives. The industry technologies adopted by each initiative are presented in Table 9.

East African Community on Industry

Definition of East African Community

The East African Community (EAC) is the regional intergovernmental organization of the Republics of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and the United Republic of Tanzania with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. The EAC treaty was signed on 30 November and enacted on 7 July [–]. The main objective of the EAC is to introduce policies and programs to promote cooperation among its member states for mutual benefits in a wide range of areas including political, economic, social, cultural affairs, research and technology, defence, security, and legal and judicial affairs [