Based on intensive interviews with industrial and regional actors, this article shows that in two smaller European countries, Belgium and the Netherlands, regional defense conversion efforts have not been common or markedly successful. Defense industrial activity, while regionally concentrated, employs only a small share of the workforce and is predominantly owned by foreign defense concerns without much commitment to the regions. Furthermore, defense downsizing has taken place amid a more generalized, ongoing structural crisis that militates against special defense industrial programs. Organized regional responses are as apt to oppose defense spending cuts as to pursue conversion. Nevertheless, there have been some successes. European Union KONVER funds for regional and industrial diversification, though not always sought or properly deployed, have encouraged diversification.
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