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The theory and practice of building developmental states in the Global South
Jewellord
Nem Singh
and Jesse Salah
Ovadia
ABSTRACT
Reviewing decades of thinking regarding the role of the state in economic development, we argue for the continued relevance of the concept of the ādevelopmental stateā. With reference to Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, Rwanda and China, we contend that new developmental states are evidence of a move beyond the historical experience of East Asian development. Further, we argue for the applicability of the developmental state framework to key questions of governance, institution building, industrial policy and the extractive industries, as well as to a wide variety of cases of successful and failed state-led development in the early twenty-first century.
Development is essentially a record of how one thing leads to another.
Albert Hirschman1
Development, often understood in economic terms as the structural transformation of the national economy, has been an elusive objective for many outside the advanced industrialised countries of the West. Despite the multitude of reforms rooted in the economic modernisation paradigm of the 1950s, very few countries have succeeded in realising sustained, rapid industrial development. The intellectual history of this debate stems from questions around which policies can deliver economic growth and why countries failed to take off and experience similar economic transition.
The exceptionalism of East Asiaās success, therefore, generated a vibrant debate centred on the extent to which policy choices, institutional dynamics and external circumstances have shaped economic development. As our special issue collectively suggests, the politics underpinning development planning is a key determinant of the outcomes of policy-making. Without understanding the political basis of development, one becomes excessively focussed on policy design as the explanation to the success of East Asia.
Jewellord Nem Singh
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5216-4408;
Jesse Salah Ovadia
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5010-8269This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
The collection builds on long-standing debates on state transformation and contributes to a richer understanding of the politics of growth in the context of global market integration. While high export prices translate into greater rents and new competitive advantages are crafted with strong state support, a lacuna exists in explaining how and why some governments are able to craft development strategies that create and sustain new sources of growth. Owing to disillusionment from international financial institutions (IFIs) that advised or insisted upon structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) and counselled against state interference, the post-2000 period was marked by profound inspiration to emulate ā if not replicate ā the development strategies of East Asia, which led to rapid, sustained industrialisation in less than 50 years.2 We provide some tentative answers through several cases, for example Brazil under Lula da Silvaās Workersā Party (PT), Argentina under Nestor Kirschner and Ethiopia under the Ethiopian Peoplesā Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), whereby new developmentalist thinking has shaped policy choices in the twenty-first century.3 Beyond country cases, we likewise identify non-traditional pathways of growth, particularly through natural resources, which require new ways of managing the national economy. We suggest that important lessons can be drawn from those who appear to be succeeding, those who may have succeeded for a time and those who have tried and failed.
Our special issue directly engages the ātransferabilityā debate: that is, the extent to which the developmental state (DS) model(s) can be adapted beyond East Asiaās geographical, socio-political and historical conditions to provide alternative ways of doing development in the Global South. We carefully selected papers to answer three inter-related questions:
Given that the DS model(s) emerged within specific conditions, what generic policies and state institutions can inform contemporary governing elites to address the challenge of economic and social development?
In states with weak capacity and legacies of inequality, oppression and colonial rule, what theoretical and methodological approaches will enable scholars to examine states with political intent and institutional capacity to promote industrialisation?
In reflecting the evolution of development paradigms and the movement beyond old models of ādevelopmental authoritarianismā, what lessons arise from how do political elites in East Asian developmental states face rising challenges to economic governance and to what extent have they been successful in managing economic globalisation and addressing sustainable development?
Each paper interrogates one or two key aspects of the DS model(s), then critically engages with the theory and builds new insights either through new empirical evidence or re-appraisal of conventional wisdom regarding DS theory. Collectively, we examine economic and political development in the Global South in the context of economic globalisation; consequently, the case studies reflect on how old models of developmental authoritarianism remain compatible with global democratisation. Our introduction offers an overview of t...
