Competition before liberalization. The International Post Office Corporation: a transformational enterprise, 1983-1989

Résumé 0

This article analyses the discussions and decisions taken by Post office officials from industrialized countries within the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations in the second half of the 1980s. This period is characterized by the competitive shock from private operators in the international express mail segment and it preceded the liberalization of the sector a decade later. The research outlines how it was hoped that the creation of a joint venture, the International Post Corporation, would transform and save the associated Post Offices. The International Post Corporation and its short-lived subsidiary, Unipost, were seen as a transnational response to a transnational threat. Its members hoped to benefit by becoming agile enterprises, free of administrative constraints, while maintaining the age-old international postal order, based on territorial sovereignty and non-competition. This turned out not to be the case. In reality, these companies actually helped accelerate the changes that led to their disappearance. Although they have since been forgotten, they can be viewed as an important phase in the preparation of Post Offices to address the arrival of a competitive environment.